Fear the Crab

Work was okay, but nothing very interesting happened.

I found out that my original programming endeavor is not valid. This means I’ll have to rework my entire code to meet the requirements of the assignment. It seems my week will be quite a busy one.

Tomorrow I will get my hair cut. A simple shave of the sides and back, a trim of the top, and I think I’ll be good to go. I would have preferred an appointment on my day off, but I discovered that my aunt (who normally cuts my hair) will be out of town and the only available time is Monday morning. The appointment is for 1030, and I don’t start work until 1315, so I’ll have some time to kill. At first I thought that I’d be uber bored, but the recent development in my homework means I’ll have something to do during the break inbetween my schedule. I just have to remember to bring my computer with me.

Maile said she would be getting her Christmas tree today, but I forgot to ask if she did that. She’s trying to get a small tree, maybe a 5-footer, because the clean-up afterward is just too much of a hassle with a big tree.

I worked eight hours today, and I managed to make it through without going insane. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve had a full day of work; for the past year or so I’ve had 4 to 5 hour days. What helped me get through was the time I spent trying to figure out my homework assignment, even though I’m not supposed to be doing such things while on the clock. In the end, all that coding may be for naught, as one of the requirements for the assignment was that “no other data structures are allowed to manipulate data.” I found it easier to use one kind of data structure, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s allowed. As I think about it more and more, it’s probably not allowed. Which means I’ll have to redo my entire code, and redo it in a more complicated and difficult manner. I sent an email to my professor regarding that requirement, but I can’t expect a reply until Monday. I also sent an email to one of my classmates because he has access to codes from previous years, and hopefully one of those codes will contain an outline of what I need to finish this assignment. However, as before I may have to wait until Monday.

I ate at Anna Miller’s for dinner, because I wasn’t sure if there was anything in the fridge at home for me to eat and I didn’t want to go home to find out and have to drive off again. I figured that if there was something to eat, it can wait for tomorrow’s lunch or dinner. At Anna Miller’s I had the pancake sandwich, which is just two pancakes, an egg, and two strips of bacon or links of sausage (I chose the sausage). It didn’t bother me that I was eating by myself, though some company would have been nice.

Sunday was a work day. I went to Maile’s house afterwards and hung out for a bit. We watched a documentary on sex changes, and saw a man trying to learn how to cross his legs like a woman. I never even knew there was a technique to it.

Monday was another work day. I talked to Maile for a bit afterwards on the phone, but as I had also taken a dose of NyQuil I soon got sleepy. Which in the end was proper, because I had to wake up early for school the next day.

Today was a school day. Attended 241 and learned about language structure. In a sense, using math to figure out a language. Had a 211 midterm today, and I am already anxious to know what my score was. There were two parts to it, basically; a technical part and a coding part. The technical part I think I did well on. At least, all the questions were pretty straight forward and I believe I answered them all correctly. The coding part is where I want to know my score. We were given a bit of code, then asked to write a class to provide functionality to that bit. I’m anxious to know if I got anything wrong, because I spent a lot of time writing out the code and so far that I could perceive, it should work. Still, it would be my luck to forget some aspect, some part in my programming that would crash the whole thing. That programming part had a major chunk of points, too.

I finished work on my Java applet, and it seems to run pretty well. Of course, I have yet to receive feedback from other people using their own browsers. I do know that it won’t work on IE if it doesn’t have any Java plug-ins, and on some machines the layout seems a bit weird. Hopefully the more people test it out, the more I can try and figure out how to make it universal (though the absence of Java in other browsers is something I can’t fix).

Because Min told me that a car alarm’s starter kill was only two wires, I bought an Auto-Lock for the truck, the type that fits around the brake pedal. At first I was worried that it wouldn’t fit, because on the back there is a listing of vehicles that won’t accept the Auto-Lock due to a “unique brake pedal arm design. The Tacoma was in that list, but it was only for 2000-2002 models. Since mine is a 2003, I took a chance, and it paid off. I really don’t know if the brake arm design changed between 2002 and 2003, but the Auto-Lock works for me, so I guess it doesn’t matter. In any case, I have a 14-day return window if I discover something’s wrong.

Titan is feeling better today. Yesterday it seemed something was wrong with his neck, because he walked around with his head low to the ground. Whenever Maile lifted his head, the neck muscles twitched. It was scary. Today, though, Maile said Titan looked better, so perhaps all the guy had was a stiff neck. He is an old dog, after all.

Today’s saying was:
“It spices up your coordination”

Today I got my truck windows tinted. Just the two front doors, since the back already has what they call “privacy glass” which is just a dealer-fancy word for dark tint. There is a slight difference between the front and rear windows, only because the law states that the front must be 35%. I say there’s a slight difference because from afar it looks the same all around. I think only when you inspect real close and the light is just right can you tell the difference. Now I must remember to not lower the windows anytime soon, to let the tint have time to cure.

I finished my 3D tic tac toe game. It’s not required for class or anything; I just did it to see if I could. It works through the command line interface, basically meaning that it runs strictly on my computer and uses a DOS window. My next step will be a highly ambitious project of converting the code to run as an Applet, so that it can work on the internet. If I succeed, I’ll post it on my web page. So far I’ve managed to design the layout and implement a few workable buttons. Later I will work on getting the code to understand when someone actually wins the game.

I don’t feel as sick as I used to, though I am still prone to coughing fits. I should be well enough to go to work tomorrow.

School was its normal self today. I learned things, I did homework, I ate breakfast consisting of two bowls of cereal (Corn Flakes and Special K). Then I went home and did more homework, specifically the new programming assignment that’ll be due next week. Already it seems I’ve completed most of it, and just in time by the look of things. The professor said that next week we’ll be going over different material and no longer concentrating on what the assignment entails, so it’s good that I got the majority of the work out of the way early. It’ll give me more focus towards concentrating on this new stuff (stacks and queues on Tuesday, double linked lists on Thursday).

