Ka-blam

On a low note for the day I was forced to go watch a destruct shot of about 600lbs of high explosives. Ha, just kidding, it was totally the high light of the day, and I totally volunteered!

We were positioned about a mile away from the site at a vantage point known for observing shots at the site. I always get a kick out of it when I get to experience light travel faster than sound and this was no exception. The booming sound and wind from the shock wave arrived a few seconds behind the first sight of the flash/smoke/dust created by the blast. It really is an awesome (and deafening) experience.

In England They Spell it Tyres

I’m shopping for tires for the Corrado. It’s depressing to say the least; it’s going to cost somewhere between $300 and $400. Maybe if I spell it tyres it might gain a certain cool-factor just like ralley instead of rally, or gauge instead of gage… nope that didn’t work. Shitty.

I’m looking for something in a 205/45/16 with a minimum speed rating of V and a decent treadware, i.e. nothing blow 200. Among the marks that stick out the most as a preference are:
Falken Ziex ZE-512
Falken GR Beta FK-451
Hankook Ventus HRII H405
Nitto NT NeoGen VR
BF Goodrich g-Force Sport

I have a soft spot for Falken as a company because of their involvement in motor sports; I also have first hand experience as I’m quite pleased with the Falken Azenis that used to be on my Rabbit (now on Lief’s Rabbit). The BFG’s come highly recommended to me as a good mix between track and street and have both a softer side wall and a larger treadware rating than the others. If I had the money I’d defiantly go with the BFG’s for performance and longevity.

I’m trying to keep the Honkook and the Nitto’s in mind as well mainly for price. Hankook, in an attempt to broaden their customer base seems to be practically giving their tires away. The Nitto’s are also relatively cheap, have a killer tread pattern, and I’ve been pronouncing the name neat-to, which is kinda neat.

As it is these are preferences, I will most likely end up with a lesser known brand name for the sake of economy. Typical names include but are not limited to such abominations as:
Tiger Paw Super T/A,
Enforcer ZX2000,
Velcro SP Traction,… etc.

Oh my, I've Created a Monster

He’s no angry mutant turkey, and obviously no Big-Head Stan, but he’s defiantly cooler than one of those multi-assed animals created by the insane Dr. Mephisto from South Park. I’m calling him “Porka-Pitbull” (half dog, half porcupine).

But seriously though, Ouch! I bet this pit bull runs away from even a soft and fluffy porcupine stuffed animal from now on.

Caption Needed Found

Front Or Rear Drive Mustang?

First Impressions

As a Volkswagen aficionado I’ve become very excited about the new Golf GTI due out in North America in 2006. I had a chance to sit in a 2005 German spec mk5 GTI at DATR and I have a few first impressions. Awesome, Awesome, and Awesome.

I mean really how much convincing do I really have to do, look at it. It's awesome.

Also, check out the official television comercial.

Habadjaduwe

I got a call today from one of the lobby telephones. I couldn’t quite make out the voice on the other line, it was a man’s voice, and he was mumbling. A note to all you mumblers: STOP IT, we can’t understand you. The conversation was humorous however, I had to laugh to my self while exercising restraint and not calling the guy Mumbles, a known mob informant from the hit series Dick Tracy. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello, this is Raven.
Mumbles: yeahhlo thisisjerryachuleta I’ma nedya toeskortmein.
Me: What?
Mumbles: thisis jerryachuletafrom contractghfyterysusuidhkfjhf I have a blahblhablhabla blah for Douglas, Ima nedya to escort me in.

At this point I had deduced that the callers name was Jerry Archuleta, he had something for Douglas, and he needed me to escort him in to somewhere. Who he represented or what that something was had yet to be determined, and so the phone conversation continued…

Me: What?
Mumbles: I hava treedurcabnetshelf for dalivryto Douglas. Leonard tldmetocontact youtoeskortmein.
Me: Leonard told you what?

Mumbles was getting a little upset with me now and began to raise his voice. I did notice that as he became more upset he was easier to understand as he tended to put more emphasis on key words. With the benefit of hindsight I probably should have tried to concentrate more on what he was saying instead of thinking about how much he sounded like Mumbles.

Mumbles: INEedYOuToEscortmein fordeliverayofa TreedofhghtgFileCABinet for a Douglas.
Me: Oh! And you need me to escort you in? Where are you now?

Douglas, right, he means Doug, my boss. It was then that I remembered Doug telling me he wanted me to help him out by taking delivery of a three drawer filing cabinet if he wasn’t around. Now I was on the same page and ready to help.

