Hello Kitty Fridge
My cube neighbor has a tiny personal fridge by her computer. I think it’s pretty neat! It can hold some fruit and a couple soft drinks, tops.
Baby
Last Sunday I went out to eat with some people from my small group and I asked the kids what movies they’ve seen recently and they said Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Iron Giant. I asked if they cried at the end of the movie and they said no and I told them I did and they asked if I was a baby (at the time I’m assuming).
Yes, a baby. A 21 year old baby.
Small talk
Lately I’ve had a few conversations that go like this:
Me: How’s it going?
Him: Pretty good, how are you?
Me: I’m ok, how are you?
Him: <pause> … good.
I think “I’m ok, how are you?” just kinda rolls of the tongue. I guess a person’s status doesn’t really change after only two seconds.
Hedgehog Calendar
I decided to make another calendar. I’ve been using this online printing service which I really like and is cheaper than local print shops but it’s still a bit more than I think most people would spend on a calendar.
If I discover I got the dates wrong I think I’m going to cry.
Hedgehog Doodles
I really need to finish that first module exercise … I feel like that hedgehog who’s envisioning his rainy destiny through the window.
I’m a little curious how many of these I can do…
Dragon Calendar
I originally thought I’d try making a small dragon rubber stamp for my small group’s make-it-yourself gift exchange but I was doodling away on the cintiq when I decided it’d be easier just to do a painting and print it as a calendar. Why whittle away at a little rubber pad when I can use the wonders of modern print technology to make my image. I spent way too much time with paint thinners back in the day.
I’m glad I finished and liked how it turned out, despite being Typical Chinese Dragon. It took most of yesterday and some of today to iron out all the details (the scales took forever). For some reason the thought occurred to me to try to do not one but twelve dragons, one for each month of 2012 (which is the year of the dragon, btw). I could sell it online! It could be an internet sensation! I could make a million dollars! Let’s see by my current readership I’d have to charge, hmm, $333,333.33 for each one. I’m pretty sure these figures are credible. I am a professional number cruncher after all.
I’m also starting to see a positive correlation with being invested in painting and the messiness of my room.
Space Heater vs. Hairdryer
Today I learned a space heater warms a room much better than a running hair dryer. I’m kinda wondering if it also dries hair a lot better than a running hair dryer but don’t really want to test that out.
Pastor Paul
A old Philly friend mentioned that my old pastor from Phiadelphia just moved and is in town working at a church downtown so I thought I’d stop by the evening service to say hello. It was a blast from the past! We chatted for a bit and I found out he lives pretty close to me, around where I almost bought a house earlier this year. We could have been neighbors! Even more bizarre is that I got to catch up with two other people I haven’t talked to in a couple years, and one let out a big “OMG!” (or something to that effect) when she saw me. It felt somewhat neat that I can instill a feeling of shock and mild terror when I tap someone on the shoulder.
Visiting Dad
I went to visit my dad in North Carolina over the weekend. There were a few things I remembered from growing up scattered around the house like that kneeling chair on the right (supposedly good for your posture), a Royal Dalton water filter, and this big Norman Rockwell artbook, which I’d probably appreciate a lot more now than as a kid. I think I also remember that same yellow shirt that he’s wearing from when I was growing up. I see my dad so infrequently that I notice remarkable aging each time I see him, and he’s starting to remind me a lot more of how I remember my grandfather.
North Carolina is very picturesque, serene, and non-asian. For whatever reason, my dad has always chosen non-asian places to live. I think you can tell you’re in a non-asian place when you see a sign for “Asian restaurant” that says “Chinese Food, Sushi & Steak.” Another indicator are t-shirts that say “Your girlfriend looks rougher than a dirt race track in the rain.”
Stats
It is full of questions! I think this is why I like my online stats class. Although I’m starting to think that the number of words and complicated formulas on the slide is somehow negatively correlated with my enjoyment of the subject. If only I could model that…
Enj = B0 + B1 Words + B2Words2 + B2 Formulas + … ah forget it.
