[	Tags	|	butterthug, codethug, da projekts, daydreaming, inspiron	]
[	Current Location	|	Elizabeth	]
[	mood	|	accomplished	]
[	music	|	Styrofoam : Couches in Alleys	]

Right now, I am smug as a bug in a rug. It's getting towards the end of this class, and I am glad to see that everything (except for the bill) is shaping up nicely. Right now I am installing Visual Studio on my personal machine. Lately, I have been unsure about how I can or should work on projects for KHC. Up until now, i have been doing it all on my work computer, which seems like a great alternative to carrying a second machine. We have had another round of layoffs, and I don't want to be in a position to be reprimanded. As much as I like the idea of Java, I find it hard to believe that anyone could bang out applications in Java as fast and easy as I do in .Net. When I look on Planet Source Code, the Java applications seem to be rudimentary at best. Today, I got frustrated with how much arbitrary information I am required to know. Actually, I am less frustrated with the requirement, and more frustrated with my ability to know it easily. At any rate, I banged out a little memorization and testing application modeled after SuperMemo. I called mine ButterMemo, and I will be posting it up on Planet Source Code when I get a chance. At some point, I would like to add a grading function to keep track of what the user has been quizzed on and what answers were incorrect. The basic idea is that the popups would show reminders at intervals. An item that has been shown would go into a queue for that user. Every now and then, the user would get a question (chosen from the recent reminders) that they have to answer. If they answer correctly, that card is pulled from the users queue. If they answer incorrectly, the card stays in the queue. So far, I have the cards and the questions, but not the grading.

[	Tags	|	butterthug, chilltyme	]
[	Current Location	|	Elizabeth	]
[	mood	|	contemplative	]
[	music	|	http://www.scissorkick.com/	]

• Thinks that Mercury is a better alternative to Carbon, but still claims to want to save the enviornment
• Derides others for being "Patriotic"
• Whines that "their patriotism is being questioned" when others call them "unpatriotic"
• Claims to appreciate freedom
• Consistently backs America's enemies, even though America's enemies hate America precisely because of our freedom.
• Demands free health care for all, but shrinks away when confronted with the real costs.

[	Tags	|	chilltyme, da projekts, daydreaming	]
[	Current Location	|	Elizabeth	]
[	mood	|	contemplative	]
[	music	|	Rush247	]

Rahsaan was full of fire. The Object Library had given him so much energy. He had worked on it all day at the office. It was coming along nicely. When he got home, he took off all of his clothes and started playing HALO. He was just starting a game when he heard a knock at the door. It was his neighbor. He had never considered himself to be an unfriendly guy, but he was really starting to dislike the neighbors and their kids always knocking on the door. This was especially annoying because they would always do it during the “decompression hour”. When he got home from work, he liked to spend at least an hour not talking to anyone. It had been the same when he lived with his wife. It had taken her a few months to learn about it and to get over the initial offense. He had lived in this location for a year, and they had not caught on. The neighbor needed a ride to the bank, and to the garage to pick up his car. Rahsaan had already put on his clothes, so he agreed to make the drive. When he got in the car, he continued to play his audiobook (Clarence Thomas) while his neighbor talked. The entire trip was less than a mile. Rahsaan was unsure as to whether or not he should be annoyed because the trip was so short (why not walk) or glad because the trip was not longer (Gas prices were $3 and rising). The local coffee shop was having trouble with the Ethernet connection, and he had offered to provide support in exchange for free coffee because he liked the fact that they were so close. He had imagined himself walking to the coffee shop, but never liked carrying the laptop.

Random Application Development

Rahsaan had been having another one of his famous bouts of enthusiasm. This was like depression, but different. Some people get depressed and find that they are unable to function. Rahsaan occasionally found that he had an idea in his head that would not go away. He felt as if he had no choice but to pursue the idea with the object of his enthusiasm. He hated the way his abilities seemed to be in some way or another, dictated more by his emotions, and less by his knowledge of the applications he dealt with on a regular basis. This time, it was a search engine. He had been up for a week thinking about some sort of search engine application. He was amazed at the fact that he was able to get a mock up working in only two days. The application would connect with websites, and download the page. After that, it could parse the HTML and pull out links and HTML tags. The thing that he was not able to get together was the purpose. What would be the purpose of the application? Was he going to try to out Google Yahoo? Would this play into his obsession with Artificial Intelligence? Without a purpose, all action was “Random Application Development”.

