We Won!!! ~ Monday, June 18, 2001 ~ 2:23PM

On Saturday, June 16th, Team UAH was awarded first place at the ASCE/MBT National Concrete Canoe Competition in San Diego, California! We spent three days in San Diego competing against 23 other schools from all over North America. Judges scored the teams based on their display, technical paper, oral presentation, final product, and performance in the races. Second place went to Clemson University out of South Carolina, third to Oklahoma State University, and fourth to Universite Laval from Canada. More pictures and stuff can be seen here.

I didn't get to see San Diego because we were so busy, so I still haven't seen the Pacific Ocean or been to Tijuana. But I did have a LOT of fun. We were bisy from the moment I got there until we left yesterday afternoon. We pulled an all-nighter Thursday night and we were up at 3AM Friday night/Saturday morning to get to race site early. I'm dead exhausted and seriously behind on school work, but WE'RE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS so who cares? *grin*

The races were spectacular. Our mens team was beyond awesome in their sprint and our women performed really well too. It was pretty much neck and neck between us, Berkley, Clemson, and Laval the entire time, so it was definitely exciting. *grin* I have the outline of a koala 'Survivor' tattoo burned into my arm - you can actually read the word 'Survivor' in the sunburn. Now that's spirit. ;-)

The media has been all over this competition. We were on CNN Headline News, several San Diego stations, all over the papers, everywhere. We've been offered several deals for documentaries and magazines are lining up trying to get the story. *grin* Fortunantly, I'm not involved at all in this media circus, since I'm just an ASCE underling slave. But next year, if I'm a presentor/paddler/builder, I'll be expected to field my share. Yikes.

This past weekend was wonderful. I made new friends, visited California, and helped my team to win a national title. I think that anyone would consider that to be time well spent. ;-)

Current Music: 'If You Could Only See' - Tonic

The madness! ~ Tuesday, June 12, 2001 ~ 9:38PM

Yippy skippy, the evil! The blogging madness spreads. First Jeff, now my sister. Oh the insanity of it all.

Today has not been a very good day. I'm pissed at pretty much everyone around me and I'm stressed out. I'm trying to get everything together for this trip, but more stuff keeps popping up for me to do. I can't wait until tomorrow. I'm not going to San Diego to relax, but it'll be a vacation nonetheless. I'm getting a break from my life, at least for a little while. Of course, it's going to come back to haunt me five days hence, but until then I can pretend like Huntsville and the people in it don't exist.

Whee, San Diego!! This is going to be so much fun! I've never traveled west, always east. I'll get to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time! *happy grin* Hopefully we'll have Sunday to play on the beach - our schedual is so full the rest of the time that we won't get to do anything until Sunday before our plane leaves. What free time we have is at night and that's when we have the parties. But you know, I'm not quite sure what kind of parties to expect from what is essentially a convention of civil and mechanical engineers....should be fun. ;-)

I'm going to head to bed kind of early tonight, so I can get up tomorrow to get everything together. I won't be posting for the next five days or so, but expect to see a lot once I get back from Nationals! Wish us luck!!!

Current Music: 'Eye' - Smashing Pumpkins

Execution ~ Monday, June 11, 2001 ~ 12:35 PM

By now you all know that today at 7:14 AM, Timothy McVeigh was pronounced dead by lethal injection.

Where were you when the story of the Oklahoma City bombing broke? I was sitting in my eigth grade science class when my teacher turned on the TV so we could watch the live coverage. We watched, completely horrified, and for the first time it really sank in that there are people out there so twisted and so evil that they don't deserve to live. I remember hoping that if they ever caught the people responsible that they would tie them up and leave them inside the next large city building schedualed to be demolished by explosives. Of course, this is a civilized country and we don't that kind of thing. And once I stop reacting emotionally, I really don't support the death penalty all that much.

