Santa got ran over by a... Jet Plane

I'm super busy with finals this week. ME 445 is officially over, Shibby! The Chemistry final is tommorw morning and its study, study, study right now.

This is to funny not to share and totally worth the 5 minute brake I'm taking to post this.

X-mas Break.

I've just recieved information from LANL about winter break employment. I've decided to go for it for the following reasons:
1. it's interesting stuff, and it sounds like they've got something lined up for me to do.
2. geographically it'll but me closer to the snow, I've been really excited about getting to ski this winter.
3. finally, I wont beat around the bush - I need the money.

This creats a delema with my current employment situation. I'm going to try to getout as peacfully as possible with the intent to try to get re-hired on my retern in mid-january. I'm also prepared to get into an argument and burn every bridge imaginable. This afternoon I'll have more information about the outcome of all this.

edit: The resignation went well, I was able to give about two weeks, and i'm told although they wont beable to hold a job for me they would deffinatly consider me if I wanted to come back afterwards.

Caution, Vanity Ahead

This morning on my way to school was vanity plate day. There were three slow moving drivers in front of me making me late - incedently all three of them had a vanity plate on their hoopty.

Silver Buick: “INSURE”
White Yukon: “MOMZILLA”
Orange New Beetle: “PUNK’N”

When I get home tonight I’m going to try to look for a picture of the all time best vanity ever spotted…. The obligatory, “SKANKIN.”

WWJD… with an old office chair?

I stumbled across this last night in the Corrado forums. I laughed until I cried, then I showed Chelsie, she laughed to. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw this was: “Oh my god, I’d better not show this to Leif, it might give him an idea.” That said, Leif, if you see this post, don’t get any ideas.


From the looks of it office chair racing combines the danger of street luge racing and taking your bike off sweet jumps. At least this guy’s wearing a helmet… If it were me I’d probably upgrade to a full faced motorcycle helmet though.

Finally, I speculate that in the future office chair racing will replace drift racing as the most controversial SCCA sponsored race event.

Dubmodder

In an effort to procrastinate I've spent some time messing around with a cool v-dub site. It's basically photoshopping made easy. In keeping with the recent mk5 discussion I've used it to create the following two images. Enjoy.

Attitude < Par

I work as a line cook at the Sunset Grill at the Sonoma Ranch Golf course. That said; work sucks for one reason, and one reason alone. The head chief is a rage of mood swing hell. When she's in a good mood she's a joy to be around and she's taught me alot about cooking. But, if we get a big order in she comes in and takes over, she tries to do everything herself, she starts yelling at everyone, she’s trying to help – god bless her but it tends to put everyone on edge and it brings down the cheerful attitude of the kitchen. I think it could be made better if she spent more time trying to be a god of a line cook and focused on activities more typical of a head chief. That, and she needs a volume/mute button.

Other grievances I have are miniscule; one of which is the logo. Are those carrots? WTF!

After school gets out for the semester and I have a little more free time I intend to put in some applications around town. I’m looking to get out of the food service business. As my profile says: I’m in serious need of a good part time job.

Are the parts in yet?

I await patently for part to arrive at the dealership for the Corrado. They were supposed to be in on friday - allowing for a swift weekend Corrado fix. We're all waiting on a thermostat housing cover and all the o-rings that seal its three flanges. the total cost was about $26.

Leif has really pulled a lot of weight on this project. Lets hope they come in. That is all.

More US spec-tacage

They've got some pics out with some other colors. Seems to look a little better not in red. At any rate this is more of a pic post than anything.

Finally, this looks the best. The suspension, allthough still obviously higher off the ground seems to have settled a little in this picture.

To put all this in perspective look at the ride height on this Touareg, VW's SUV:

The wheel well gap isnt all that different...

I say this with a lump in my throat and a heavy heart: the US spec 2005 GTI is no where near my origonal take on the car.