A couple with a purpose

Rahsaan and Debbie had similar desires. Both of them wanted to advance their ideals. Both of them wanted to build passive income. Neither of them had any idea how to pursue either passion. Rahsaan had often fancied himself as a writer. He considered Debbie to be a great thinker. He had often wondered about how the two of them could make something useful out of their wasted energies. They had been watching “Sex in the City” for about a month now, and to some extent, that was where his flavor for narration had come from. Earlier that night, the two of them had been in Barnes and Noble. He was thinking that the two of them could try listening to audiobooks together. Both of them had been into political books lately. He had also considered the possibility of the two of them learning a language together. He didn't really see where the PAC would come out of that effort. He had also considered the two of them putting forth a coordinated effort on selling her art. That was not a PAC action either. The question remained. What was to be done with all of the wasted energy.

The Tree Climber

It was early in April. Rahsaan arrived with a heavy plastic box in the back of his car. Debbie was busy painting. She stepped outside, giving him the “mother hairy eyeball” as he opened the hatch of his car. She took off her headphones as he pulled his skateboard out of his car and put it on the driveway. He lifted the box, and let it drop onto the deck with a sliding “whoomp”. He started to pull the box to the side of the driveway.

“Can you give me a hand?” he said with some effort in between grunts.

“Vaat Are you Dooing?” she replied, with a bad imitation of a Russian accent.

“I am going to build a tree thing” he replied.

She stepped forward, and ripped the top off of the RubberMaid box with a violent velocity. It hit him in the face. He fell back, cursing her. When she looked down, she saw what looked like a mass of clay-like shapes in various shapes and sizes. She put the headphones down, and started to help him. When they had moved the mass halfway across the yard, they came to a soft wet spot. There had been heavy, drizzling, precipitation that week, and the skateboard wheels simply could not support the weight.

“Are we going to the Sycamores?” she said.

“Yup” he grunted.

When they had reached the trees, she asked him what the plan was.

“I am going to drill these climbing posts into the tree.” he said, as if he were describing making a bed with clean sheets.

“If you climb that, you are going to fall and bust your fucking head.” she replied, as if he were describing how he was about to jump off of a building.

“You are going to get electrocuted using a battery operated drill in the rain!”, she said, yelling for effect.

He had heard her, but he didn't really like either of the possibilities, so he looked right at her, and pretended not to notice anything she had said. He pulled a drill out of the box, picked up a clay piece, and started drilling it into the tree. His cell phone was vibrating on his hip, and she could see that it was his mother calling. At that moment, she had decided that she would forgive him for the nights when he would go over to his friends place and get drunk playing HALO 3 until 3:00 AM. She had made that decision about the last time he had “guys night in”. He would have to earn the next the next occasion. He would not get it for free.

[	Tags	|	blah blah blah, blog	]
[	Current Location	|	StrayLight	]
[	mood	|	amused	]
[	music	|	Sex In The City	]

Rahsaan Pringle

The Search Engine

04/04/08

Random Application Development

Rahsaan had been having another one of his famous bouts of enthusiasm. This was like depression, but different. Some people get depressed and find that they are unable to function. Rahsaan occasionally found that he had an idea in his head that would not go away. He felt as if he had no choice but to pursue the idea with the object of his enthusiasm. He hated the way his abilities seemed to be in some way or another, dictated more by his emotions, and less by his knowledge of the applications he dealt with on a regular basis. This time, it was a search engine. He had been up for a week thinking about some sort of search engine application. He was amazed at the fact that he was able to get a mock up working in only two days. The application would connect with websites, and download the page. After that, it could parse the HTML and pull out links and HTML tags. The thing that he was not able to get together was the purpose. What would be the purpose of the application? Was he going to try to out Google Yahoo? Would this play into his obsession with Artificial Intelligence? Without a purpose, all action was “Random Application Development”.

