Fear the Crab

I dreamt that I was getting ready to go out, and I was running a brush through my hair. Instead of the usual crop-cut that I have, my hair was as long as it used to be back in high school, that sort of local boy surfer style. I tried to get it to look nice, but there were bulges I couldn’t get down in my hair, so I decided to go for that bed-head look and use some gel. Then the dream changed a bit, and I was sitting inside a salon and I was going to have my hair colored. However, the person doing the coloring used the wrong oil. Instead of using the FN brand of oil required for a lustrous deep and rich color, by mistake she used a bottle of fn dandruff shampoo. After she was finished, my hair was as long as it was during college, and it was dyed blonde. She was very apologetic, especially when she explained that I couldn’t wash my hair and it wouldn’t cut, so I was stuck with that hair forever. I met Maile afterwards and tried to explain the situation to her, but she didn’t seem to quite understand it all.

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.

We got slammed today at work. It was as busy as we had been in years past, but I have to take into consideration that back then we had a lot more people on staff. Perhaps it was simply because we are short-handed that it felt busier. After all, in the duty free section there used to be 4 people working any given night; now it’s just 2.

Maile called me after work. She had some trouble falling asleep, so we talked for a good hour, even after I finally reached home. Having insomnia sucks eggs, especially if one has to wake up early the next day. Maile usually has an early run on Saturdays, and often wakes up at 5 to get in to the lab. I hope she’s all right tomorrow.

George won’t be working tomorrow. I found that out when I saw him tonight as I started and he was leaving. I don’t know if he has vacation or switched a day off, but it doesn’t really matter to me because it’s his time off. He’s not one to normally take a day off just because he feels like it. Tomoko made some kind of wisecrack about calling him in to work, saying that I was going to call in sick. After she said that, the thought briefly occurred to me that I, too, could use a day off. I have two exams next Thursday, one of which is the dreaded Discrete Math. Top that with the homework assignments that I have due for both classes, and that doesn’t leave much time to get any studying done. The 211 homework can actually substitute for studying, because the coding itself will be similar to what I’ll have to do in that exam. That doesn’t mean I can rest easily, however, because a lot of my programming is done through heavy references to my notes and materials.

Speaking of notes, for both classes I will be allowed to bring in one 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper with whatever notes I want, and use it in the exams. I wanted to use my time tonight to jot some things for the 241 test, but as mentioned before, work was too busy to even take a glimpse at my current pile of notes. I also need to consider how I’m going to format my “cheat sheet.” I plan to use both sides of the paper (it’s allowed), but I haven’t decided if I’m going to write all my notes or use the tiniest legible font on my computer. The problems with doing it by hand are that I may not recognize my own writing, there won’t be much organization, and I may lose efficient space. The problem with doing it on the computer is the risk that a special symbol may be lacking, forcing me to leave some space to fill it in by hand.

Forgot to mention in previous entries that my mom’s painting was shown in the local paper. There’s an article about an art fund raiser for the REHAB hospital, and the sole painting displayed is the one made by my mom. The only time I ever had my name in the paper was when I was on the high school bowling team and scored a 222. Coincidentally, that was the only game we had ever won, and it was against Iolani. My name was written in the sports section (obviously) in the tiniest font possible. I think someone clipped that statistic article, but I have no idea where it is after 12 years. Anyway, I’m currently trying to find a way to either scan or digitize her painting, so I can post it on the web page.

Went with Maile to LCC as she took a Psychology test. I spent the idle time studying for my 211 quiz that’s coming up Thursday. There was the very rancid smell of manure towards the back of the campus, and I thought some toilet had overflowed because I only smelled it when I went past the bathrooms to get something to drink. Maile told me afterward that was the Agriculture department. I guess they have a full garden/crop field or something. There’s a lot of brush behind the campus, so it’s plausible that it’s back there.

Keoni irritates me to no end. Perhaps I’m making too big a deal of this, but there are just things people do that piss me off. One such thing is saying, “I going take some cigarettes, okay?” To me, that is the rudest thing you could say to someone. The polite thing to say is, “May I have some cigarettes?” or something to that extent, where the request is actually a request. A question, if you will. Not some statement of what you’re going to do. That’s just assuming the other person will be okay with it.

Not to mention, he took over half of her pack.

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.

Blah. Work was blah. At least I sold a Bvlgari watch. It was only $945, but that’s more than what I have in my bank accounts.

Visited Maile for a couple of hours after work. I ate two grilled cheese sandwiches and some bacon. I first felt like eating fried rice, but easily changed my mind to grilled cheese. I’m easy to please, that way. The bacon was thrown in because it was offered, and I am not one to turn down food.

I’m feeling rather awake right now, which is bad, because it’s another school night.

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.

I woke up late in the morning, at around 1030 hours. I was feeling a bit peckish, so I paged Maile and asked her to lunch. I first wanted to go to Anna Millier’s, because I wanted breakfast food, but Maile wanted to go to Denny’s. It made no difference to me, so we parked across from Denny’s and crossed the street, only to find out they were closed for renovations! Since that was a no-go, we tried Anna Miller’s, but the parking was terrible. All the stalls were filled and there were cars waiting in line. We got out, and went to Ronnie’s across the street. It’s an ice-cream parlor/burger place, which reminds me of a place long ago that had the same atmosphere, whose name eludes me right now. I’m sure there are people out there that can remember the long-ago place I am talking about.