But for Timothy McVeigh, perhaps it was the right thing - after all, now that he is gone this country can focus on recovering, rather than focusing on McVeigh. And that is the key problem. The media LOVES to focus on "the bad guys." The press should never have covered the issue. By doing so, they gave him exactly what he wanted - they gave him a voice. Through him directly or by those who had contact with him, he spoke to the American people. His ideas and his goals are precisely where he wanted them - spread over national television in a glorious month of non-stop coverage. He killed 168 people because he wanted to be heard, and now that he has been heard by every single person with access to TV, radio, or newspaper, do you really think he died an unhappy man? No.

My greatest wish would be that the press would stay out of issues of justice. Granted, there are times when press involvement may have led to the exoneration of an innocent or some other good thing, but as far as my limited experience is concerned, they usually just fuck it up. Most of the time, this country would be better off if our criminals were given less coverage and our judges were given leave to make their judgments without the entire world breathing over their shoulders.

And I approve of the fact that Timothy McVeigh is no longer inhabiting my planet. In fact, given his crime, his death was much too clean. I may not wholeheartedly support the death penalty, but honestly, McVeigh deserved it, as much for the crime as for his pride in it. It won't bring back the dead and it won't make things right, but I feel better knowing that he can never again capture the attention of my country with his sick, twisted words. And maybe this will send a message to other would-be terrorists.

Space ~ Sunday, June 10, 2001 ~ 10:21 AM

Quote of the Day: "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." - Johnny Hart

It is always a mixture of annoyance, amusement, and pity that I feel whenever I encounter someone who, upon hearing that I want to build enclosed habitats for Mars missions, looks up at me and asks "Why would anyone want to do that?" There are more of these people than you would think inhabiting Hunstville and the general consensus among them is that space exploration is a waste of human time and resources (boy are they in the wrong city). They believe that our time and money would be better spent focusing on matters here on Earth and see the space program as a needless drain.

I hardly waste my time arguing with these people anymore. If they don't understand it by now, chances are they never will and I don't really have the time to waste trying to make them see. But the limit of these people's imagination and curiosity, as well as their lack of appreciation for beauty, absolutely astounds me. I believe their attitude to be one of supreme selfishness that demonstrates a lack of foresight I had never before imagined possible.

Through the space sprogram, we have seen the death and the birth of stars. We have seen a planet swallow a comet and seen galaxies collide. We have developed instruments that allow us to view some of the most beautiful aspects of the universe. And now we are working to make it possible for future generations to physically explore the phenomena we can only visit through pictures. I can sit here and look at images that are so beautiful it hurts and I can't imagine ever seeing them in person. Chances are that I never will. But I can do my best to make it possible for the future.

And so, in answer to the general question, that's why I want to do that.

Free Time! ~ Saturday, June 9, 2001 ~ 5:11 PM

Quote of the Day: "Normal is what everyone else is and you are not." - Dr. Soran to Geordi

Well, the concrete canoe is gone. It left this morning at 6AM for San Diego. Todd and Bruner are planning on driving straight through, all 38 hours, without stopping. They should get there just before the paddlers do on Monday night. All us workers left JRC at 4:30 AM this morning, after several hours of furiously sanding and polishing interspersed by a few emergency runs to the local WalMart supercenter. As a result, the boat isn't finished completely, but all that's left is to touch up where paint on the gunwales got buffed off. will have to finish it in the trailer in the parking lot of our hotel, but it shouldn't be too much trouble. :-) By the time the rest of us get there on Wednesday, it should be finished.

Since the canoe is no longer being worked on, I suddenly have free time. I slept this morning from 5 until 1, when Jeff called and woke me up. *grin* I have tons of backed up homework to complete and a test to study for. I was supposed to buy a lab manual this weekend, but it turns out that the bookstore is closed on weekends in the summer (the bastards) so I guess I'll have to just wing it on Monday. I'm actually kind of bored because I'm used to being constantly busy. I guess I just can't win - either I'm completely stressed out from too much to do or bored out of my mind. ;-) Complaining all the time. Tsk tsk.

Unfortunantly, since my life has until now consisted primarily of the concrete canoe, I don't have much to write about. The most exciting thing that has happened all day is that I found a dime on the laundry room floor. Yippee. Let's face it....I'm an engineering student with no car, so by default not that much fun. *grin* Maybe I'll have more to write in the next week or so. We can only hope.

