<journal>

Thursday, August 15, 2002 at 10:20 p.m.
Poem of the week, 8/11 - 8/17

I figured I should catch up on this. :-)


A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
And shout from where I am, 'What is it?'
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

~Robert Frost, from "Mountain Interval"

Thursday, August 15, 2002 at 09:58 p.m.
Well, I'm moved in already...

Yep. All moved into my new residence. It's a weird feeling, but maybe that'll change once I start to get to know people better... everyone I'm really meeting is in my section or in my room. So... maybe I should go outside and work on that a little... or not. I'll just wait for an old friend to sign on.

But I did get everything moved in alright, and now we're going to Davis for FTP (Fall Training Program) which promises to be strenuous beyond any backcountry hikes we went on in Yosemite which were rated that way in the guide. Speaking of which, we did at least 4 of those, the best (and most difficult) of which was to the summitt of Mount Hoffman, which I had done once before, but never with my mom, brother, and aunt. It was quite an ordeal. But the view was fantastic and worth every step. We also went to Gaylor Lakes and the (former) Great Sierra Mine, and to Kuna Lake (which was much steeper than it looked on the map) and some other little things.

Back to FTP, it seems to be fun. They say that there are no guaranteed spots in the band and that the last "audition" is your performance at FTP Davis, so I guess I'll just work hard. I can't not be in the band, otherwise I get to roam the streets with the rest of the homeless berkeley non-residents. No, not really, but it would suck to have to find a place. I'm confident I will get a place in the band, however. I need it, and want it, and I will show it.

Dinner tonight was good. Well... not too bad, anyway. We (the entire clarinet ('net) section) went to some cool restaurant on telegraph to bond. It was good. Everyone is nice and welcoming to me.

My parents called me around 9 tonight. They weren't worried, but my mom and dad did cry when they left, and for good reason I guess. I am leaving home, going off on my own, etc. They'll be back for our first game in two weeks (on the 28th), with my very own laptop :-). But it'll be more for them than just a delivery. They'll come to every game, I think (or at least my dad will)--- even if it is an 8 hour drive. Thanks. ::

Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 09:37 a.m.
I'm Back!

Hey all who may be reading out there in internetland,
I'm back from my 1.2 week vacation in Yosemite and I'm getting ready to move in to my room at Berkeley! Yay! But that's tomorrow. Today, I'm in my grandparents' house in San Jose getting everything squared away and stuff. And laundry. That too.

In other news, I came back to a hoarde of 103 e-mails in my inbox, 96 of which were spam. We have to find some way of getting rid of this crap soon. It sucks. If every e-mail address in the US gets, say, four spam emails a day (it's more like 7 for me, I'm sure it's more for many others), then that's about one billion spam e-mails (assuming every person in the US has an average of one e-mail address, as many people have 2 or more, and some have none). Assuming an average message size of 10KB, that's 10 trillion bytes, ten TERABYTES of useless data streaming over our internet pipes, not including every useless byte that gets sent in and out of the US.

Anyway, gtg for now. I shall return with another entry for tomorrow, once I get my computer up and running again. ::

Thursday, August 1, 2002 at 11:54 p.m.
Well, this is the last one for at least two weeks :-)

Yep. I'm going camping. No technology for two weeks. Except a digital camera. And the car. But that's it! One last trek with the family... and then up to Berkeley to move in! Yeah! I met my roommates today on the phone/e-mail, and I'm very happy with them (they can pay me later, if they're reading this :-). Yes, well... I'll tell about moving in when I move in, right now I'm just moving out, and that's an ordeal in itself. It's almost done now, though, and it should all come together tomorrow. And then we leave! Yay!

To all my friends, I know I'm leaving you physically for a while, but like I've always told you (I think...), this is not goodbye, never goodbye, we'll always be together, always in touch, and we'll see eachother soon enough. Until then, we each have our adventures, and I wish you luck.

To all in Tempest: I'm dumb. I'm really sorry I didn't come to opening night... and it was really stupid too... for no reason other than that I'm a flake and I forgot. I will get a tape, but it won't be the same. I'm so sorry.

To the world: here I come. B-)

Wednesday, July 31, 2002 at 10:28 p.m.
Le jour après le soirée...

The day after the party.
I awoke (surprisingly) to a completely clean house. I love my parents. They cook, they eat, they laugh, they leave us alone, and they clean up after us. Amazing. I don't know how they live with me. Maybe it's that... that they won't be living with me for the rest... of their lives... wow, I never thought of that. Well I did, but not really, you know, not from their point of view... wow.