5 Days of Work
Well I finished my video collage of work. Having lent my camera to Vashti (sorry you turned out blurry) over the weekend, I ended up just deciding to put together whatever footage I had. I think I learned several things:
- Holding a camera steady is hard.
- Shaky footage looks bad.
- I feel guilty making people uncomfortable when I point a camera at them.
- My computer wasn’t as powerful as I thought and was on it’s knees trying to process all the video effects.
Brute Force Method
In the past month and a half or so since I passed the exam I’ve been experimenting in cooking, riding my bike more (somewhat), and trying to learn how to play a third song on the guitar, Atmosphere, by Marie Hsiao (aka Mree), who’s a high school student from New Jersey. Not being musically gifted, I’m finding I resort to the brute force method of guitar learning:
That is: 1) listen to song in slow mo (over and over again), 2) write down notes (over and over again), 3) play (over and over again). I’m still on #3. I found the brute force method helped a lot on the exams in trying to solve quadratics and such without going through the tedium of algebra. Plug and chug (à la TI-30XS’ table function) FTW!
If anyone stumbles on this page looking for the tabs/tablature/sheet music for this song, you can get my version of it here. Caveat: I’m pretty sure it’s not 100% accurate.
A Clean Desk
I had been living in a rented room in a condo for the past four plus years or so and decided it was time to move. I have been shopping for a house but was motivated by a friend and my brother who both suggested I try to find a place to rent that’s better. One of the perks of moving is being able to go through all your stuff and discarding things that you don’t need or want anymore. Interestingly enough, the old tenant hasn’t moved out yet so I haven’t quite fully moved in yet so my stuff is still in boxes, almost begging a second look as to whether I still need them or not. Anyway, I did manage to set up my desk and it is rather nice to have a somewhat clean, minimalistic workspace. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this that way.
To be honest, though, the space underneath the desk is a mess of usb, power, audio, and antenna cords and it’s quite unsightly. But the previous tenant left his Rolling Stones covers calendar, so I have Taylor Lautner in a wet t-shirt to accent the space.
Having a clean desk is nice. Usually I balk at the thought of doing some studying at home (it was never that conducive to work at my old place I thought) but I’ve actually managed to get through some parts of the modules I have to complete, taking guitar breaks along the way. Anyway, it’s slightly a strange setup not being able to move in for an indeterminate amount of time (the previous tenant has been on honeymoon for the past few weeks or so) but I imagine it being some sermon illustration on being sojourners in this world, or developing patience, or something of that nature. Anyway, I finished learning another song on the guitar, and got started on another. My fingertips are pretty dented in from the strings.
Office Hallway
Lesson learned: if you’re dying to get strange looks from people, just set up your camera in the middle of a hallway and stand by it.
4 Study Days Left
As strange as it sounds, one thing that spurred me to get a camera was the light coming through the office windows at the end of the day. I really love this light. It makes everything look nostalgic.
So when everyone was gone yesterday, I set up my tripod, camera, and intervalometer and started taking photos until . . . I came back and discovered I ran out of batteries. Doh! Ah well. Below was all I got.
Not very exciting but hopefully I can make something more interesting and involved. I kinda want to set up my camera in the main hallway when everyone is coming into the building but I’m torn between artistry and not looking like a dork. Anyway, I managed to encode this in H.264 for all you brilliant people with flash deficient iPhones.
5 Study Days Left
Well I finished the last practice exam of my study manual (I have plenty more outside the manual) yesterday and my scores are as follows:
| Exam | Score |
| 1 | 29/35 |
| 2 | 27/35 |
| 3 | 18/35 |
| 4 | 28/35 |
| 5 | 26/35 |
| 6 | 27/35 |
| 7 | 30/35 |
| 8 | 23/35 |
| 9 | 25/35 |
| 10 | 18/35 |
I think the pass mark may be in the area of 21-23 out of 35 so on the whole fairly decent scores considering some of the exams are known to be on the harder side and considering I didn’t guess which may or may not have bumped up some of these scores by one or two points. But even knowing that I felt a bit defeated yesterday after an 18 and was hoping to finish strong.