Current Music: 'Sweet Surrender' - Sarah McLachlan

Randomness ~ Wednesday, June 6, 2001 ~ 10:53 AM

Quote of the Day: "Life test you. Every day it brings new chances for triumph or defeat. And if you pass the test, it doesn't make you a Jedi. It makes you human." - Qui-Gon Jinn

Woo hoo, back on a Star Wars kick again. Ever since May 22, I've been getting back into psychotic fandom. You know....that blissful state in which we are able to say with absolute fanatically adoring conviction that Geroge Lucas's scripts DON'T suck and that JarJar really isn't all that bad. Okay, maybe the second part was a stretch, but you know what I'm getting at. Back in 1999 when E1 was released, it took me good seven or eight showings to realize that it really wasn't all that good...and even then I still bought the video. Don't get me wrong; I love the ideas behind the movie and the book is actually very good, but the movie would have bombed without Liam Neeson. *grin* Liam...mmm. *nudges Jen* Liam.

*ahem* Anyways, now it's less than a year until Episode II and it's time to start getting back into the spirit. To do this, I visit daily the fanshrine that is TheForce.Net. I'm also re-reading a lot of my favourite books (the Rouge/Wraith Squadron series among them *BIG grin*). We might even watch the movies again sometime soon (if I can find someone willing with a VCR). Jen, we gotta do another insanity fest. *grin* See the movie, scare some more small children, and generally just have fun again.

Okay, done raving about Star Wars. *sigh* I am soooo bored, though. I'm supposed to be studying for my Nature and Properties test that's this afternoon at 4, but I just can't concentrate. I started studying at 9, but everything keeps distracting me, especially my comp. And I would just turn it off, but there's so much info I need off our class website that I can't.

Oooh, speaking of websites, I just finished the rough version of our Vampire chapter site. I put it up on Geocities until we buy our domain name, but I repeat: it's just a rough version. You can see it here, if you want to take a look. I'm going to add a lot more and change a lot of things around, like the IC section, as soon as I get the chance. Of course, that probably won't be until AFTER Nationals.

Current Music: "Breakdown" - Tantric

Happy Day! ~ Monday, June 4, 2001 ~ 11:57AM

Quote of the Day: "No touchy!!!" - Kuzco from The Emperor's New Groove

Today has been a really good day so far. For the first time in about five days I got a good night's sleep and actually woke up on time. I had lab at 8AM this morning and had resigned myself to another 3.5 hour lecture perched on a hard stool with no back support, but our lab professor let us go at 8:30! I wasn't too happy that he decided that the assignment I spent all day yesterday stressing over was going to be due in a week, but getting out early more than made up for it. I got a lot of stuff done here that I needed to do, like cleaning and stuff, and I even got some free time to myself!

The last few days were absolute hell, but I had a lot of fun. I pulled all-nighters on the canoe on Wednesday and Thursday nights, then I got three hours of sleep before being back up at 5AM Saturday to go with the canoe to Maaco to be painted. I stayed to help mask it off for the paint job, but I left before they took off the masking. I have heard it looks really good, though. *grin* All that's left is to wet sand off the orange peel texture on the clear coat, apply the graphics, and buff it, then it will be loaded in the trailer to be driven to San Diego. :-) We had a party Saturday night over at an old teammate's apartment and cooked obscene amounts of food to celebrate the near-completeion of the boat. We'll probably have another one after the boat leaves. Despite the extreme lack of sleep, I've been having a great time!

Jeff and I are getting along better today. I've been wanting to strangle him for the last few days because he's been so wrapped up with everyone in Mobile that he hasn't been able to talk to me. I know I can't talk, having been gone for three days straight, but it's annoying to get a phone call from a boyfriend who can't pay attention to the conversation for more than five minutes because he wants to spend time with everyone around him rather than talk on the phone. IM is almost as bad. He gets online to talk to me, everyone IMs him, and he ends up only typing something to me every five mintues or so. I think, though, if we stick to email and IMs in the morning before his other friends wake up, we'll be okay. In email, at least, if he gets distracted in the middle of reading it, I'm not waiting on him to get back to me right that second. *sigh* I hate not having him here. It's lonely and way too quiet and only getting to talk to him a little bit isn't helping.