Mumbles: outsideda lobby.
Me: Oh! Oh, ok, I’ll be right there.

That’s the interesting bit. "Delivery" ensued afterward as I escorted him in and we dropped the cabinet off in Doug’s office. Upon seeing the Cabinet Doug later expressed his satisfaction.

Email From Raven, Often Cryptic

First off I’d like to apologize for referring to myself in third person in this title. Secondly after receiving a complaint about being “cryptic in [my] email” I’d like to apologize for not being even more cryptic. See below for a blast of cryptasticness, also consider yourself invited.

Subject: Cliff Jumping in the Jemez (Wed, July 20, 2005).

All,
There's been a lot of speculation as to whether or not we should continue a tradition started by a Flying Squirrel three years ago today.* All speculations point to, "Yes let's f-n do this!"

The Tradition: Cliff Jumping**
When: Wed, July 20, 2005, 4:30PM.
Meeting Place: First United Methodist Church parking lot***

For the New-B's: The trail head to the cliffs is located just down theroad from the East Jemez Fork trail in the Jemez mountains. The hick in is easy going and totals about a mile. Jumps range in height and scare factor from beginner to intermediate.

*actual anniversary may vary
**please forward to anyone else that may or may not be interested
***car pooling available
****Cisco sucks

Water Dirt everywhere!

As a result of the severe weather we had Friday afternoon the lobby as well as a few other buildings were flooded with up to 2 inches of water in places. Due to the large amount of construction projects in the area (namely directly uphill) the water in question was dark brown and left behind a whole lot of dirt.

When I came into work this morning there was still evidence of this in the form of mop buckets everywhere.

Monson Spectacle

Hey everyone, its monsoon season once again in northern New Mexico. Although it probably officially started sometime last week today was the first big one we saw here on the hill.

The office building I sit in has all the offices positioned on the interior of the building with the hallways and windows along the outside. Almost everyone came over to the windows to look at the massive amount of rain that was coming down outside, people were pushing like a moshers at a rock concert to get a look at the action. Just kidding about that last part, but seriously a lot of people came out of their office to come check out the rain.

While I was watching the raging rivers or rain water gush down the side walks below I thought to my self: “only in New Mexico.” Only in New Mexico has it been so long since the last time it rained that people get excited enough to stop work and come look out the window - smiling from ear to ear.

edit (4:30pm, jul 15, 05): Now its more like terential down-pour mixed with hail. Holly crap! and I just recieved this email:
Please note the following from Emergency Management and Response:
There is a severe weather alert out for Los Alamos County. Heavy rain, penny-size hail and 60-mile per hour winds are expected. Watch for localized flooding. And please exercise caution while traveling.

Forum Shinanigans

Because I have nothing better to talk about, A link:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/posting.php

Free as in what?

Let’s talk about free food. At the student picnic they were serving free food to both students and mentors alike. I got to thinking about the meaning of free and the concept of free food. According to Wikipedia free "refers to things which are available at no monetary cost (like free beer at a party)." That said I'm still at the conclusion that the free food served at the student picnic was not free.

One could argue that there was no monetary cost to either the students or the mentors, meaning no money was exchanged from the hands of the consumer to those of the servers. But wait a minute; I just said it wasn’t free in any way; the basis of my argument stems from the time we spent in line waiting for said food. I personally was in line for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

The industry standard cost per person for every minute they spend in a meeting (not doing work) is approximated to be $3. Last year the student association boasts a record turnout of just over 700 people, assuming an equivalent turn out this year at $3 per minute and not counting the lunch hour, this 2 and a half hour event cost the lab over $63000.

As if wasted government spending wasn’t enough, during the time I spent waiting inline for my free food, at my nominal student pay rate, I could have earned $31.98.

This is Old Belgium

Who’s up for some beer trivia? Last night on the way home from work I picked up a bottle of Triple Karmeliet, brewed by the Bosteels Brewery in Buggenhout, Belgium. As an aside this is the same brewery that makes Kwak beer.

Here’s the commercial description found on the bottle:
”Blonde, robust, smooth, and fruity three grain top fermented beer, refermented in the bottle. Brewed with pride and patience after Karmeliet tradition with wheat, oat and barley. 100% natural.”

WTF does all this mean, you might ask. So, in no particular order…

Triple: Unlike the Albertsons brand vodka you kids drink on Friday nights the term triple has nothing to do with the distillation process (or the lack there of as the case may be) but rather the number of different types of grains in the beer. A traditional triple (not unlike the beer in question) is sometimes called a three grain ale and is made with oats, barley, and wheat and is generally high in alcohol content.

