Sorry.. I know I promised this to my family this weekend, but it didn't quite happen. It is under way and should be completed by tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest. The time I was going to spend writing the entry itself ended up being spent drafting a nice layout of my department. So I've started it, but its just not done yet. Sorry guys!

Be sure to follow the WWDC Keynote wherein Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to announce the release of iPhone 2.0; it can be followed from several sites including: MacRumorsLive.com, Engadget.com, and MacScoop.com. The event begins at 10:00 PST (1300 Eastern Time).

Also, if you didn't get to see my pictures of the flooding on campus yet, be sure to check out my album here as well as my roommate's album here.

AFN...
//C

Spring quarter grades for the 2007-2008 academic year (my junior year).



(click to enlarge)


peace..

Two full weeks of class left (9th and 10th weeks). Then finals week is 11th week, as always.

My finals schedule (May 19 - May 22)
Monday - 0800 - Olin O 169 - ECE 332 Computer Architecture II
Wednesday - 1800 - Crapo G310 - CSSE 332 Operating Systems*


*optional final (can help or hurt your grade depending on how well you do)



So I could be home as early as Monday evening, or it might not be until Thursday. We'll see how it goes.

And of course, I start work on June 2, so I get that full week off after finals week. My intern orientation is this Wednesday at 0900 at the Sony DADC complex. (Still need that lady to email me back about WHERE exactly I should go, though! She is very slow in replying to emails. Grr..)


Other random tidbit - last week on Wednesday I was working at the Help Desk, like normal this quarter. And it was myself and another rookie on shift, and we both made a mistake: instead of telling the person on the phone that we didn't know the answer, we gave our best guesses. Well Barb, the boss lady, quickly corrected us that we are never to give our guesses: if we don't know, say we'll have to look into it and then go do some research and find out the correct answer. Then the next day, Thursday morning, I work a shift with one of the student co-leads. And the subject came up of how Barb had had to correct us the day before, and then she took the time to say, Caleb I do need to do some performance reviews to let you new workers know how you're doing, but I just want you to know that you're the cream of the crop of the new bunch this year; you're doing a great job, so I don't want you to get down about messing up a little now and then.

Boy, thats nice to hear, isn't it? One never really expects a boss to say something like that, whether its just form you not being that good or from the fact that bosses don't often give that kind of encouragement. But yeah, that sure is nice to hear.

Anyway, I'm in class...

peace:out
//C

I got an email this week that simply said, we regret to inform you that your senior thesis has not been approved.


But!

I wrote another script, packaged it as an app, and submitted it to Apple, and it DID get approved :)
Check out http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/math_science/startstopfoldinghome.html (Mac-only program).


Peace
:out

I heard of this yesterday but did not want to post about it until I had some more details.

ANOTHER Rose-Hulman athlete has been killed in an auto accident. This is the third serious auto accident in 7 months involving one of our own, and the second in four days to claim a life.

Story about Brandon Couch, yesterday’s victim: click here

More about the previous accident involving Nick Lee and Adam Effinger: click here

I looked, but I can’t seem to find any info about Drew Christy’s accident from earlier this year. As I recall, he was on his way home from a break when he was involved in an accident. He was in a coma for quite some time afterwards. It is very encouraging to view this website that is keeping a record of his progress. You can really see the faith of his family as they deal with this trial, and it is just amazing to see how they are relying on God for their strength.

Also, this website has been set up for updates on Adam Effinger, the driver in Saturday’s deadly crash.

Please remember the families of all these students in your prayers, as well as those close to them.

And drive safely.
And wear your seatbelts.

-Caleb.

There are a couple articles in the Terre Haute Tribune Star about the accident. This is perhaps the most daunting, as it includes some pictures of the remains of what used to be a car:

click to view full article,
which includes pictures
of the scene



You can view the Rose-Hulman press release here:
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/news/articles/AccidentApril08.htm


All for now...
Caleb

Break was awesome :)

Should be able to post some pics once everybody else uploads theirs. I didn’t actually take a single picture with my camera. Oops!


It has been decided: Ben, Marcus, and I will be living together next year in the Apartments. Ben says he’s pretty sure I can squat in Skinner over the summer, and once the Colts move out of the Apartments, then I can start moving my stuff over to the new room at my leisure. So anyway, the benefit of living with them is that I have guaranteed housing for next year. There’s been some weird junk going on with housing because next year the huge class behind mine, which was the largest freshman class ever, will be vying for spots in the Apartments along with my class, and basically, Tom Miller was very confusing and non-consistent about who gets priority for on-campus housing, be it the seniors or the juniors. So this is a good thing for me to not even have to worry about.