I watched The Emperor's New Groove again last night (hence the quote of the day), this time with Jared, Mike, Pat, and James. *grin* That is a freakin' hilarious movie and if you haven't seen it, then you're probably going to hell. Speaking of hell, I just realized I made a very serious error. I left my box of thin mint girlscout cookies in the window sill and now they're all melted. *sniffle* Maybe they'll be okay once they cool down?

Current Music: "Goodbye Love" - Rent

Fuzzy ~ Thursday, May 31, 2001 ~ 2:24 PM

I am now officially admitted to the elite group of ASCE hardcore idiots. The Few. The Proud. The Stupid. The boat has to be done by 4PM tomorrow, so we pulled an all-nighter last night. At 6AM this morning, I was standing otuside in the rain holding a cup of coffee and a sanding block, watching the sun come up.

I had a lot of fun, though. We got a lot done and kind of bonded. The funniest part was during the storm when Stuart started talking about how the power went out last year and if it happened while he was working, he'd go insane. No sooner were the words out of his mouth when we popped the circuit breaker and all the lights in the room went out. We stumbled around for a while in the main boat bay, trying to find the box, but when we fianlly found it, we couldn't figure out which circuits were shut down for a good reason and which ones pertained to our lights. So instead, we just brought in a bunch of portable lights and plugged them into the four light sockets that still worked. Fortunantly, the circuit with the coffee pot on it was still working, otherwise it would have been disaster.

The end result of this stupidity, however, is that my brain feels as if there is a foot-thick layer of cotton wrapped around it. I got up at noon, but my brain refuses to operate. I have no coordination, I've almost maimed myself more times than I can count in the last three hours, I can hardly type, and I keep dropping things everywhere. I'm trying to study for a quiz, but the info keeps running out like water. I'm NOT a functional human being, but I'm pulling another all-nighter tonight. God help me.

Current Music: 'Dream Lover' - Bobby Darin

Working ~ Tuesday, May 29, 2001 ~ 1:25 PM

In retrospect, procrastinating and avoiding my homework all weekend was probably not a good idea. Unfortunantly, that particular revelation has come a bit too late, so I'm stuck trying to finish it all today and tomorrow morning. I'm actually did okay on the first two questions of my NatProp homework, but I'm kind of stuck on the other three. They're about these weird things called polymorphic transitions on eutectoid phase diagrams. Don't worry, I don't know what those are either. They made sense in class, but that was last Wednesday and I've apparently forgotten quite a bit in the intervening time period. *sigh* I suppose I'll just have to walk myself over to his office hour tomorrow afternoon before class and ask him for help. I just hate to voluntarily subject myself to his condescending attitude any more than absolutely necessary.

I keep forgetting that today is Tuesday. We didn't have classes yesterday so I didn't come back to Huntsville until yesterday afternoon. It felt like Sunday and as a result, I keep thinking that today is Monday. I forgot that we were supposed to fight this afternoon and I forgot that I had homework for StatProb to do on top of this other all ebcause I thought today was yesterday. I hate it when holidays make my week all weird - I'm going to be a day behind until Saturday!

Jeff should be getting his cable modem today and his new cell phone so I'll get to talk to him again tonight, one way or the other. :-) I really miss him - it's even quieter here now than it was before Memorial Day. But he's planning to come visit me the week after I get back from San Diego! *cheers* I can't wait! I don't know how much time I'll have to spend with him, but I hope it's a lot. *grin* I'll have to tell him all about the San Diego trip too. I'm really starting to get excited about Nationals - everyone tells me San Diego is beautiful and I've never been to California. I hope we'll have time to go out and have fun in the city. :-)

Jen, hang in there. I hope your week gets better and I hope everything is okay with your friend. *hug* Maybe you can come down to visit Kim, Jo, and I sometime this summer. We'll work on it. Even if I have to call your parents myself! ;-)

