J. Thomas, The Blog.

I know this is a long post, but here it goes.

So, I’ve started my second week of classes. Things have been going pretty well. I started out carrying 16 credits. I’m down to 12, as I received credit by experience for Network Installation and Maintenance, and the lab for it. I have a lot going on this semester, so I decided to not fill that in with a class. My schedule is as follows:

• CIT180- Intro to Database
• CIT261- C/C++ Programming
• CIT240- Intro to UNIX/Linux
• MTH180- College Algebra and Trigonometry

Its not a bad schedule. Database is and interesting class. My professor is of foreign descent, and he’s a little goofy, but otherwise not a terrible professor. At one point he showed us an image of an elephant and a king of some sort, the drawing appeared to be of middle eastern or Indian origin. He then some how related it to them being entitys within a database. It’s an….interesting class. C/C++ is pretty crappy class. I can’t stand programming, but I have to take it. Oh well. Unix/Linux is pretty easy and not a bad class, but a bit outdated. Now for math, I signed up to have a specific prof, as I had them before and they were a great professor, well that got changed on me, and my current professor appears to be somewhat new to teaching, and treats it like a middle school class, but I’ll manage. Overall, academically this semester should go fairly well.

Now onto extracurricular stuff. This is what makes things crazy. I’m almost always busy because of these things. ACM. I love ACM, it’s a great a, where I have learned quite a bit, and made a lot of really good friends. We’re a pretty tight group, and things should go well this year. I am the president of it, and that means I have a ton of work to do. I’ve been filling out and pushing paperwork constantly. I am also and assistant scoutmaster at a local troop, and that doesn’t start for two weeks. I also start a friday morning radio show on WPTC 88.1, our schools radio station. I figured it would be something new and neat to do.Soon I would like to start biking again, and train up to do the Pine Creek trail (60 miles) by then end of the school year. Also, I want to throw out a huge thank you to my friends, who always make time to listen to me. I really appreciate it. That’s really about it for now.

I kinda feel obligated to write an entry, I’m not quite sure why.

Not a whole lot has happened recently. I was a move in assistant for school. That means I got to meet a lot of the new freshman, and carry their stuff to their rooms. My limbs still hurt from that. I’ve also been doing quite a bit of work for ACM, my schools computer club. Things overall are swell. It’s great to meet up with friends I haven’t seen all summer, and to continue to see the friends I have seen this summer.

I want to sell my electric, though I just bought it a few months ago. I’m interested in buying a better acoustic guitar. I’ve been looking at the Ibanez AEL series. My current acoustic is alright, but it would be nice to have the electric acoustic setup, built in tuner, and of course the cutaway. The hardware is a little better too. Eh whatever it’t not important, unless anybody is interested in buying my electric (PRS Santana SE w/ tremolo) with a coffin case for $400 obo.

Thats all folks.

Twenty-Five and Fifteen One-Hundreths.

That is how many miles per gallon I got on the way up to school. Why is it my 13 year old SUV (thats throwing trouble codes by the way; no, it isn’t running lean), that was rated at 21 MPG highway in 1995, can pull of 25 miles per gallon, when you’ll have a hard time finding a brand-spankin-new mid-size SUV today that gets more than 20mpg highway? It isn’t performance or lack of. This truck has plenty of go when it needs to. I bet it will keep up with any modern suv in its class in the quarter. Now the answer is likely emmisions controls, but this thing manages to pass Montgomery County emmisions tests without issue. Come on auto manufacturers-step up your game.

If only the blasted truck was more reliable now.

Today was great.

I went out with probably the most awesomest person ever. Everything went terrific. The movie was supposed to be at 16:00 (according to fandango). We arrived 10 minutes late, and it turned out it actually started at 16:10. We saw Pineapple Express. It was terrific. I’m pretty sure we were both laughing non-stop. This was followed by a trip to carrabas. I had called in for 18:30 earlier in the day, and that left about 15 minutes of extra time in there on purpose. Well we arrived there exactly at the time of the reservation and we were seated immediately. I had a terrific rigatoni dish with saute`ed mushrooms and peppers, with seasoned grilled chicken in some kind of incredible sauce. It was nice. I forgot how nice it was to just sit, relax, and have a nice full face to face conversation with somebody. We had a terrific time, and I wish I had the chance to do this more often.

This weekend I will be in Carlisle for All-Truck Nationals. I’ll update with a daily photo much like I did on vacation assuming I have web access.

enjoy.

I can see why they call it that. A “smart car’ that is. I just test drove one-and it was awesome. The thing is perfect for me. I have just as much room for myself in it as i do in my blazer. It’s rear wheel drive and handles like a dream. It felt as solid as a Bentley with the price tag and availability of Chevy. I’m really digging the automated manual transmission and paddle shifters. Fold the passenger seat down and there’s tons of room for cargo. There is an option for a ski/bike rack that mounts on the rear, so that isn’t an issue. The sales guy kept punching the side panels on one of the show room ones, and no matter how much it flexed or how hard he hit it, it came right back, and it looked like it was never touched.Not to mention the thing is damn safe and has terrific crash test results.

I have never driven something so fun, yet effecient in my life. I’m sold. I’m putting my reserve down on one in January.

Work is over.

O.A.R. concert was amazing.

All my school paperwork is taken care of.

I’m pretty sure I have the best friends ever. One friend in particular.

tis’ all.

Things have been good. I’ve been doing quite a lot lately. I went to the Projekt Revolution tour about 2 weeks ago, and that was awesome. Lots of crappy bands, but Chris Cornell and Linkin Park stole the show. Tomorrow I will be seeing Ozomatli (dunno, looked them up, seem decent) and O.A.R. at festival pier. Should be a great show. I also finish work this week.

I’ve also decided recently that I’m tired of dumping money into my truck to keep it on the road, as much as I love it. I plan on trading it in/parting it out/selling it within a year or two so I can purchase a new vehicle. Something actually new. I’m really interested in the Smart Car, as I’m interested in getting 45mpg. If I could drive to school on 4 gallons of fuel that would be amazing. (It takes approximatly 10 gallons now.)

I can’t wait to get back to school and my move in assistant stuff went through so i can go up early. Also I finally got all my financial aid stuff done. Thats about it.

I’ve been going on a bit of a photoshop binge lately. here are 2 my creations.

The lighthouse image was a photo I took during the day on vacation. As you can see I changed it quite a bit. The frog photo you can see below in an earlier post, nothing crazy, pretty simple-but I like it.

Nothing happened today. No photos were taken. Nothing.

And it was awesome.

p.s. thats all.

I apologize for the lack of a post yesterday, nothing really happened though. Today was a day trip to mystic harbor/aquarium. This is the aquarium owned by Dr. Robert Ballard, the guy that found the Titanic. Not a horrible place, but nothing terribly special. The harbor was alright. If you have ever heard of the movie “Mystic Pizza” it was shot there, and we ate at the mystic pizza place. There was a neat little shop called “Radio Waves” there, where I purchased the flat cap that I’ve been looking for like crazy. Below is a picture I took at the aquarium at the outdoor freshwater exhibit. Enjoy.