I’ve been noticing that there are some days I actually choose to forgo studying and leave work a bit early. I think in my overly introspective ways I tend to project my life outward from where it is now to try to predict where it might end up (similar to Bayesian credibility, Chapter 42 , I guess) and the thought of long ending streams (cf Parametric Distributions, Chapter 2.3) of nights alone in an office studying makes me feel (cf Biased Estimators, Chapter 19.1.1) a bit, well, scared. I guess this is only a temporary phase in my life (cf Kernel Smoothing of Empirical Data, Chapter 25), but to be honest, I don’t want my life to be about … studying for tests (cf Hypothesis Tests, Chapter 33). I think I would have never have given this a second thought when I was younger (cf Kaplan-Meier estimators of single decrements, Chapter 22) but maybe age just makes time feel a bit weightier (cf Hypothesis Tests: Chi-Square, Chapter 36. This hypothesis tests places more weight on intervals of low fitted probability).
In other news I got a camera. (Um, letsee, Chapter 13 – Exposure Modiciations? That might be a stretch)
[Edit: hmm, upon further examination of my answers, I've discovered I worked out an answer to be 10/11ths, which was correct, and somehow I circled 11/10ths. Note to self: must remember what numbers look like]
20 Study Days Left
I just finished a practice exam. It was out of this world CUHRAYZEE hard. So crazy! So hard! What really irks me is that I remember doing some of these problems six months ago, and thought I knew how to do it, but after spending a while working through all the calculations, I look down at the answer choices and don’t see my answer! On the plus side, I’m definitely doing a lot better than six months ago, and people who have gotten comparable scores on these exams seem to be passing. It’s been a pretty long road.
So I spent most of memorial day at home at my desk and went out to get some sushi near this place near Cal State Northridge. On the drive back home I had this thought about looking back on life when you’re old and all of a sudden everything seemed a lot less cuhrayzee.
23 Study Days Left
I took my first practice exam and scored a 29 out of 35! (I think around 21 is passing) Granted it was one of the easier ones and I think I made good educated guesses on problems that I didn’t know how to do but it was somewhat relieving knowing that I’ve come a ways since six months ago. I started thinking of everything that has happened since I started studying for this exam almost a year ago and I was impressed at how much can happen in a year. And then depressed at how quickly time flies. And then repressed at how much I wanted to write about but never did. And then … forest? Mae West? Undressed? Hmm, must think of more rhymes…
On a random note, I decided to sleep the opposite way on my bed. I wouldn’t necessarily classify this change up as “fun” but it does make me look forward to sleeping somewhat. When I was younger I would always like to sleep at my friend’s place or in these sofa cushion forts and seeing as how I don’t have a sofa, I’m finding it a tad satisfying to my inner child to sleep differently.
29 Study Days Left
So my netbook (a poor man’s iPad) died and I was trying to figure out whether to get an iPad (I guess it’s a rich man’s netbook) when I got tired and started lying in bed. It dawned on me how out of control my feelings can get at times and I’m trying to figure out the heart of the matter because I think on the surface most people tend to think I’m this quiet polite guy. I think for a lot of things I’m pretty low key (like if I suddenly won a trip to Hawaii I might yawn a little) but there are some things I go complete bonkers about. I think it has a lot to do with expectations vs. reality and the disparity between the two can be quite jarring. I think at times we can all have wild imaginations on what might take place, what our life might be liked if everything panned out as planned, and start living toward those unrealistic expectations. I never thought imagination was a bad thing, but I suppose what’s the real killer is not understanding that it’s just imagination.
