Linkstew

I cleaned out my box at ResComp yesterday, and except for a few niggling pieces of documentation I need to write, that's pretty much that. I start my new job on Monday, July 7th.

It's a good thing the BART to Caltrain connection at Millbrae is open now, because instead of a 2 hour trip to San Mateo, with 3 transfers, it'll only be a 1.5 hour trip with ... 3 transfers (BART to BART to Caltrain, instead of BART to Muni to Caltrain -- there's no Richmond/Millbrae BART train). I'll have to leave by 8:15 to get there by 10. But that'll only be for the first week or so... until I get a car. Oh god.

(By the way, if anyone has any car suggestions/advice, I'd be happy to hear it. I'll probably be getting a new car, unless I come across some incredible used deal.)

And of course, still no DSL at home. New target date is July 8... more than a month after we were supposed to get it in the first place.

This is pretty much a quick list off the top of my head, based on what I didn't do this summer and what I know I want to do.

• Read House of Leaves, some Gaiman or another that I haven't read, and Pratchett's The Last Hero (assuming it gets released on schedule).
• Stumble through another semester without failing.
• Play Metal Gear Solid (I'm already half done with it) before Metal Gear Solid 2 comes out, play Xenogears before Xenosaga comes out, etc.
• Do my best to prepare for the release of the Gamecube on November 18th, by hopefully getting ahead in school before it's too late.
• Actually overhaul that other site I work on.
• Actually consolidate my Desktop computers, and turn the remains into a PC for my brother.
• Meet with my advisor to make sure that I'll be able to stay at Berkeley another year, and if I can't stay an undergrad, make plans to take tests and apply to Grad School. Yes, this is as backwards as it sounds.
• Get a life outside of work.
• Dust the untouched corners of my apartment. Notably, the shelves in my room.
• Get new ideas for The Stew from CS 170 and 188, and possibly implement them.

Yeah, that's more than I'll be able to do, and I know it. I'm already performing triage in my head, and yes, the games are (well, not counting the Gamecube) are going to be the first to get the cut.

I don't even remember losing consciousness, but I magically went from sitting in a dentist's oral surgeon's chair to lying on a recovery table.

I was in and out of awake on that recovery table --

"Here's an ice pack -- hold it on your cheek."

"Try to keep your eyes open -- try to stay awake."

For the life of me, I couldn't understand why they wanted me to stay awake so badly, because all I wanted to do was curl up and sleep. The trip home was also shortened thanks to my half awake state -- I'm pretty sure I was asleep off and on in the car, but I can't remember for sure.

I've spent a fair amount of time this afternoon sleeping, taking bloody gauze out of my mouth and putting clean gauze back in, occasionally drinking some water, and sleeping. The "extraction sites" (as he called them) don't actually hurt at the moment -- presumably because of the pain killers. What does hurt is my jaw, which has been wedged half open with gauze all day, leaving a dull background ache.

I'm not feeling that particularly out of it right now, though. In a day or two more, I expect I'll be feeling even better still. There now, that wasn't so bad!

I think I'm glad I wasn't awake if for no other reason than I would have gotten bored. I'm pretty good at taking pain, but the magical way I ... appeared on the recovery table sure was nice. I didn't have to sit there irritated that I couldn't convey when I was feeling uncomfortable, because uncomfortable is a conscious state, and I was most definitely not conscious.

So now that those wisdom teeth are gone, I'll be feeling better. Since my pain was mostly all psychological in the first place, all I've got to do is tell myself that I'm better. Ta-da!

For all intents and purposes, classes are over. There are a couple of classes I'll attend tomorrow, but my heart won't really be in it. I think I'll mainly be going because I feel guilty about missing so many lectures this semester. Well, that's a lie. One of the classes tomorrow is really a final review.

For all intents and purposes, another semester is over, except for the finals. I have five days before my first final. It seems an eternity away. And it's only been three days since I turned in my last homework assignment. It seems an eternity away.

I'm in a long moment of transition. A limbo. I've been waiting for something to happen, but nothing has. Tomorrow I'll get out and go to class, and maybe that will help. It probably hasn't helped that I've been incapacitated by allergies for the last three days. Between allergy medicine and the allergies themselves, my head has been spinning, making the limbo seem even more significant.

It's just been a long weekend. I've just been sitting around doing nothing. It hasn't been an eternity, just three days. My sleeping schedule is a little off, and my nose is still stuffy, and my throat is still sore...

But tomorrow, I'll get up, go to a few classes, focus myself and commence with the studying. In eleven days, the semester will be over. It may seem like an eternity away, but it'll be here long before I'm ready for the finals, and two weeks from now, my linguistics final, three days past, will seem an eternity away.

Yesterday Dale Earnhardt Sr died. I found out while sitting on my couch watching TV -- not because the TV said something, but because I was browsing on my laptop. Wirelessly. Which made me realize that this is the second famous person in the last year I\'ve found out has died while I was using wireless internet.

I found out about the death Charles Schulz a year and a week before I found out about Dale Earnhardt.

I had just got my OmniSky modem, and was playing with it while riding a campus shuttle. I was having a good old time, when I decided to read the news, only to discover that Charles Schulz had died, before his final strip ran. I quietly put my wireless palm pilot away and sat in silence for the rest of the trip.