VWoA reports an official INCREASE of 15mm in ride height over the german spec version but judging by the early press release photos all I can think is, Holly 4x4 Batman. The turns are all yellow instead of clear, and the seats dont look like anything special. The base price is said to be $22k (lower than expected) but the options packages seem unnessesarially coupled with unwanted features - dramatically increasing the end price. For example, Why on earth am I requiered to have satelite radio and a sunroof just to get a decent set of cloth sport seats?? There's black plastic molding in all the wrong places especially on the rear bumper. The optional 18" rims look like something more suited for a matchbox/hotwheels car, and although I havent seen pictures of the standard 17's that will come on it I doubt they'll be any better. Color options are far to limited for a car planed for such high production numbers (where's the GTI laser blue? yellow? reflex silver?) - black seems to be the only color that looks decent. The fake plastic honey comb looks horable and reminds me of the plastic honey comb that comes on non-functional ford mustang wind scoops, it you look closely there seems to be a few cutout near the bottom, whats up with that! My bet is the standard "sport seats" will designed around the typical fat american ass and will be more like the base model jetta's "comfort seats" I'll be taken aback so far if we ever see any of the cool plad-pattered sport recaros from europe. The bumper relectors on the rear bumper of the german spec car have migrated to the front... and they're yellow now. I'm so disapointed.

Fuck it. What do I care anyway, right? I'm not in the market to buy a new car anyway.

It’s Electric, Thermo-Electric

Oh man, so today I finally got to test the thermoelectric cold plate assemblies I’ve been putting together. In ambient room conditions the cold side reached a low of 19 degrees F. It was really cool to see the transition of the condensation that formed on the plate – it started out small, then bigger droplets formed, the droplets would get to big and run down the side. After a little while they’d stop running, then all of a sudden the condensation would freeze and the plate turns white. When we left it on for a while the frost really started to build up. It was supper cool, literally.

"Normal" Corrado Problems

Whoa! Coolant everywhere, as far as the eye can see… ok just that puddle there under the car… that that green one there… It’s a volkswaggen… they’re pretty rare, it’s called a Corrado… they only sold them in the US for 5 years… YES I KNOW ITS LEAKING COOLANT!

Any way the Corrado is shut down for the moment. A small coolant leak turned into a very big coolant leak today. I spent two hours tonight with Leif tearing the entire front end apart with flashlights trying to pin point the problem. We found coolant leacking from 1) the lower radiator hose to the thermostat, 2) the seal between the colling tube/crack pipe and the thermostat housing, and 3) from a crack in the thermostat hosing cover.

The so-called “crack pipe” is known to be a weak element in the cooling system. I sourced an independent group of Corrado enthusiast engineers who craft and sell the beefcake version of the crack pipe. See picture. The idea is to replace as little many components as possible to avoid unnecessary costs… but I’m thinking… while the car is apart… if this thing is going to bust ass in the next month or so I might consider buying one of these beefed trail guides.

I don’t know, I’m pretty sick of coolant problems in the Corrado. I’ve had to replace neary every pipe, every hose…. With that I’ve taken this opportunity to modify a new polo.

Lost: 1 Can, Last Seen: Near that bush over there

Fuel up the four-wheeler and make an ammo run to Wal-Mart, its here! It’s the 2005 Coors Light camouflage can, I scored a case of eighteen 16oz cans. Don’t set these tall boys down next to any foliage or you may never find them back.

For your viewing pleasure I have placed one of these appropriately nicknamed “camo cans” in a wilderness setting. I think it blends in rather well; I would defiantly think twice before I brought a case with me on my next drunken autumn walk (not much of a hunter my self).

I have found however that the camo cans ability to blend in atop the more urban setting of my desk or refrigerator is piss poor at best. In fact I’ve found that the non-camoufalged normal silver cans are much easier to lose track of on the desk, and dont even get me started about when I wear my silver gloves.