Oh, on a quick side note, Digital Tirade is back to being updated on a regular basis! A shocking event to be sure and one I doubt will last very long (knowing Turnip), but you might as well check it out while they're blogging again. *grin*

Now, I have to get back to work. A futile effort it may be, but at least I can say I was trying to figure this stuff out. :-)

Current Music: 'Doughnut Song' - Tori Amos

Graduation ~ Sunday, May 27, 2001 ~ 7:05 PM

Friday, amid various long-winded speeches and the yells and screams of several soon-to-be exterminated high schoolers, my younger sister graduated from Hendersonville High School. She sang one last time in the chorus, sat through the two valedictorian's speeches and the student body president's intelligible ramblings, and waited at the back end of a line 371 people long. Then she got an empty folder and a somewhat vapid smile from the school board director. Then they made her march proudly back inside the hallowed halls of HELL one last time so she could receive her actual diploma and one last condescending glare from the guidance counselors. And then, then she was FREE.

At least for the next three months. In August, she leaves for Tennesse Tech to begin the college life as a Business student. Seeing as her soul is already corrupted and decaying, I don't anticipate that she'll have any problems. She's already gone and registered and she's even been assigned her Big Sib for the Honors Program. *sniffle* My little sis...headed off to college. Awwww. ;-)

This weekend was absolutely insane. My two youngest cousins on my dad's side were here and they kept me occupied ALL weekend. I played frisbee, barbies, hide and seek, basketball, kickball, I supervised them playing outside, I fixed their hair, I let them play in my old dress-up clothes, and I kept the two of them from killing each other over stupid arguments about who got to sit next to me and who got to ride where in the car. I love them both and they're pretty good kids, but I'm glad they've gone home. I did get to see Shrek again, though, and the Emperor's New Groove. Pat and Jared were right - that movie IS hysterical.

Right now, I'm just enjoying the quiet before I head back to Huntsville tomorrow. I have to ride down with my grandparents (they're picking up a friend there to take back to Memphis), so we're leaving kind of early to beat the storms. We drove home Friday in the middle of a tornado, so I'm really not looking to do that again. *makes a face* Until then, however, I have to go have a little more family time. :-)

Stuff ~ Wednesday, May 23, 2001 ~ 11:16 PM

Quote of the Day: "My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all." - Stephen Hawking

Today was an entirely "whatever" day. I was supposed to meet someone for lunch, but we never got back in contact to work it out, so I just sat around all day. I finished up my homework for class and wrote Jeff a nice long letter, then went to class and spent the rest of my day with my friends. I have a quiz tomorrow in Statistics and Probability over our homework, but it's so mindnumbingly boring that I just can't look at it. I wonder if "Try to imagine how little I care" is a valid response to a test question... *ponder*

Jen, I'm glad you liked the article. If anyone read Jen's blog on Monday the 21st, then you saw her rant about the stupid people who think Harry Potter is evil and corrupting the world's children. *snicker* I sent her the article "In Defense of Harry Potter" to let her know that there are still some intelligent people out there. It's a good article in any case, so even if you didn't read Jen's blog, you should still look over it. It basically explains why the Harry Potter books are good for children and why those who say that it promotes Satanism are wrong.

Well, Jeff's back in the US. He's going to call me sometime this weekend to tell me about his trip to Costa Rica. I can't wait to hear about it, even though I'm jealous as hell. I just hope I can talk when he calls - we're having 20-something people come into town this weekend for my "little" sister's high school graduation. This includes the grandparents, aunts and uncles, and all their children. Fortunately, only my dad's side of the family is coming. Otherwise, it'd be about 40 people and I just don't think we could handle it. ;-)

There's really not much going on in Huntsville. I have classes and ASCE work and Vamprie and stuff going on, but really not much to post about. I usually have to wait until there's something to rant about before anything interesting gets said. It's kind of sad that things have to make me mad before I can think of anything to put up here, but I suppose it's just human nature to focus on the bad things. So after a plane falls on Spencer tomorrow, I'll have something to write about. *grin* Until then, please don't hold this rather boring post against me. ;-)

Current Music: "Rods and Cones" - Blue Man Group