Author: Pat Skinner

I make apps.
I love empowering people with tech, saving time, and delivering delight.
Piano player and German speaker.

…and he’s done, folks

Hatred of IE5 for Mac++…hit enter and it forgets text box contents.

Anyway to recap that 1/2 hour post:
1) I’m back at home, the drive was looong.
2) Digital Fortress by Dan Brown is a fine example of extreem buzzword mangling, too much unnecessary globetrotting and Euro-culture bites, and a failure to really discuss where national security and personal freedom merge. It’s a good cheap thrill, or maybe a laugh. Maybe.
3) I’m officially of the opinion that broadband Intarweb is by far more useful than cable TV.

General

Anybody seen my voice?

It’s one of the most interesting things to lose your voice. The per-word effort it takes to communicate increases so much you are forced to be 1) very concise or 2) a whispery, bumbling, throat-clearing, loquacious ass.

This past week I kept forgetting my voice was dead. I couldn’t butt into converstations or project!

RIT Technical

One more …

Just finished my OS Scripting final exam. It’s been a pretty fun course, emphasizing bash and awk. Scripting is usually easier to write than C++ or Java because even though the language has quirks (like mandatory whitespace) it takes care of semantics like string to int typecasting for you. I’ve been writing scripts to monitor my server hardware, such as getting drive temperatures, network usage, and CPU load.

Anyway. I got my Star Wars Episode III ticket for Wednesday at midnight, because I’m hardcore like that. I’m going to see it with at least Cheston and Juice, and probably 1,000 Vader-costumed, lightsaber wielding RIT nerds.

After that it’s one more exam at 8:00 AM on Friday (yay!), then my parents are coming to take me back home on Saturday. Can’t wait to get out of here, even though I’ll miss everyone. Seeing all the storage boxes and huge dumpsters full of old chairs and miscellany reminds you of how fast the year really goes by.

Meta RIT Technical

Site changes

I was sitting here working on my Internetworking and OS Scripting assignments but got bored and decided to mess around with the blog.

Upgraded to the WordPress 1.5.1 two days ago…have yet to notice any changes, but everything still works and a security bug is apparently fixed. Yay.
I also added the XMLHttpRequest calendar in the sidebar; I think that sidebar is getting cluttered but not having to page refresh between months is, admittedly, pretty cool.
Lastly, you should write a comment and see what happens. It’s cool too.

Classes are finished for the year. I wish I felt some sense of relief…but thats not happening until finals are over.

Co-op RIT

Almost finished…

Last week of spring quarter…and just like last year, the nicest days of the entire year are flying by in the final days.
Tried to get away from finals briefly by going to the gym for the first time in far too long. I tried to not overdo things, but (unsurprisingly) didn’t have much luck. I really want to use the swimming pool more before the year is over, I’ve hardly been to it. The gym is so much fun once you get into it. “Runner’s high” is totally cool, very relaxing.

I was on the way to German III in 75 degree weather, and remembering just how amazing summer vacation is hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s one of those few memories left for me that has that empowering, “whole summer at your command” appeal to it.
View from NRH down quad during Winter 2004
The same walk every morning can really get to you…

I’m still in the running for co-op applications for this summer…RITs deadline for credit is June 27th. Hopefully the hunt will improve once I have more time. I’d really like to (finally) learn Perl or work on some open source programs like WordPress, but co-ops come first.