Refermented in the bottle: This is how these things get so darned alcoholic (read: this is where the fun comes from). Most triples are bottle conditioned meaning the beer is bottled before the end of the fermentation process and left to mature inside the bottle – this being the reason why some yeast residue can be found at the bottom of these types of beers.

Karmeliet: other words that come to mind are Klooster, as in the English word Cloister, as in the local Nun-ery. Karmeliet refers to one of several different types of beer made by members of the clergy, another being abbey ale.

100% natual: as far as this statement goes, all I can say is this is a perfectly normal and natural thing.

This shaz was 8.0% ABV. While enjoying its complex aroma and fruity yet spicy taste I could literally feel the fuzzies come into my fingertips by the sip. Crazy.

Grab Life by the Sand

Alright, highlights of the weekend:
1. Moved a bunch of shit into the new apartment in Las Cruces,
2. Rented a very sweet, very big Dodge Ram 1500 for the move,
3. Witnessed a kid throw up in the apt complex's pool,
4. Visited white sands national park for the first time.

Bummers of the weekend:
1. Moved a bunch of shit into the new apartment in Las Cruces,
2. Dropped over $100 in gas for the very sweet, very big Dodge Ram 1500 rent-a-truck,
3. I can’t believe that kid threw up in the pool!

That said this weekend was pretty awesome. I'm super ampped about getting to see white sands for the first time. Leif and I drug two of Leif’s friends along with us and made them help dig two connecting tunnels in one of the larger dunes. We just used our hands to scoop the sand but it ended up in a U shape measuring somewhere in the neighborhood of 5’ deep and about 2’ across. It was big enough to crawl on hands and knees all the way in and out the other side. Sweet! What you see here is a picture I found on the internet from some German guy, although I took a lot of my own pictures it seems I’m too lazy to post them.

With regard to the Rental truck, it was a brand new ’05 Dodge Ram 1500 quad-cab. It had just under 6k miles on it when we picked it up on Friday at 5:30pm and almost exactly 8k on the OD and an ass-load of white sand in the seats when we returned it Sunday at midnight. It drove really nice and I think we got a good deal on the rental price considering I’m under 25, but at an average of 13 mpg I think the joke was on us.

What Would Dan Do

Some time around noon yesterday I decided to commit myself to publishing more than one entry a month and in contemplating a topic for today I have decided to talk about why I started this damn blog in the first place.

It all started when my good friend, and I’d defiantly call him a good friend, Dan (the milkman) started one. To this day I really like visiting it just to see what he’s been up to. His posts are most often informative in a way that they don’t talk about what he had for lunch or how his day went but rater present some sort of issue followed by smart ass remarks that either belittle the issue or blow it out of proportion. I doubt he’ll ever read this so I think its safe to say, sometimes they’re even funny.

One day Justin and I were sitting around talking about, reading about, the mischief Dan’s cat got into involving a role of toilet paper and we joked about how it would be funny if I also started a blog of sorts that mimicked Dan’s posts while making fun of them. It stemmed from the concept of my pet turtle pictured in the bathroom aside a shredded role of TP with a guilty look on his face.

I may still do this at some point in time but I doubt it will be of the order of magnitude that was originally discussed. Stay tuned.

... for referance

Define "Mandatory"

What is it with “Mandatory Student Events” and why do I always find my self in attendance? I guess when it comes down to it I’m just a sucker, a real gluten for compliance and general unwilling-participation.

The so called 2005 Student Symposium is an annual poster competition funded by the student association in which students present their summer research under the scrutiny of hard nosed judges and know nothing administrative lackeys. Its mystery is only exceeded by its power.

There seems to be some sort of rush to get us to submit a title and an abstract. Over the course of two-three work days I’ve put about 30 minutes of real work into an abstract. I’m confidant that have produced a document that sufficiently depicts the results of the research I haven’t started yet in half a page or less.

I’m stuck on a title though. I want something catchy. Something that screams sex. Something that’ll mask the fact that my research, however more superior it might be, is much more important than the other guy who found the cure for cancer. I want to heir the guy that comes up with the headlines for the National Inquirer.

edit (7/8/05): The title I came up with has everything I wanted in a title, humorous disregard for the scientific norm and a secret reference to my unwilling-participation (the use of the word 'gluttonous').

Care and Feeding of Gluttonous SCC Computers

It works out as super computers are more often than not gluttons in every sence of the word.