BFGed

Well I did it; I finally bought some tires for the Corrado! It ended up being $346 for all 4. Which in all actuality is a pretty decent deal considering I got the BFG g-force sports that were on the top of my previous list.

They should come in at Discount with in 7 working days. Stay tuned for the official first impression post.

Porcshe to Acquire 20% VAG stock

“In a move billed as a defensive maneuver on the part of the Stuttgart-based sports car manufacturer, Porsche AG announced that it plans to acquire roughly 20-percent of Volkswagen AG. The purchase is intended to protect the manufacturer of brands including Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Skoda, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti from a potential hostile takeover, given the company’s shared chassis and technology projects like the SUV platform Porsche’s Cayenne shares with the Volkswagen Touareg and Audi Q7 as well as the company’s new hybrid technology shown in concept form at the Frankfurt IAA two weeks ago.” (vwvortex)

Whoa. But hey wait a minute… Porsche and VW/Audi have always been in bed together anyway. Or should I say the Porsche family and the Piech family. They're all the same. If they'd start sleeping with the Quandt family they would gain BMW too. What is it about Volkswaggen… man I cant explain it.

My impression is that this is a good move by Porsche. Volkswagen is publicly traded and by acquiring 20% of VAG stock they secure a vote on the VAG board as a major stockholder. This should help to prevent assholes like Kirk Kerkorian from acquiring a solid share as was speculated (who single handedly distroyed Chrysler by doing the same thing). VW isn't selling it specifically to Porsche because it's not VW's to sell. Porsche will acquire it from shareholders.

As far as anyone can tell right now, it seems the companies will be basically independent. It's feasible Porsche might have more sway with the VW board being a major shareholder, but it certainly wouldn't have any controlling interest (only 20%) and VW would have no interest in Porsche, so none the other way either. About the only thing we're likely to see of this deal as it is now is perhaps increased partnership between the two manufacturers on development of future projects.

Can you say new 914?

Procrastination-smashtication

So you’d think that after several years of working with groups all of us (by us I mean every one of the mechanical engineering seniors in my group) would have learned that a 50+ page lab report should be started early. This would imply that we exert a little extra effort though out the week in order to get said lab report done with out having to pull an all-nighter every Sunday.

Admittedly this Sunday some sort of miracle happened. We finished (aside from a major proofreading) an ME 445 lab report in one sitting. We started writing at about 1pm today yesterday and finished at 2:30am today. Not having done any work in preparation for this effort I’d say we did pretty good. Tomorrow I will take the report to Kinko’s to have it printed in color and probably get it bound real nice.

There’s a side bet going on for the class where in the group that does the worst overall at the end of the semester has to buy a keg for the rest of the class… it was Kluk’s idea. Most humorously, while working tonight we received a call from a group member(not Brandon) of another group(Brandons Group) in the same class… two of their group members(Brandon and another guy) were MIA and they had also just started. So far it looks like Kluk is buying the keg at the end of the semester.

Right now I’m just killin’ a few brain cells trying to relax a little so I can get some sleep. I got really stressed out today thinking this wasnt going to get done. They’ve got some really good triple in stock at the beer store that I’ve been sipping on.

New Digs for the Turtle

So I’ve got this turtle… for the last year, maybe a little more the turtle was just cruising around the house with out any one place to call home. I thought it was neat cause he got to run around where ever he felt like going and it was always exciting to play a good game of find the turtle… he’s some where in this house, but where is he?

At any rate Chelsie brought it to my attention that these were not proper living arrangements for the little guy and that he needed more. Admittedly he’d been pealing a lot lately and it appeared to be due to a lack of hydration.

This alluded to me spending all Saturday morning researching box turtles online. Turns out the little guys like it between 70-80 degrees F at a relative humidity no less than 20% (more is always better) and require a large water dish that they can sit in to absorb water through their water absorbers located somewhere not in their mouth.