I ended up getting another netbook, which I think has slightly better video playback than my old one which I’m going to have to sadly retire. I’m going to miss the little guy as I’ve been using it practically everyday. I have 29 study days left until my exam, so it’s time to put my nose to the grindstone.
First Progress Bar Complete!
I finished my study manual for exam C! I was thinking of putting up even more progress bars of the different sample problems/practice exams I have yet to do before my exam on June 20th (I have quite a lot to keep me busy until then) but I can’t seem to think of anything more boring to watch. Letsee I can see how long it takes to eat 300 waffles. Or go through 2000 yards of dental floss. Or ingest 50,000,000 milligrams of sodium. That last one might be hard to keep track.
Progress bars have been my answer to everything lately. Need to lose weight? Progress bars! Put more money in savings? Progress bars! Change a tire? Progress bars! Find a spouse? Progress bars! Letsee, I’m currently at 0 for 1 in the spouse department. Only, uh… one more to go! Almost there!
Let’s Play Pushups
Well on a whim I decided to throw up a push up progress bar. I’m not sure how close I’ll be able to get to 10,000 pushups; that’s probably more than I’ve done in my lifetime. I figure I’m pretty far ahead of where I should be study wise so I thought I’d throw in something to distract me in the meantime. Although I’m not sure how my new lifestyle will change with my bulging biceps. I’ll probably have to adjust myself when I shake people’s hands so I don’t crush them with my unleashed power. Maybe I’ll have to sit differently during my exam sitting so I don’t break the keyboards with my massive arms. I’ll have to restrain myself when opening doors for people that I don’t totally blow them off their hinges. Think of all the doors I’d have to replace, and the embarrassment caused to myself, my friends, and my family. Wow, this is becoming more problematic than I thought.
Sunday, Day of Lightning
I’ve been feeling particularly anxious about something so I went to the prayer room today and while talking to the man there he mistakenly called me Thor! I thought I heard it all. I also thought the only form of my name left that I haven’t used is my full name, Theodore. I guess should I get bored with that one, there’s one more in reserve.
Now if he called me Thor, God of Lightning, that would be odd. Especially if he was praying to our Lord. Awkward…
Q-tips
So my coworker recommended I pop a zit today and against all warnings from the internet against pimple popping I went to the local CVS, bought some q-tips, isopropyl alcohol, and went to work and after 14 or so q-tips (they do come in rather large packages so I figured I’d use them liberally) I did manage to wash the area, sanitize the pimple, finish the surgical procedure, and disinfect the wound. I’m not sure why I’m writing this down, but I have a much greater respect for q-tips now. I attempted to graph the results:
OK maybe this is not that accurate as I don’t remember using q-tips before age 7 or 8sh and I’m not quite 35 yet. Ah well, life’s too short to be fiddling with graphs. Now if I only knew what to do with the rest of the box…
Unfunny Sunday
Someone at church mentioned that she prefers weddings in the smaller chapel more than the main sanctuary because it’s more homey. I asked her if by homey she meant ghetto. By the look on her face, she didn’t find that funny at all.
Sad Sunday
In the cafeteria today I was getting a salad and noticed someone pouring a healthy amount of olive oil on her slice of pizza. I thought that was a pretty odd topping. I guess if you think of it, pizza normally has olives and is oily in itsellf, so maybe the lady wanted to ramp things up a bit.
Yesterday while hurrying in to church I overheard someone saying, “you don’t want to sit on those seats of shame,” which I assume he is referring to as the seats in the back of the church. Hey, I’ve sat on those seats before! Are we not human too? If you prick us do we not bleed? Of course we all know that when you’re little, the front seats are really the seats of shame. So close to teacher! So nerdy! What a dork! The cool kids sat in the back. Ah, how quickly life doth change.