At Ronnie’s, I had the Byron’s Bacon Cheeseburger and Maile had the Leonard’s Grilled Mahi Sandwich. Even though I originally wanted breakfast food, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have a good burger. Maile had a 22 oz fruit punch, while I had a 22 oz Buzzing Benny, which is nothing more than a chocolate and coffee milkshake. After that meal the two of us were very full.

After lunch at Ronnie’s, I smoked my last cigarette. I had told myself that after this particular pack, I would quit and try to make it stick this time. The last cigarette in the pack came and went, and I went the rest of the night without a drag. I’ve been using toothpicks whenever the urge hits me, but it hasn’t even been 24 hours yet, so I can’t tell if I’m going into withdrawal or not. So far the toothpicks have been working, and I have not yet given in to temptation.

I first dreamt that I had my new truck, and everyone from the dental lab wanted to come down and check it out. The only problem was, they came very late at night, when we were asleep. I woke up to show them the truck and give them all a ride, because I didn’t want my dad to get upset at them, and instead of being a pickup it was one of those multi-passenger trucks, lifted, with leather seats. I remember trying to drive it and I was having a hard time because the steering wouldn’t respond and the suspension was just too loose. Suddenly I became embarrassed because these were Maile’s friends and co-workers, and here I was making a fool of myself for getting a truck and not being able to handle it. At the same time I was getting upset at her co-workers because they kept wanting me to drive like an off-road maniac, going down dirt paths and bumps and rises. I felt the truck go off-balance and tip over, rolling end over end until it crashed against a hill. I asked if everyone was okay, and nobody responded. Then I found myself in a prison of sorts, except I was a third-person amorphous entity that was just watching. Each cell was made of concrete stone slabs with a single window, and I was visiting each one in turn and looking at its occupants. I heard a voice saying that these criminals were those that could not function properly in society, and so were condemned here for the rest of their immortal lives. The word immortal stood out, and I realized that this was an elven community, and these criminals were spending eternity locked up in cold dark cells. The voice that was speaking was one of the jailers, who was checking each cell to make sure the criminals were behaving properly. In one cell, a bunch of criminals were talking to one guard, and when the jailer checked on that cell, he asked what the guard was doing inside. There was a brief conversation, and then guard left the cell. As the two walked away, the leader of that cell’s occupants reached forward, and plucked the door key that was still inside the lock, courtesy of the guard. Then the elven criminals turned into these jelly-like, blob-shaped aliens, armed with devastating weapons. They broke out of the cells (for there were more than a few) and unleashed havoc upon the elves. I watched and moved among them as they rounded up elves and tortured, maimed and killed them all. Then I began to control the actions of one person in particular, a woman with the powers of Superman, who was busy finding stragglers and hiders. Here it turned into a roleplaying session, as I would speak the moves she would make, the words she would say, where she would go, and the woman would act it out as though I were directing a show. There was one straggler left, and he put up some resistance, and here it seemed like he wasn’t “playing by the rules” because he kept ignoring the fact that the woman had Superman powers and he was just ordinary. Yet I couldn’t do anything about his uncooperation because the game just continued. I (controlling the woman) chased the straggler around the complex, and he led me to a strange room, a training room, where he had summoned the real Superman, and I thought o shit I’m dead. I had the woman retreat full speed out of there, and Superman flew after her, just as fast down the corridors. I remember the anxiety of the chase, and thinking that the alarm should be sounded so that Superman can play with all those aliens instead of beating me up. The alarm did sound, and while Superman was distracted, I had the woman go to an area I (we) had visited earlier, which was the “end of the level.” The woman grabbed two magazines and entered into the next area, but she had to hide the magazines somewhere for later retrieval. Inside the women’s restroom, I checked various places where she could hide it, and also remember where she hid it. There was a noise outside, and I thought crap Superman and his cronies have entered this area and are going to begin a search and they’re going to find us and I’m going to be in trouble. I tried to open a locker as quietly as possible, and when I got it opened I saw that it was just a door leading to nowhere, only a blank wall with metal-like pipes. And no place to hide magazines.

I woke up and my body felt like it was sunk halfway into the bed. My arms and legs were inert and I doubt they would have responded had I wished them to. It was the best feeling I’ve ever had upon waking up, and it made me go back to sleep for another hour and a half. Perhaps my body was completely relaxed, and if that’s the case, I want it to happen again.

George had a date this evening with two people he met while at work. Depending on their mood, they either went to Duke’s for a bite to eat, or maybe TGIFridays. I’ll get an opportunity to ask him on Wednesday.

Went over to Maile’s house after work, and it was time well-spent. Even though to others it would look like we weren’t doing anything, simply being there was important. A part of me misses the old days where I could spend most of the week with her. Yet there’s another part of me that thinks this haphazard schedule may prove a blessing in disguise, since by seeing less it makes each moment all the more special.

I have to get to bed early, so I can wake up in time for my hair cut appointment. I’m going to go for the buzz-look again.