Well, other than that, not much going on... it's the last day of July... I think I'll watch the month change on my computer tonight, I've never done that before...

On Saturday we leave for Yosemite, and I leave home, never to come back to live, (I hope). I have to clean out my entire room tomorrow, and I'll box up my computer on Friday. So, you know what that means? That Friday will be my last entry for at least two weeks, more likely a whole month. I won't even have e-mail contact. All this because I don't set up my computer until three weeks from now, when we get back from Band Camp (FTP -- fall training program) at Davis and start it at Berkeley. Only then do I really move in to live at Tellefsen Hall, and only then do I have an internet connection. But I don't get my laptop until my first football game, August 28th, when my parents bring it up with them.

I'll live. In fact I'll probably live better for three weeks. Less virtual, and more reality. I hate to say it, but I need it. Ha! and I'm going into computer science... ::

Wednesday, July 31, 2002 at 1:03 a.m.
After the party, 1 AM

Wow, what a star party. It wasn't what I envisioned it would be, but more what I thought it would be. It turned out we did very little stargazing through telescopes, although quite a bit with the naked eye. The peak of the star part of the star party was a 5 minute speil on the constellations. That was fun, actually.

But that said, the party part of the star party was better than I envisioned. Many people showed up, and we had a hard time cramming everyone on one futon-bed in the middle of the lawn. That was fun, actually.

The food was good, the talk was merry and lude and yet somehow appropriate, and the stars were, as I expected, beautiful. I couldn't have chosen a better night to just sit under the stars with all my friends and talk. Plus the Delta Aquarids were very entertaining.

One friend brought her laptop, and we were listening to music way out in the middle of the lawn with every light possible turned off, and when we got a song request from someone that we couldn't fulfil, we went and hooked up the network cord and borrowed my internet connection for some downloading. Very convenient. I can't wait till I get my laptop.

So I'd say it was a success. We all had fun. I will cherish the memories of lying under the stars on a warm summer night making up constellations ("Box!"/"Uhh... no, that's casseopia..."/"Well it's latin for 'box,!'"/"Right...") and listening to music on tinny speakers and talking about 11th grade and wishing on shooting stars-- I will cherish those memories forever. ::

Tuesday, July 30, 2002 at 09:41 a.m.
The Party!!

Hey all, Tonight is the party. It's going to be great -- I've compiled a list of things we're going to try and find, and constellation map(s), and sky charts, and telescopes, and food, and tic-tacs (they were on sale..) and and and... I'm so excited. No one will probably read this by the time the party starts, but whatever. I can still rave about it. Anyway, I must continue to prepare (aka clean the house). ::

Sunday, July 28, 2002 at 02:16 p.m.
Poem of the... week.

Yes, a poem of the day is excessive. So, here is the poem of the week: Philip Larkin's "Born Yesterday," which he wrote for Sally Amis, the daughter of his friend and fellow poet Martin Amis, whose daugher was, I assume, Born Yesterday when Larkin wrote this.

Born Yesterday
for Sally Amis

Tightly-folded bud,
I have wished you something
None of the others would:
Not the usual stuff
About being beautiful,
Or running off a spring
Of innocence and love--
They will all wish you that,
And should it prove possible,
Well, you're a lucky girl.

But if it shouldn't, then
May you be ordinary;
Have, like other women,
An average of talents:
Not ugly, not good-looking,
Nothing uncustomary
To pull you off your balance,
That, unworkable itself,
Stops all the rest from working.
In fact, may you be dull--
If that is what a skilled,
Vigilant, flexible,
Unemphasised, enthralled
Catching of happiness is called.

--Philip Larkin, 20 January 1954
::

Sunday, July 28, 2002 at 01:30 p.m.
More on the Star Party, and a sky report.

Today was quite productive. I woke up around 8 and washed my mom's car ('cause she had to go to LA and she didn't want it dirty), and then mowed the lawn, and did some yard work, and cleaned the kitchen. I cleaned it spotless yesterday and by thismorning it looked just the same as it did before... if not worse. Whatever. I cleaned it again, and it better stay clean until Tuesday.

