This blog as been in queue for quite some time. The magic has worn off but it is still significant.

Hitting the Wall

Every year, about this same time, I go through what marathon and distance runners call 'Hitting the Wall. This is, basically, the point in the run where a runner is totally depleated of energy and the muscles are fatigued to an extreme point. It pretty much feels like running with a piano on your shoulders.

Well, a couple weeks ago, I hit this point, but with school. Surviving a semester and a half of school is enough to wear anyone down. And for me, when I get too over loaded, I start to shut down and not start not caring about what happens. When this occurs, that's when the homework starts to build up. I start surfing the net more, I start missing class, I watch more TV, and I listen to music/go to concerts more. Well, this year is no different...except for one major detail: I want to graduate and not take any of this semesters classes over again. Ok, that was two reasons, but they are pretty much the same thing.

So with this in mind, I've had to trudge on. I'm still backed up in my homework, and with 2 weeks left of regular school to go, I have a lot of work ahead. One of the few saving graces has been that the weather is getting warmer. While it still sucks being in the IT computer lab while there is great weather outside, it won't be long before summer is here and this semester is over.

Now, I'm coming out from 'Hitting the Wall' and slowly getting my focus back. It's been hell trying to stay focused in this last stretch of school, but it very much resembles how I've run since 7th grade: Begin with a really good pace, pull back a bit to a good steady pace for the duration, get close to fatigue, but in the final few laps, give it everything I have for the remainder. So far, it's worked for me.

If it seems like there have been a few sports references in the past few posts, well, that's probably because I'm looking forward to playing soccer in the warm summer air. I can't think of anything better than a warm summer day on a freshly cut grass field, waiting for someone to play soccer on it. On my T-5 of favorite smells in the world, a freshly cut soccer field. It's been on there since high school.

Anyway, school is almost over and warm days are around the corner.

Boy, oh, Boy. Talk about March Madness There's been much activity the past couple weeks, and there's more to come. Homework...catching up with late homework...projects and presentations due...etc,etc,etc.

But rather than talk about school, all I have to say is: MY BRACKET IS SCREWED OVER !!! My only hope is UConn.

One of my brackets had Syracuse win the whole tournament. Mainly, I just wanted to see McNamara carry his team all the way. That was wishful thinking, but it would have been cool to see.

My other bracket has UConn winning. That's my only saving bracket. Other than that, its been a pretty exciting tourny.

Cinderella George Mason making the Elite 8. UCLA vs. Gonzaga. LSU beating Duke. Talk about unexpectedness. What would be awesome to see is UCLA back in the Finals. Last time I was rooting for the Bruins was when Bailey was playing for them.

Right now, UCLA is beating Memphis. Time to put more money on UConn.

Here is my list of Top 10 Things that must Go... Oops, wrong list. Here is my "Meme List".

Five Movies You Can Watch Over and Over:
1. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
2. Stargate
3. X-Men 2
4. Wayne's World
5. Terminator 2


Five embarrassing Songs that You Know All the Words To:
1. "Sk8ter Boi" - Avril Lavigne
2. "You were meant for me" - Jewel
3. "Barbie Girl" - Aqua
4. "Stronger" - Britney Spears
5. "Say You'll Be There" - Spice Girls


Five Memorable Halloween Costumes:
1. Brian Fellows - age 24
2. Batman - age 12
3. Vampire - age 10
4. He-man - age 9
5. Punk - age 7 (not a halloween costume, but worn for 'Punk Day' in 2nd grade)


Five Celebrities You Believe May Secretly be Alien:
1. Cameron Diaz
2. Kristen Dunst
3. Tom Cruise
4. Hayden Christensen
5. Marie Osmond


Five Occupations that You Know You Could Never Do:
1. Telemarketer: Cause it just sucks
2. Trophy wife: something tells me that I would not be good at it
3. BYU Honor Code Enforcer: umm...yeah
4. Sanitation Engineer: In a tie for dead last with #1
5. The 'Quick talking Legal/rule reader guy' at the end of Car/medicine/contest commercials on the radio: I can't talk in normal speed


Five Books You've Recently Read Outside of Schoolwork:
1. The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
2. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
3. Queen of the Damned, Anne Rice
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowlings
5. Vampire LeStat, Anne Rice


Five Ways to Perfectly Spend an Afternoon:
1. Playing Soccer
2. Sleeping
3. Playing 'Need for Speed: Underground' on a PC
4. Golfing
5. With a good book


Five Lines You Blatantly Stole From a Movie, TV, a Commercial, or Song:
1. "WHAT THE DEUCE ?!?!" - Stewie (Family Guy)
2. "I'm Rick James, Bitch !!" - Dave Chappelle as Rick James (Chappelle Show)
3. "Dee De Deeeeeeee !!" - Carlos Mencia (Mind of Mencia)
4. "WHAT !!!", "YAY-YAA !!!", "OAK-KAY !!!" - Lil John
5. "FLAVA FLAV !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" - Flava Flav


Not Your 5 Favorite Foods, But the 5 You're Most Likely Eating:
1. Anything from McDonalds
2. Anything from the Cougareat
3. Anything from a Vending Machine in the Crabtree Building
4. Homemade Spaghetti
5. Homemade Sandwich


Five People Who Must Immediately Respond:
1. Em
2. Kat
3. Ritz
4. Nama
5. Crystal

To play. Put a link to your blog in the comments or if you don't have one, leave some responses in the comments.
Dare I say, if you don't fill out and forward your responses, then you will have a constant cloud hanging over you, raining open Sharpie markers and ABC gum.