Other things of note:

Scuba over the summer -
It turns out I can check out some equipment from the Rose Scuba Club and hang on to it over the summer. I can get all the stuff I need - reg, BCD, weights, tank, mask, fins, snorkel, wetsuit, hood, boots, gloves,... is there anything else? - and keep it over the summer and all I would have to pay for is to get the tank refilled each time I use it. Where could I dive? Well basically there are like lakes and quarries and stuff I can find. One girl on the scuba trip will be living in Indy over the summer, so we may buddy up to go do some dives. See if that works out or not. One place we thought of is the Bonne Terre mine, near St Louis. The Club actually was going to go there last year but it fell through.

Death in the family -
The Rose family, that is. I just heard word from a friend of mine. This friend was in South Carolina over spring break and we were texting back and forth about our breaks (I even got drunk dialed by her once). She got into town last night just a couple hours, if that, after I did. Anyway, she just told me that one of the guys who was on that trip with her, a guy whom she had actually dated for a while, died today in a car accident. He was riding with another student here, a senior, and the driver wrapped the car around a tree. I have no idea if or to what extent the driver was injured. I don’t know what time it happened (just that it was before 2200 on 4/5/08, which was when my friend was informed of it) or what the conditions were, but I’m sure there will be some all-campus emails about it shortly, or it’ll be in the paper. Or both. Remember those affected by this tragedy in your prayers.

Rose professor two-day champion on Jeopardy -
This seems trivial now, following the news of the death, but I had wanted to share it before, and I’m still going to. Dr. Richard House appeared on Jeopardy on Thursday, when he won by a mere $2 by correctly answering the Final Jeopardy question. I had read that in a couple articles that my Rose-Hulman Google alert turned up, but then when Ben got back to Rose, he said that Dr. House also won the next day and he will be on the show again this Monday.


And now that its after woot o’ clock (0100), the new items were all updated on the sites I check (woot, shirt.woot, and sellout.woot) and I got the shirt. I thought it was pretty cool. That makes two shirts for me now. (Links: Wikipedia: woot shirts | The first woot shirt I got: Anatomy Test | other previous shirt designs)

OK, I want to go to bed now. I have to write a program tomorrow.

Peace
//C

hotel change
Update in an email today...

The dive shop wasn’t able to get us hotel rooms at the Ramada Inn. Instead we are staying at The Suites of Key Largo for the same price. These are two story suites with a bedroom upstairs, which has a queen bed and a full bathroom, and a downstairs living area with a full kitchen, living room, full bathroom, and a queen size pull out sofa. So
it will still be 4 people per room, with 3 in the girls room. The location is just as close and here is the website: http://www.suitesofkeylargo.com.

diet
Also, I didn’t mention it in the last couple blogs, but I also started a "crash diet" (as Sara called it,haha) on Sunday night when it suddenly hit me, oh no, I need to lose a few pounds to get this gut of mine back down to a slightly smaller size before Spring Break! So I started a "fruits, veggies, a few nuts, no bread, no meat, no sugars, and juice or water to drink" diet.

I don’t have a scale in here, and I haven’t had time to go to the SRC, so I don’t have an objective method of objective method of measuring my success, but subjectively, it looks like it’s working so far! I also wanted to do a few pushups to make my arms not look so... bad. But Marcus was like, well, if you cut carbs and protein out of your diet, where is your body gonna get that kind of energy? It’ll start eating your muscles before your fat. I’m not sure how much thats true, so I still did some pushups, but not a whole lot. Tryin to split the difference. Eh, its better than nothing, I figure. Better than burgers every day for lunch at the ARA and no pushups at all, right?

Komets
The Komets, the awesome IHL team from Fort Wayne, have recently tied the IHL record for most consecutive home wins at 22, which had been previously held solely by the 65-66 Muskegon Mohawks. The game that could break the record will be played tomorrow night, obviously at home, and I’m going home for it! Are you kidding me!? Its a record-setter!! This is arguably one of the best teams in franchise history, and they are on the verge of setting a milestone record - and I’ll be on break, and you think i’m NOT gonna go home for this!? You must be mad!
Game time is at 2000. My only class of the day is 7th hour, which goes from 1335 to 1425, so I’ll have some time to finish packing together my things for Florida, then I’ll take off, and as long as I’m on the road by like 1630, I’ll be able to make the game in time, which I expect will prolly be a sellout. Friday evening AND a game for the record books? Yeah.. I expect that.

Anyway... that one class I have tomorrow? Yeah.. thats a test. So I’m gonna go study for that. I don’t feel too bad about it right now. In fact I think my grades thus far this quarter have been pretty good. MARKEDLY better than last quarter, almost certainly better than fall quarter, and likely up there among my best quarters at Rose - of course... I haven’t had a single exam yet this quarter. So we’ll see how it goes once those start pouring on.