The stars were very nice last night. At first I thought I wasn't even going to be able to see the milky way, or any of the open clusters (M6, M7, wild duck, etc.) near its center like I had so easily for the few days a few weeks ago when the moon was new. But I sat out there for a while, looking away from all the lights and straight up at the sky, and in about fifteen minutes, I could see the very dark sky just as I remembered, with all those thousands of stars, and the big glowing band across the east. Beautiful. Then I turned out all the lights in the house, and it was even better, of course. It'll be better for the party, as I couldn't find the switch for the outside table and landscape lights, which, when your eyes are very adjusted to the dark, look like floodlights. I just moved as far as possible away from them, and once Saggitarius rose, went for M22 -- a magnitude 5.2 globular cluster. I was surprised how well I could see it in my little telescope -- a 60mm Parks Optical f/12 refractor with a Plossl 10.5mm eyepiece. It was a fuzzy glow that took up about 1/4th the field, not very bright, but very recognizable. I've put M13 down to find tomorrow night, and possibly M81, as I've heard it's a great galaxy for small telescopes. I've compiled a long list like this for the party.

The only thing I'm worried about for this party is cloud cover... that would be bad. Last night it was almost entirely clear, but when I came inside and worked on my computer for a couple hours, until about 12:30, I turned out the lights to go to bed and looked out the window only to see a blank but completely dark sky. That is a weird sight when you've been looking at celestial objects all night. Oh well, that was at 1, and the party should be over by midnight, with most of the viewing over by 11 because of moonrise... just hope the fog doesn't condense earlier, I guess. Fortunately I live in a small town without many bright lights... and especially because I live on the east edge of the city (literally -- my back fence is the city limit), there are no lights whatsoever in the east part of the sky. It's very nice. And with the house lights off, the sky is completely dark. I'm looking forward to it -- if only for the viewing opportunity. :-) ::

Saturday, July 27, 2002 at 08:52 p.m.
More stars... and Goldmember

Well... I didn't do much today. Woke up. Had breakfast. Ordered IBM ThinkPad R31, and cleaned the house. I also updated my web site, and I think you know where to see that... triswebpage. Other than that, not much is going on. I'm going out right now to find some things to show people at the star party (which is private btw, if you think you should be invited, email me).

Here's a short review of Austin Powers Goldmember: funny. Not much else applies, unfortunately. But there are a lot of great jokes that still make it worth seeing. I remembered one where no one else laughed much but me, see if you can find it. I can't remember. It was some oxymoron that was just genius... but the end of the movie wasn't very good, nor was the plot, and it was sicker than the other two, that's for sure. Still, go see it. Okay, I know I should stop when I contradict myself twice... yep. ::

Friday, July 26, 2002 at 04:14 p.m.
Star Party, and Digital Everything

I am beginning to get excited about my upcoming star party. We already have about 15 people and 4 telescopes, and from studying the charts (well, the real-time digital charts), it looks like we'll be able to see a lot. I'm going to mow the lawn Sunday and move the picnic table out there, and then run an extention cord and a network cable from the house for the laptop. I have to get a lot of red cellophane too... to cover flashlights and the laptop screen. Oooh! I'm so excited.

On another note, I've been copying quite a few CD's lately, which always reminds me subconsiously of its technical illegality. I actually buy more CD's today than I did a few years ago, before the rise of music-sharing. I find quite a few new artists who I really like, and go out and buy a CD; or a friend will give me a reccomendation, and I'll go download a few tracks and (if they're a good friend ;-) buy the CD. This may have to do with the lacking speed of my internet connection... we're still on 56k. DSL finally became available this year, but my dad doesn't agree that we need extra bandwidth (or more likely, extra bills). So I'm stuck with 5 KB/sec downloads on average. I don't download whole albums. I can't. Plus I'm an audiophile and MP3 compression isn't very nice -- I tune it out most of the time, but when I'm listening to a real CD it's so easy to tell the difference. I encode most of my CD's in WMA format now. Microsoft says that 64Kbps is CD quality, so I encode at 128Kbps. It's pretty hi-fi. All my mp3's are at 160Kbps if I didn't download them. I figure my hard drive's big enough that I can fit about eight times my current collection anyway, so I'm not worried. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I got singled out as a music-pirate and they raided my hard drive... that'd be interesting. Hehe... or not. It also scares me that they can technically do that -- they can take anyone they want and fine them up to $10,000 for each pirated track. But they don't. Thank God for that. But there is the MDCA (Millenium Digital Copyright Act), which is a step away from where everyone wants to go. I think it's the music industry's problem. They can't ignore this, they can't say it isn't happening, and they can't try to stop it -- It's not possible. They just need to find a way to make a profit off what still is possible. Their subscription services aren't working, and I doubt they will anytime soon. Only after they actually have decent services to offer will people pay for them. Right now all they're offering is something anyone can get for free, and millions have had for free for years now. The only difference is the legality. And once people have had something for free, it's doubtful that they'll go back to paying for it, especially when the free service is still available. The problem for the music industry is that they can't shut down the free services -- what they can do, though, is one up them. They need to offer something the public will want to have, and something they can't get for free. I have a lot of ideas, of course, but I've gone on for too long. But hey, if the RIAA wants my totally ingenious ideas, all I ask in exchange is for them to waive all my accounts of "music pirating." Arrrr. Them be the terms. Ye must accept them or ye be goin' off the plank. ;-)