As I was sitting around watching Malcolm tonight, I went to Yahoo! for no real reason. And when I glanced at the news briefs, I saw the headline Dale Earnhardt Sr. killed in Daytona 500 crash. "Dude, that ain't cool," I thought to myself. It was on the last lap of the race and everything. What a shame, what a shame.

Okay, this is a prime example of one extreme that people end up at: STUPID AS A CORPSE. This guy skipped meals and sleep for the sake of playing his video game... Check out the story here.

A friend who actually read the news pointed this story on CNN.com out to me. If you don't care about all the conference stuff, skip down to the last paragraph, which is about Belgium, Volvos, and Attempted Suicides. Need I say more to get your attention?

Admittedly, this was on slashdot a couple of days ago, but they're just so cute... Check out sgi's four oh four page. Now ask yourself: don't you want one?

Today I was in the office, and a couple of random sites got thrown around. First, we had http://www.www.com, which is apparently The World's Largest Internet Broadcasting Co., though I've never actually heard of them. Next, we came to the site of Alex Chiu. I saw this guy and his immortality rings on the Daly Show. The scary thing is, this guy is very serious. And finally, we came to Time Cube. I didn't actually read this site, but it's ugly. It looked like it had many little tips for longer life (or something).

So apparently, on Sunday, my Grandmommy fell and injured herself, and has been in a wheelchair since. She has apparently refused to go to the doctor, though, so there's no knowing what's wrong with her. If something is broken, that'd be bad, but we'll see how that goes.

And my dad, who has been doing serious amounts of moving and lifting recently, is having operation on the 16th (at last check) because he has a triple hernia. That is, he has three hernia's. That can't be pleasant... He shouldn't have been doing all that lifting, but he didn't have much choice, as my brother wasn't able to be much of a help.

I'm sure they'll come through everything fine, though. I tend towards optimisim, under it all.

On 1999-08-01, I was returning from dropping my dad off at the Kern Valley Sun offices in Lake Isabella, when my life flashed before my eyes. At least, given what happened, my life should have flashed before my eyes, but ever the calm person that I am, I handled things rather calmly.

But what did I handle so calmly, I'm sure you're asking.

First, a bit of background. I was driving from Lake Isabella to Bakersfield on Highway 178, which, for about 15 miles of the journey, is a windy, two lane road. On one side there tends to be a mountainside, while on the other their tends to be a drop to the Kern River, which occasionally has a guard rail, though not always. There is the occasional turnout, intended to be used so that slower traffic can pull over and let faster traffic pass. In general, as long as you're paying attention to what the matter at hand, it's not a horribly difficult drive.

I probably usually average about 50 through The Canyon, though there are certainly faster stretches and slower stretches.

So on that fateful Sunday, I was driving back to Bakersfield after dropping my dad off, and I ended up behind a truck pulling a trailer that was going about 45 the whole way. As I've noted, 45 is in general slower than I tend to take The Canyon, and so I was only half paying attention to the matter at hand, which was that of staying on the road.

Not as if there's much of a road to get off of.

I can't say for sure where in The Canyon this happened, but it was the first half, if you're coming from Bakersfield, the last half going from Isabella. And I'm not sure of the details of what sort of turn I was making, or what sort of rail I hit.

But suddenly there was a bang and I found myself bounced into the other lane. The first thing I really noticed was Roxy fly off her seat and into the passenger seat, and then she jumped into the back seat and started frantically clawing at the cardboard boxes that were sitting there.

Oh, did I mention that I had a dog in the car with me? This little detail is probably worth noting, because it certainly contributed to my not paying total attention to my driving.

So, noting the situation, I slowed down, returned myself to the proper lane, and continued driving, albeit quite a lot slower. I listened for sounds of damage to anything, and I fully intended to pull over at the next turnout to check for damage on the tires.

But, upon sighting that turnout, the trailer towing truck I'd been tailing pulled over, occupying the whole of the turnout, forcing me to continue on.

I don't suspect that the drive of that vehicle saw me hit the guard rail. I suspect he just saw me swerve into the wrong lane, and thinking I was trying to pass, he pulled over to let me go by (Though it's not as if passing on this road would be at all a wise thing to do).

So I continued on for what seemed like a mile or two, until I found another turnout, and pulled over. I picked the things up that had spilled around the car, and I took Roxy out to let her calm down some, and I surveyed the damage to the side of my Dad's truck. It appeared to be just body damage, and the tires looked like they hadn't hit the railing. So after disentangling Roxy from the bits of Bramble she'd Bumbled into, we continued home, arriving without further incident.

In retrospect, it would appear that something was conspiring to keep me safe. The incident could have been a lot worse, and I could be dead or seriously injured now, instead of sitting at home laughing to myself about it. If there'd been no rail at that point, or if there had been an oncoming car, heaven knows how bad things would have been for me.

To be a bit... superstitious for a moment, perhaps heaven, or some other higher power, did know how bad things would have been for me, but have other plans for me, and decided that it would be a bit silly to see me swerving, soaring and then sinking. If that's the case, then remind me to thank said higher power when he or she reveals him or herself to me.

In the meantime, I'll just be a bit more careful when driving in the future, and, on principle, I'll avoid having a dog in the car with me.