Later that day, I was talking with a friend and had one of those moments where the reality of one day seeing Jesus sunk in and I started crying. I hadn’t cried in quite sometime but I wouldn’t describe it as sadness or regret. I’m not sure if it was happiness either. It was, I guess, this overwhelming longing.
What kind of Sunday will I have next week? Tune in next time when…
Peaceful Sunday
Well it’s Sunday night and I’m out of power, studying by a small flashlight hanging on a lanyard from the ceiling fan overhead. I got the flashlight from Brookstone, not the usualy place I’d go to buy one but I ended up returning the electric massager I got at the white elephant gift exchange for a couple of these small flashlights which are proving to be quite handy since there’s not a whole lot to do when it’s dark. Being without power is strangely peaceful. Is this what it was like before the internet? It seems like those times were ages ago.
Anyway, I just finished Part 2 of 5 of my study manual, and cracking open Parametric models which is a fairly big section. The first chapter, Method of Moments, is pretty basic but sounds like it could be the name of a cool indy rock bank or movie1. I’d go see it by the title alone!
At church today there was this umbrella which was left drying by the door and everyone who passed by it would look because it had this interesting text written on it:
snow was general all
call me Ishmael
all we Karamazovs are such
I have not slept here all night
It was a little strange so I wrote these phrases down to look up later. I thought it was a little neat puzzle for me to try to figure out before the sermon started.
Well, not having power, I guess today has been a lazy peaceful Sunday. I took a short nap. I thumbed through a couple unread books on my shelf. I ate an apple and a cookie. I finished the section on Empircal models. I guess there’s still a lot you can do without electricity (batteries not included).
1 Most likely staring Robert Redford as an old man recounting the stories of his youth that made him, for better of worse, who he is today. This movie practically writes itself!
Calculating the bible
I must be accustomed to taking out my calculator every time I take out my mechanical pencil because in sunday school class I found myself with a calculator open in hand while listening to the sermon for a brief moment before nonchalantly putting in back in my backpack. I must have been dazed from losing an hour from daylight savings time and I tried to think of a reason for it to be out so I could look like I had known what I was doing but couldn’t come up with anything. Letsee if you add up the number of prophecies of Balaam and divide by the chapters ….
I’m sure I have no reason to be embarrassed. I mean who really watches other people take notes in class anyway?!?!
My Study Breaks
Well this is my best showing so far for a Tuesday puzzle. Since I do these on a computer, I actually tried screen capture recording this attempt to try to make a Let’s Play video out of it, even coming up with a commentary but alas, when I clicked save, it didn’t. Maybe I’ll try again next week but I’m going to have to try to find a different program to record. Then again I question how entertaining a video of someone not solving a crossword puzzle really is.
I did make one mistake. I saw T_EATER and immediately thought “Theater!” The clue was “Tab grabber.” Movie stubs are kinda like tabs aren’t they and the theater ticket tearer kinda grabs them from you … right?
It’s kinda strange doing these for me. There usually comes a point halfway through where I want to give up (and usually do) but sometimes I keep going and things kinda fit into place. Like 44 across’ clue was “One of a Disney septet” and I had _W_R_ to go with. I was thinking, “Happy? Grumpy? I don’t know all the dwarves! Forget it” and then at work I had a “Doh!” moment and realized the solution was much simpler than I thought. I get stuck a lot but it’s quite satisfying going on a roll and doing much better than you think you could do which is why I still try to whittle away at these.
One of the things that made it easier was that all the words could be typed on the left side of the keyboard (one of the clues gave it away). I thought that was neat! Well I don’t normally look at the answers so I guess I’ll never know (although I did manage to get some after the fact):
- SERGE: Twilled fabric (thanks R2)
- CB__S: People with handles
- TATTER: Rip to shreds (figured it out but a word that starts with TB? Clue: Way up a slope)
- EATAT: Trouble no end (TBAR? Ohhhkaaay….)
- DRESS: Promgoer’s buy (I suddenly feel quite dumb and happy at the same time)