What an essay I wrote there... pretty cool. Don't even get me started on other kinds of piracy... just, don't. All I'm saying is that with the advent of a universl digital network (that would be the Internet...), all media that can be put in a digital format is becoming public goods. In case you don't remember high school economics, that's when a good is both non-rival in consumption and non-exclusionary. That means that consumption of the good does not prevent others from enjoying the same good, and that the good is available to everyone. Like TV signals. But the distributors of the former-non-public goods now need to capitalize on them in a totally different way. Like cable TV instead of signals -- better quality and more channels -- for a price. I don't know, tax the bandwidth or something -- ten cents a megabyte of audio data, 20 cents for video, etcetera. I don't know.

And now I'm off to see the new Austin Powers movie, Goldmember. Or maybe I'll just download it. I don't know. ::

Thursday, July 25, 2002 at 10:12 p.m.
Real Breakfast is good.

I think food actually gives one energy. I came to this conclusion after a small experiment -- I ate breakfast. The result was that I came home, designed a web site for my mom, fixed my telescope, improved my digital camera telescope mount, cleaned the kitchen, sent a few more invitations to my party, wrote a 12 bar blues MIDI track to jam to, jammed for a while on flute, and then had lunch. Yeah. Cool. Now all I have to do is start cleaning out my room... great. I still have things under my bed from when I stuffed them there 4 years ago. Mainly old school binders and stuff... just need some boxes.

The web site of the day is Jeff Duntemann's ContraPositive Diary. This guy is sharp, writes great stuff every day, and manages to make it all interesting. It's so much better than this pathetic self-centered diary -- maybe you should go there instead of here... but keep coming back here... please ;-).

On a lighter note, the peak of the Perseid meteor shower is August 12th through early in the morning on the 13th. The real peak is technically at noon on the 13th, but we can't see meteors at daytime... so yeah. I'll be in Yosemite then (:-) so I'll have an unobstructed and completely dark view, hehe.

Still need to order my laptop... my dad wants to have me just take the laptop, he thinks I don't need both a desktop and a laptop... I disagree, for he overlooks the true purpose of my desktop computer -- something the laptop will never be able to do -- gaming! It's also the reason I'm going to invest yet another $300 in a new ATi Radeon 9700 video card... [drool]... but I still need ("need") the laptop for working at places my desktop isn't. And for the wireless networking... yay... Berkeley's wirelessly connected in like 6 places on campus... and in the town I'm sure there's tons more access points. I'll have to go warchalking one day :-). That's where you go around town searching for wireless access points and then mark the area with chalk with the network ID and other info. I heard it's fun, plus then you can go get bandwidth anywhere you want. Especially in the bay area... there's more wireless than anywhere else in the world :-). Okay, that's enough for today. Whew! ::

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 at 04:05 p.m.
Optometrist, Classes, and Camera

Went to the eye doctor today. Found out I have 20/20 vision even with a 1/4 diopter astigmatism in my left eye. Oh well, still good. I'll just use my right eye for the telescope eyepiece :-).

Signed up for classes today, phase 2. Just Math 1A with serganova... hope he/she's good, couldn't find any reviews. But the class fit into my schedule nicely. So... I have nothing but a 2 hour cs3 lab on thursday. Ahh, sleep :-).

I really like the new digital camera. It's so quick, and small not to mention. You can really snap some nice shots of anything. I carried it around in my pocket today going places and whenever the opportunity came up, click! pretty easy, very convenient. Canon digital ELPH S200 (although the 330 is supposed to be nicer for a little more... 3x optical zoom is the only diff). ::

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 at 12:16 a.m.
Early in the morning...