This then led to a trip to PetsMart and dropping 60 shells in order to create the proper environment for our little one. We got this super sweet stuff called “Bed-a-Beast.” It’s made of ground coconut shells and comes as a small brick that expands in a bucket of water to make a moist terrarium substraight suitable for turtle habitation. Two different types of over-priced special box turtle food were also purchased as through research it was discovered that our turtles favorite food, Banana, gives him the shits… so that’s why he spent all that time in the bathroom last week!

Joe versus the Volcano round 4

I feel like I haven’t blogged in a while. And in fact I might actually be going through with drawls. Is this even possible? I’m thinking that the reason why I don’t find time to post up tends to be because I’m busy with other stuff. This would imply that When I’m not bored out of my mind I post like a mother fucker and when I do a bunch of shit and actually have real events to talk about I post nothing.

The main reason I’ve been so busy doing other things is I’ve been studying for a chemistry test that I took at 7:30 tonight. I’ve been going non-stop all week. This is my 4th time taking Chem112 and this time I’m determined to get an A. I don’t think I’ve studied this hard in my life.

At any rate the test is over as of tonight and I’m pretty drunk, because, well… that’s what I do after I think I aced a big test. Notably, I also get like to get drunk after I think I’ve failed a big test. It tends to ease the transition from intense all nighters, back into normal college life (sleeping, attending class, and doing simple homework).

Did I mention I think I aced the motherfucker! I think I did, but I’ll say it again, I think I aced the motherfucker! It was a 31 question multiple-choice test that was scheduled to go from 7:30-9:00PM. It took me 28 minutes to finish; I was the first one done. I had a positively right answer for ever single one of those questions. Yes!

Would you belive this is the first time I've ever posted under the influance.

Stained and Smooth

Right, so I ended up sanding the table. the reslts kicked ass. All the little roughies and tacky spots are gone and the table looks really good. Here's some pics:

This comment is all spammed up!

I’m against the idea of removing comments that people make on the blog. As of recent however I’ve been receiving comment spam. Despite the entertainment factor associated with them I don’t like the concept of someone using the ability to leave comments for such purposes. Because of this I've decided to include a word verification in order to subbmit a comment, sorry for the inconvenance.

The following are two real life examples that have appeared on my blog. The format seems to be: Complement. Encouragement. Shameless product plug with link and the phrase “pay when ever you want.”

A real enlightening blog. Don't stop now. This may be of interest to you; how to buy & sell motor scooter on interest free credit; pay whenever you want.

This is a excellent blog. Keep it going. Here's the resolve a lot of people are searching for; how to buy & sell everything, like cordless phone on interest free credit; pay whenever you want.

With that, I’ve taken this opportunity to write one of my own:

Reading this blog has brought me religious enlightenment. Continue to exert this great effort. Hair dryers can be found at 50% off; given current interest rates, you can find garunteed financing Honda Prelude; pay whenever you want.

Down the hill, off the ramp, and tabletop over the burnt car.

I’m in the process of staining a wooden tabletop for the dinning room. The table started out as “patio furniture,” meaning the original tabletop surface is this black rot-iron mesh with a hole in the middle for an umbrella.

I’d bought the thing for somewhere around $90 at Home Depot thinking it was cool looking. Upon use it was discovered that things tended to fall through the mesh and onto the floor. It just wasn’t all that practical from a dinner table standpoint. And about two weeks after I bought the damn thing I got to wishing that I’d just gone to K-Mart and bought a standard el-cheapo wooden rectangle.

Leif and I had been toying with a bunch of ideas to solve the problem of chipotle sauce falling through the table and onto our toes. Tuesday afternoon I was walking around Lowes with Kevin, and I spotted it, a 48’’ wooden circle (the same exact diameter of the “patio furniture” table), about an inch think, and only $27.

I spent a good part of today sanding and staining the new tabletop. I’m using a deep mahogany red polyurethane stainer; so far it looks boss.