Still, there are a few weird things going on with my program. It’s a bit complicated to explain, especially since I don’t completely understand it myself. Suffice to say, it “seems” to do the job, but it does it in a rather quirky manner. I suppose so long as it fulfills the requirements I shouldn’t complain, and anything more I want to have would just be cosmetic.

I almost forgot to post today. I spent most of my time trying to study for my math exam, but since I was at work it was tough to concentrate. I did manage to make some progress towards further, if not better, understanding of the material, though I’m still a long way from claiming omnipotent knowledge.

One of the watch bay doors fell and cracked the mirrored glass. It broke so hard that the lock came off. It is my suspicion that the sales clerk just wasn’t paying attention to the door and let it drop down to hit against the drawers. Either that or she misjudged the weight of it (which isn’t very heavy). This isn’t the first time it’s happened.

I went over to Maile’s house after work for some dinner. Instead of studying, we watched some Rurouni Kenshin and a bit of the special features on the Monsters Inc DVD.

When I pulled into her driveway, I noticed that her mom’s car was gone. Maile’s mom had gone to Vegas eariler in the week, so I thought that she had come home already and was either out or hadn’t returned from work. However, I found out that Keoni had taken the car. It seems that the mom gave Keoni permission to use the car only during specific conditions. First, he could use it if he had an appointment such as for the doctor, or a job interview (yeah right). Second, the grandmother had to accompany him. I thought these were more than reasonable terms for some bastard who’s about as trustworthy as the DFS vice president. Yet it seems the grandmother did not accompany Keoni, and he did not have any such appointments scheduled. Though he denies it, we highly suspect he went over to Josephine’s house (the “first woman”) because he came home with a gigantic hickey on the side of his neck. Maile was, understandably, annoyed and angry, but I think that will pale in comparison to how the mom will feel when she finds out.

Came home and watched some of the UH football game on delayed broadcast. During that time I worked on my coding assignment and made rather significant progress. There are stilll a few bugs, and in my current state of mind I can’t seem to comprehend what it is I’m doing wrong. Perhaps tomorrow will hold greater success in my endeavors, but if that fails, I can always email the professor or TAs.

Learned about Vectors in 211 today. Vectors are cool data structures that can hold any sort of Object (that’s a programming-related term) and can expand itself if more information is stored.

I had an interesting discussion with Maile a little while ago. She mentioned how there are times when she is tired that she has a bit of a problem listening to people talk. My theory behind that can be explained with a bit of imagery:

When someone starts talking to you, engaging in some intellectual dialogue, your mind forms a box inside your head. This box is empty. As the person speaks, what they say is stored by you into this box. You use this box to hold whatever is spoken, and you constantly refer back to the box’s contents to discuss particular topics. This constant referencing and sorting and scanning of the box’s contents is a tremendous drain on one’s intellectual energy. On a normal day, a person can manage this energy loss and feel no ill effects. However, when a person is tired, there is simply too much energy to spend on the sorting of your mind-box, and instead that box becomes a garbage can. As the person speaks (blah blah blah) it gets dumped into the garbage can and some imaginary garbageman comes along and removes it. You no longer contain what that person was talking about, and if you try to concentrate it seems like your brain just became fuzzy, and as a result people think you just aren’t listening.

I’ll bet you’re not listening now.

Since you’re not listening, I will end this by saying Fairuza Balk is one hot woman. Just thinking about her is enough to make me drool.

I somewhat finished my applet for ICS 211. Fixed a bug involving the deletion of pets. If there were two pets of the same name, and you wanted to delete the second one, the program would only attempt to delete the first, and never move on to the second. I fixed it by requiring not only the pet’s name, but the owner’s name. Unfortunately, I haven’t solved this other glitch where the program accepts duplicate entries. I used to have a check that ran to see if a pet’s name and owner’s name were already in the database, but when I converted the program to an applet, it didn’t seem to work. At least I have a whole week to ask for help.

Today I wore one pair of those women’s hiking socks. They fit well, as expected, and were a bit more comfortable than what I used to wear. Shoes are shoes, though, and when standing around all day, feet hurt no matter what you wear. When I got home my feet had an imprinted pattern on the top. That’s what happens when you wear socks like that.

Today I kept craving a cigarette. My mind tried to justify the craving, but thankfully the mere thought of having to shell out $6 kept it to a minimum. Maile said my mind is not ready to quit smoking, and I believe her. I just feel I should “get a head start” on quitting, and now is as good a time as any. I must maintain my discipline, and hopefully this discipline will spill over to other areas, such as car maintenance and my homework.

Woke up early and went down the street to vote. Stupidly enough, there was a chicken sale going on at the same time at the same location, so the parking lot was jammed full of people trying to pick up their chicken and trying to vote.

I bought some socks and shorts at Sports Authority, afterward. I ended up getting women’s socks because they had no men’s socks in my size. I wanted some lightweight hiking socks, the kind that wick away moisture or whatever it is they are supposed to do, and the women’s socks were the only ones in my size. So long as they fit, there’s no problem, and it’s not like the fashion police will come breaking down my door. I think.

I then went to the DFS car wash. I figured that soon, that car will be traded in, so it wouldn’t hurt to get it cleaned up, at least on the outside. Oddly enough, when I left my car didn’t look any different.

Work was dreadfully dreadfully slow. I think were it not for the toothpick in my mouth I would have gone insane.

On a happy note, I finished my applet program. There are a few bugs left, and there are probably a million ways I could have made it more effective, but those things can wait until I return to class and ask questions.