Can't seem to make myself go to bed before midnight. Too bad, I need sleep. :-)

An uneventful day, for the most part. I did take the digicam out with the telescope last night to look at the moon... with astonishing results! I got some excellent wide-angle full-frame 1600x1200 shots of the full moon. And that through a little 60mm refractor! Well, at least it turned out I had the perfect eyepiece for astrophotography -- a Plossl 10.5mm. Very nice. So I made a mount today, and it's working nicely. I shall have pictures up on my photography page soon... with a new "Astrophotography" heading :-). Okay, now I really do have to go to bed. I have an eye appointment at noon tomorrow, my mom insisted I get one before I go off to college (just another week and a half plus two weeks vacation in Yosemite!). So, that's all for today. ::

Monday, July 22, 2002 at 12:16 p.m.
This is gonna be hard... :-(

Yes, four entries in one day, and none the next. This is turning out like my paper journal. Ugh.

But that's not so bad. I'll try to keep up a little. So... today, what's happening. Well my dad finally got back from Europe yesterday night (perhaps why I didn't write). He brought back 700 digital pictures which just manage to make me insanely jealous, though he said it was all work, and all the pictures were taken in a hurry. Fine. I'll get there someday. Well, at least we have the camera back. He bought it the day before he left; coincidence? I don't think so.

I finally found the laptop I want, and thanks to a friend at IBM, I can get $300 off :-). So I'm really excited about that. It's a ThinkPad R31 with a PIIIm 1.13GHz and a DVD and etc. Pretty nice, especially 'cause it's a ThinkPad.

Not much else happening. Planning a party for the 30th, or perhaps the 31st. A Stargazing party. But it sucks because we're right at the worst part of the moon phases to see anything interesting. The beginning of this month was great 'cause there was often no moon at all, but now you could litterally ride your bike at midnight without a light. But on the 30th it's below the horizon until 11, so that should work ok. Plus we'll get bored with it after a while anyway, so that'll work. I'll send out invitations soon. :-)

Saturday, July 20, 2002 at 10:52 p.m.
poem of the day

I thought I'd do this for a while, if I could keep up. It may turn into a poem of the week, or month, but for today:

To start us off, my favorite poem ever, "You Reading This, Be Ready" by William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life-

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

Saturday, July 20, 2002 at 05:31 p.m.
too many things to do...

It's late, already. Not very late, only 5:30, but it's not morning anymore, and that's sad. Time passes too quickly, and I have too many things I want to do.

I've been writing a lot lately, a bit of fan fiction based on His Dark Materials (see my first post today). All the rest I've read sucks, frankly... doesn't imitate pullman at all. So, that is my goal, simply -- to sound like the author himself. It's fun.

Oooh... I also have to do my mom's web site(s). That's a drag. All before tomorrow when my Dad get's home from Europe too... that's about 24 hours. Should be okay.

See, told you I was doing too much :-).

Saturday, July 20, 2002 at 12:11 p.m.


Hey! It's my second entry already. I customized the design quite a bit. Not as snazzy as a lot of other blogs I've seen, but still, it's better than any of the templates :-)

Umm... not much to say. I have to go mow the lawn now. :-(

Oh, on a seperate note, a friend of mine who dyed her hair red is writing a book on how technology has changed the way people communicate. She used to be with us here in town, but now she moved about 800 miles away, and we've been talking on windows messenger a lot, the whole lot of us, like 4 people at once talking. We used to do that in person. Well, these blogs are another example for her. It's an even more impersonal form of communication. Maybe I'll point that out for her :-)

ttyl

Saturday, July 20, 2002 at 10:23 a.m.


I've heard a lot about this weblog stuff, so I thought I'd try it out. It's not going to work very well, I don't think, but hey, whatever, it's worth a shot. And it'll be fun, right? Yeah.

So now for something interesting, right? Sure. Well, I just finished reading a book the other day. Actually it was last week, but I still haven't stopped thinking about it. It was The Amber Spyglass -- the last book in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. The first book is called The Golden Compass (or Northern Lights in Europe). You (yes, you) should read it, it's not like other fantasies, if you don't think you like them.

Also found a couple new songs I like... the first one has replaced Shawn Colvin's "If I Were Brave" as my favorite: "Ordinary Day" by Vanessa Carlton. Unfortunately there are only three good songs on her CD, not worth buying for three tracks. A really good CD I found though is Dee Carstensen's "The Map" -- Just about all the songs are really good. I like it. Reminds me of Shawn Colvin. So, there's my first log. Cool. Look back for more, maybe they'll be interesting, whoever you are. ;-)