But yeah... I’m going now....
Peace:
out.
//C.

Edit:
Heads up- MySpace seems to have implemented some stupid kind of anti-phishing thing, which means that any link you click will go to a ’warning’ page to let you know you are leaving MySpace, then you have to click the link again to go to where I had originally linked. Retarded, but now you know.
---------------------------------------


Quick update here...

I’m going to Florida for Spring Break! Woot! The trip with the group from last year’s Florida trip fell through, so I wasn’t expecting to go at all. Then I got an email saying a spot had opened up on the Scuba Club’s trip. So I claimed that, and now I’m going to be in Key Largo, FL for a week. And it turns out... well, just look at this Google search. :)

How much does this cost, you ask? Estimated price is $270. That estimate includes gas, all diving, all equipment (only need to take a swimsuit), and the stay at the Ramada Inn. The Inn is about 100 feet from the dive shop we’ll be working with: Horizon Divers. Food is the only thing not included in that price.

Driving... there was a girl (Andrea) who, after the info session, said her mom wouldn’t let her go if we drove straight through, which was the plan. So the club president sent an email to the group asking if anybody would be willing to leave early and stay the night along the way so that she could go. Well, I thought that was the dumbest reason not to let somebody go on the trip - so I offered go early. Only one other guy (Charles) offered, and he said his mom had been telling him he needed to stop along the way too. So we’re taking his Scion xB, a stickshift, and we’re leaving at 1100 on Saturday. Unfortunately, the girl riding with us does not know how to drive a stick, so it’ll only be the two of us guys driving. Does anybody else think its odd that her mother was too worried about us driving right through the night, but she openly condoned the three of us getting one room? *shrugs* Whatever. Oh, speaking of the room, the Club is giving us $30 towards the room each night (there, and again on the way back). So thats nice. That makes it under 10 bucks per night for each of us.

Statuses....
I just set up an account with Twitter.com. What is Twitter? Here’s the Wikipedia article about it. What I’ll be able to do is update my twitter status from my phone by sending a text. I will also set up my computer so that my away message will automatically be the same as whatever my latest Twitter statues was. If I happen to log in to my computer and change my away message, my twitter status will update to match that, so it goes both ways. I’ll only be doing this while I’m gone on the trip; I’ll discontinue this service after I get back. Still... kinda neat though.
You can view my twitter status at http://twitter.com/allencw. You can even subscribe to the RSS feed which will let you know if there are any new updates.

As a reference, I have made the slides from the Info Session available online in PDF form at http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~allencw/Documents/Scuba%20Info%20Session.pdf. If anything in there conflicts with what I put in there, my post governs.

One note: I did call the dive shop myself to see about open water divers going on the advanced dives, too, because I really don’t want to be limited to the shallower dives. I’ve been down below the limits for open water divers several times before (advanced open water divers can go deeper and do more stuff than open water divers). I mean, shoot, ask my Dad: he’ll tell ya I’m probably a better diver than he is, but he has the advanced cert and I don’t. At any rate, they said they would let open water divers on the deeper dives if there was a dive instructor on the dive with us, which could be hired for $40. The club president said he’d see about getting that done at least once for us. :)

All for now...

Peace out, homies.
//C.

Just received this email from the Club president:


Upon taking another look at our traveling plans I’m really not comfortable with everyone driving through the night and it’s also against Rose Hulman’s rules for club travel. I think it would be a good idea if we were to stay overnight in a hotel in Georgia on the way there and the way back. I have already looked into a hotel in Macon, Georgia, which is the halfway point in our trip. See the attached document for a detailed itinerary of the travel plans. It will only cost you guys an extra $10 for both nights. The itinerary is accurate, but it may change if I have the open water people go on an advanced dive one of the days.
Let me know if anyone is strongly opposed to this.


The itinerary can be found as a PDF here. (Expect a warning from MySpace when you click that.)
I omitted the turn-by-turn directions. If you are REALLY that curious that you wanna know those, then just maps.google it yourself.

I'm not going to get in depth with what all my proposed thesis will address. If it gets approved, then you'll probably get to read my full report later. If not, then its not worth the trouble of writing it all out. Besides, the reason I think it would be a good thesis is that it will require lots of research into things I don't know much about at this time.

Without further ado, the brief report (barely two pages) can be viewed online at http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~allencw/Documents/Thesis%20proposal.pdf.

Comments have been disabled on this post. I'm not hosting a flamewar on here. If this proposal gets approved, it will be an open-minded research project with the goal of presenting unbiased results at its core.