Normally, We at jaju.blogspot.com try to not rely on pics as blogs. We've, generally, relied on the strength of text to make or break this site. But for today's post, there is no other way but to deliberately a post pic to relay our important message.


Punk J
Posted by Picasa

This pic was submitted to MyHeritage.com and ran through the celebrity database to see which celebrities look like the person in this pic. We are pleased with the overall results. Some of the celebs we had to Google. Here are the results:

1) Ashton Kutcher (67%)

2) Jude Law (63%)

3) Stephen Baldwin (58%)

4) Lars Von Trier (56%) - Danish Film maker

5) Hrithik Roshan (55%) - Bollywood superstar

6) Robbie Williams (54%) - English Pop star

7) Eusebio (53%) - Portuguese Football legend

8) Dean Cain (51%)

9) Woody Harrelson (50%)

10) a young Glenn Gould (50%) - Canadian classical musician

I tried to find pics that were close to what was given. If you are going to submit your pic, you have to sign up with myheritage.com.

Enjoy

I got the Bird (and other short stories)

Today is warm and I love it. I woke up at my usual early hour (8am) and turned on my favorite Morning radio show (X96: Radio From Hell) and found out that it was going to be about 60 degrees today. Great, right?
After my two classes, I decided that it was JDawg weather and went to go get one. One great thing about JDawgs is the owner's wife remembers me and my order. We usually chat for a bit while she makes my JDawg with Special Sauce, relish, and Jalapeno/Banana Peppers (today I went with the Banana Peppers). Then, as I was sitting in my favorite spot (on the curb in the Y parking lot), I found a little bird looking for scraps in the parking lot. The Mary Poppins 'Feed the Birds' song ran through my head for a second (but got drowned out by the Coheed & Cambria coming from my mp3 player after that second), so I decided to feed him/her/it. So I took a small piece of my JDawg bread and threw it a few feet in front of me. The bird saw it and ran for it. It took the bit of bread and ran under a car to eat it. It was awesome. This process continued for 4/5ths of my JDawg. The last time I threw the bit-o-bread too close to myself, which the bird came as close as it dared, thought for a while and few away. It was cool to have some entertainment during my lunch. That was one of the best lunch dates that I've had in a while.
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These next couple of weeks are going to Suck Big Time! I've got a CS and a Networking test starting on friday. Both in the dreaded testing center. Both allow 1 page of notes. SUCK !!!!!!!!!!!!! Usually, allowing any pages of notes for a test is bad. It just means, it's going to be THAT much harder.
Then after that, the next week I'm going to get a take home test for my Human-Computer Interface (HCI) class. (DAMAGE !!!) Take home test are tough also!!
After that, the rest of the semester will be dedicated to 1) Building my own Operating System, 2) Coming up with some type of Networking project for the end of the semester, 3) Catching up in all the lab write ups and homework that I haven't turned in yet, and 4) Doing about a Ba-gillion normal labs for all my classes.
The only reassurance I've had is: it's already half way thorugh the semester and I haven't shot myself yet. I should be able to make it. Also, looking forward to playing soccer helps.
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In a very geeky moment during the semester, I decided to use the Switch that I bought a while ago and network the 3 computers that I have (1 desktop and 2 laptops) together in my room. It's been great but it took a while to get everything set up and all the necessary programs on all my 'puters. One of my laptops I turned into a Linux machine, the other two remain Windows. It's been great. I can leave my 'Transformer' laptop at school and I can still program at home and do my Linux labs from home as well. The only thing I really need to take home is my Flash Drive and maybe a book if I choose to read. It's been most excellent. Although, on the weekends, I do take my 'Transformer' laptop home, cause it's the one that kicks @$$ and is the one I can do almost everything on.
Home networking is the way to go.
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In a tribute to one of the greats, I would like to take this opportunity to dedicate this portion of my blog to mention a beloved actor that has started in so many TV shows, Disney movies, and an episode of Scooby Doo (that is one of my favorites) that I grew up watching. This one goes out to beloved actor Don Knotts !!!! You will be missed, Buddy. With Hot Lead and Cold Feet we let you go to join that Great Apple Dumpling Gang in the sky, aka Pleasantville.
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I've had my mp3 player for a couple months now and I love it. It's great for when I go running, go to the weight room, walking to class, and working on my labs. With a storage capacity of 20 gigs, it can store all the music that I have and then some. I like it alot. The only down side, I've dropped it enough to screw it up. Every now and then, when I turn it off, it gets caught in a loop and won't shut off. So I have to wait till the battery runs out before I can use it again. That part sucks, but it is not very often that happens. I think I damaged the RAM enough that it gets overloaded and then caught in a loop. I already opened it up and took a look at the innerds. (that part was awesome) I might end up getting a rio from eBay that is being sold for parts and swap out the damaged stuff. If I can do that, then that would be most excellent (Thank you IT 104).
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That's all I have for right now. I have to get some homework done... (see, I told you I would write when the weather got warmer)