The first coat went on really well. I decided to go for a second coat after it was dry just to make sure the wood was sealed all the way as exposure to spilled liquids would no doubt pose a threat to the longevity of the tabletop. The second coating didn’t go as well as the first, and the finish after everything was dry is not as smooth as I’d like it to be. I’m going to try sanding it a little with some 1000 grit I have laying around, if anything interesting happens I’ll post up more about what ever it is that happens. Pictures maybe latter to.

I missed the Aggies loose to UTEP for this?

Memorial Day is a US holiday that takes place on the last Monday of May every year. It was formerly known as Decoration Day. The holiday commemorates US men and women who died in military service for their country. More notably to most Americans it means a 3-day weekend and traveling across the country.

Chelsie, Carrie, Lindsey and I took an inter-state trip to the retirement capitol of southern Arizona: luxurious, Green Valley. Green Valley is to Tucson as Sun City is to Phoenix, as Florida is to the United States, as… bottom line is nobody under the age of 60 lives there.

The 292-mile trip took about 4 hours each way from Las Cruces. As shown on this here map, we cruised I-10 east till somewhere near downtown Tucson and then went south on I-19 till we got to Green Valley.


You’re all probably wondering why the hell a of couple college students would elect to spend the only 3-day weekend of vacation in the fall semester traveling to Green Valley, Arizona. We went to visit “Grandma Joyce,” Chelsie's Dad's Mom. I’d never met her before and despite warnings of religious preaching and overall unpleasantness I was amped to go and had a lot of fun meeting the old bag and listing to all her old people stories. More than anything I went because Chelsie asked me to, it was important to her that I meet her favorite Grandma.

I met a few other soon to be family-in-law-people as well this weekend, compounding to my opinion that overall Chelsie’s family is pretty chill.

On the return trip the four of us laughed the entire way back about all kinds of stuff and in addition to counting trucks with teeth, we played with a head butting finger puppet, and made fun of how Chelsie sorts when she laughs so hard she cant breath.

This Just In, Brought To You by Photo Archives

I spent a good part of today goofing off and sorting through some old photos taken from the time I spent going to school at New Mexico Tech, in Socorro NM. The few I’ve decided to show here really embody the shit that happened everyday. For your viewing enjoyment I’ll provide a brief discussion about each shot.

1. Los Rancheros! Nate and I drove all over Albuquerque piecing together these stupid Halloween costumes. I think this picture was taken at the “NMT Halloween Dance,” I don’t remember much of that night. Highlights included hauling a 10 gal cooler full of jungle juice a number of blocks from campus to some basement party. I also remember drinking a lot of corona at Nicks house and going to the haunted house.
2. Paul was always popping up out of places. This was his second car trunk, the first being a rental car we took to the Denver Grand Prix. He also hid in the box my TV came in for at least 20 minutes in order to play a joke on my mom. This picture was taken at the first and subsequently last NMTARC cruise night – although I don’t think it was the same night we were chased in Pete’s van by a group of cowboys in a big truck.
3. Little mr2 in the big city: a fly by on Wyoming. That’s really all I have to say about that one… except, look how happy Peter looks. Woot.
4. Another Halloween shot. Action doll Ken comes complete with standard Asian haircut, Duck-hunt gun, controller and matching shirt. Ken did a lot of crazy shit in his prime. Most memorable for me however is the time he accidentally ran straight into the Duck Pond while we were running from the cops out on the golf course. We were all pretty surprised about two things, one, that he didn’t smell all that bad, and two that he didn’t catch Fratphilenanagitis (a disease known to exist in duck poop with symptoms similar to the common cold).
5. This was the Mechanical Engineering department head, Dr. Reiley. Seen here relaxing at home the idea was to send Belinda to take a picture of him so that we could carve his face into a pumpkin. I stumbled across this picture along with the other Halloween pics in the same folder.
6. Pictured below is Dan, aka the Milkman, aka that guy they named that girls dormitory after. Dan and I were responsible for fucking with res-life on multiple accounts on multiple instances. At the day of the photo shoot he was wearing his “Whatup?” t-shirt, Dan can be seen wearing this shirt to this day… perhaps he still wants to know: Whatup?
7. This is classic Richard. If you know this guy there’s no way you wouldn’t agree. This picture was taken on St. Patrick’s Day 2002 – the same night Luis issued a drunken monolog about what’s wrong with the nations GOP in today’s fast growing economy (or something along those lines).
8. I’m Bald, look at my tracks, look, seriously take a picture of these sick tracks, I’m Bald. Ahhh, Dust-trip ’01, Shorty went crazy with the roadies. There was dust everywhere. While he was at it you couldn’t even see his car, just hear the engine screaming out from under a huge cloud of brown.
9. Look everyone its Shawn West. No day in the life would be complete with out this guy. This kid was everywhere. I remember the first time me and Phil met him it was in the trailer of some hick who refused to let us watch anything but porn while Shawn attempted to shot gun a beer while standing on his head. The electrical fire that’s about to be dowsed with Aquafina belongs to Jake’s Toyota pick-up.