Peace out, all y'all.
//C

I got a call yesterday afternoon while I was doing homework with Peter. It was the guys from the Sony DADC plant here in Terre Haute, and they offered me a position. I told them I'd call them back on Monday morning, but I had already decided I'll be taking the offer. This is my first technical job that I've gotten for myself, as opposed to the one my brother got for me at Hoch Associates where he works in Fort Wayne. I'm a bit excited.

So yes, I'll be living in the Haute for the summer. Here's the deal: $15/hr plus some housing assistance. I'm not sure if that assistance will be a set amount or if it will be a percentage of whatever I have to pay. I also don't know how much Rose actually charges to live on campus over the summer, but I know that it is a lot cheaper than during the school year. So maybe, just maybe, if Sony does a flat rate for housing, maybe they'll be paying more for housing than Rose charges. Wouldn't that be nice?

We're talking at least 40 hours a week. There is the opportunity for overtime hours, as I recall, but its not required, nor is it necessarily taken as a given.

Want to know more about Sony DADC?
Visit their About Us page.

What will I be doing there?
To be honest, I'm not 100% sure. I know that they said last year they had an intern and they said to him, "Here. This is some software we bought for our computers. You need to install it. If you have any questions about how to install it, well, you're the one we brought in because we didn't know!" And there wasn't a deadline on it, just basically, "Here, get this done for us."
I know they also talked in the interview about some of the projects they were working on to make it easier for their customers to make their orders/supply other information to the plant without as much paperwork. So I may or may not be working on that, too. I'm not exactly sure. If I do end up doing some coding or helping with that part, it'll be in Java and interfacing with their Oracle database systems (which I know nothing about currently).

What will I be doing in my free time?
Who the heck knows? I'll have to find out who else all is living on campus over the summer. I'll have access to the SRC of course, so thats good. (I read that the DADC has an on-site fitness center, too.) I'll probably make a couple road trips on weekends to mix it up a bit, too. Guess we'll see what all I figure out. I hope I don't just end up sitting in my apartment writing programs, though I do hope to get to do a little bit of that, too.

Speaking of my apartment...
I mentioned that I get to live in the room that I'm currently in right now. I'm not sure if I'll be assigned a roommate after Marcus moves out, but I do know that there will be an RA living out here for the summer, so he'll be in the room Ben has now. Housing for next school year hasn't been figured out yet, but if I end up getting Skinner, I can probably move in to that room just whenever during the summer or something. We'll see how that goes, too.

OK... now I'm going to go do some homework and maybe get some food, too.


peace:
out


EDIT
I just realized that this means I'll be in town when the Colts are here! I won't be able to watch them during the week, I'd bet, since I'll be, you know, working. But I'm sure they have something going on over the weekends, too. Cool. So anybody who wants to visit me and see the Colts practice and maybe even get some autographs or something... you should come visit me over the summer! :)

Below is my schedule for spring of 07-08. It shows my classes and my IAIT Helpdesk work schedule. What is not shown is that I will be night-hosting on Thursday nights (Friday mornings) each week.



(click to enlarge)

There is a great amount of interest in this year's presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party's nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn't looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — "disenfranchised," "marginalized" and "voiceless" — don't resonate with him. "Press 'one' for English" is a curse-word to him. He's used to picking up the tab, whether it's the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a "living document" open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he's willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn't bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don't matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He's a man's man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn't ask for a penny. He's the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he's a man, not a dishrag. If they're looking for someone to walk all over, they've got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am."

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He's not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He's willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don't pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It's not that she is a woman. It's that she is who she is. It's the liberal victim groups she panders to, the "poor me" attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

Gary Hubbell is a regular columnist with the Aspen Times Weekly.

I did not write this. My Dad emailed me this article, and I reeeallly wanted you to read it. It can be found on Colorado's Aspen Times website at http://www.aspentimes.com/article/2008198091324

My team has completed the final report for the processor we designed.

View our team webpage at http://web.mac.com/mk2ja/iWeb/CompArch/Main.html. You'll notice that under "Last Milestone" (on the left) it has a link to our Final Report page. The final report itself is completed, but we are compiling the Keynote presentation tomorrow immediately before we give it. Not to worry, we have all the bullet points prepared, but they haven't been put into the Keynote yet, thats all. Shouldn't be a problem.

Also, thankfully, I was able to borrow a mini-DVI to VGA adapter from Bradley so I can use my laptop to hook up and give the presentation :)
Everybody knows that the presentation given in Keynote (greater than) The presentation given in PowerPoint.

Gotta go get some sleep now... got a presentation to give tomorrow, and a final to take.

// C