Blogout

Whoa, it’s been a while since my last post – a little over a month, crazy. I’ve been super busy doing who knows what… I guess.

School is back in session which means I’m back into the usual routine of staying out way to late, waking up early to make it to class, and then catching up on the lost sleep in the middle of a lecture about low-pressure flow, stagnation points, inviscid something or other and a small elderly Chinese woman who cant figure out how to use the projector.

The weekend before school started Chelsie and I went out to Phoenix to visit her dad. We got a chance to check out Mills Ave in Tempe (Dueling Pianos and lots of beer). It was pretty sweet. I had a blast meeting that big softy and we seem to get along well. Bonus.

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.

Dub-Tastic

It’s Dubs Along the Rockies everyone! However due to the increasing popularity of acronyms, it will from hereon out be know as DATR. DATR is one of the bigger water cooled Volkswagen meets in the central United States; all the others seem to take place on either one of the two continental costs. The event took up most of the day on Sunday but in reality we spent all weekend and most of the previous traveling and preparing for it.

Loved ones in attendance:
1. Leif,
2. Noah,
3. Chelsie,
4. and myself.

Some of the highlights included:
1. Traveling over 600 miles from Colorado Springs and back with no car trouble.
2. Watching the German spec mk5 GTI run the autocross course as well as an exhibition run by the twin-turbo-tire-smoking-ralley-Audi A4 (winner of the open class Pikes Peak hill climb that took place the day before).
3. Checking out the other Corrados (there were all of 12 total)
4. and Leif’s car winning 1st place in the mk1 Golf (Rabbit) Category
For Leif and Noah Partying the night before at the Hotel with all the other VW fanatics would probably make the cut.

Here’s some pic’s
This is Leif's car, the red cooler seen in the background was probably still full of beer at the time the photo was taken
... and here's the Corrado, the other Corrado guys marveled at the 3pnt German seatbelts. If you look closely you can see my dome flapping in the wind.

Gmail: awesome

As of 1 o'clock today I am now the proud owner of a gmail acount! Yes.

"With more than 2,000 megabytes of storage, the typical user can go for years without deleting a single message" read about it at http://gmail.google.com and hit me up if you want an acount.

and I almost forgot my new gmail acount: rrotsaert@gmail.com

Thefacebook

I've given up. I've signed up for Thefacebook. I'm searchable as I understand so get out there and be online friends with me, damnit.

Some times you just wish you werent listening

Today I had the pleasure of overhearing the dumbest thing i think Ive ever heard in my life. It came from behind me in a familliarly annoying voice in referance to New Mexico Tech.

"It's a Tech thing, you wouldnt understand."

Why would anyone with half a mind and any self respect say any thing like that. I my self was somewhat offended.

First Posting

This is a really good drink. This first post will probably stay here till I actually find the time to make some entrys. I'm excited to be doing this!