A couple with a purpose

Rahsaan and Debbie had similar desires. Both of them wanted to advance conservatism. Both of them wanted to build passive income. Neither of them had any idea how to do either. Rahsaan often fancied himself as a writer, and he considered Debbie to be a great thinker. He had often wondered about how the two of them could make something useful out of their wasted energies. They had been watching “Sex in the City” for about a month now, and to some extent, that was where his flavor for narration had come from. Earlier that night, the two of them had been in Barnes and Noble. He was thinking that the two of them could try listening to audiobooks together. Both of them had been into political books lately. He had also considered the possibility of learning a language together. He didn't really see where the PAC would come out of that effort. He had also considered the two of them putting forth a coordinated effort on selling her art. That was not a PAC action either. The question remained. What was to be done with all of the wasted energy.

The Tree Climber

It was early in April. Rahsaan arrived with a heavy box in the back of his car. Debbie was painting. She came outside giving him the mother hairy eyeball as he opened the hatch of his car. She took off her headphones as he pulled his skateboard out of his car and put it on the driveway. He lifted the box, and let it drop onto the deck with a sliding “whoomp”. He started to pull the box to the side of the driveway.

“Can you give me a hand?” he said with some effort in between grunts.

“Vaat Are you Dooing?” she replied, with a bad imitation of a Russian accent.

“I am going to build a tree thing” he replied.

She stepped forward, and ripped the top off of the RubberMaid box. When she looked down, she saw what looked like a mass of clay shapes in various shapes and sizes. When they had moved the mass halfway across the yard, they came to a soft wet spot. It had been raining that week, and the skateboard wheels simply could not support the weight.

“Are we going to the Sycamores?” she said.

“Yup” he grunted.

When they had reached the trees, she asked him what the plan was.

“I am going to drill these climbing posts into the tree.” he said, as if he were describing making a bed.

“You are going to fall and bust your fucking head.” she replied, as if he were describing how he was about to jump off of a building.

He had heard her, but he didn't really like the possibility, so he pretended not to notice. He pulled a drill out of the box, picked up a clay piece, and started drilling it into the tree. At that moment, she had decided that she would forgive him for the nights when he would go over to his friends place and get drunk playing HALO 3 until 3:00 AM. She had made that decision about the last time he had “guys night in”. He would have to earn the next the next occasion. He would not get it for free.

[	Current Location	|	Elizabeth	]
[	mood	|	hopeful	]
[	music	|	ThunderBall	]

03.20.08

LearningTree.com in RockVille, Maryland

I am at a LearningTree.com Class. I think my questions are the best in the class, but I am probably not the smartest guy in the class. Yesterday, lunch was provided. I am partnering with this Chinese geek. He is from Hong Kong. This guy is so awkward. I like him, though. He has many annoying habits. I do as well, so I am not going to slight him for it. Thomas is cool. He is a young, intelligent, Black man with a college degree and a real profession. I want to be like him when I grow up. I think I pissed him off today when I asked him what Fraternity Life was all about. Chris (the instructor) is awesome. The guy has a mind like a steel trap. When most people speak, it is less like a playback of a recording, and more like a stream. When he speaks, he utters well formulated words that are less in the way of “utterance” and more to do with true “communication”. I think that it is easy for normal people to communicate their understanding of a particular matter, but truly intelligent people can communicate a holistic view of a scenario devoid of their understanding. A good communicator will communicate the scenario worded for your understanding (not according to their understanding) in hopes that you will get it. He reminds me of Joe Thomas, who knows what he said a minute ago, a day ago, or a year ago. Joe expects you to know as well. Chris reminds me of a trainer I had while working at a collection agency, named Jason. He is an all around good guy, and I think highly of him. Aleein is an intelligent, Black, cheerful (overly perky) woman. She is married to an IrishMan and has two kids. She speaks geek fluently, and has an annoying habit of correcting everyone (even me) on technical terms. In the conversations I have had over the past few days, one common theme is that of no loyalty to the job. I think we have all communicated the fact that we are loyal in personal relationships, but when it comes to employment, we are perfectly willing to jump from ladder to ladder, if only to go up one rung. This is detrimental, but it is not entirely our fault (in my opinion). I bet everyone here knows someone who has been “downsized”, or “chopped” from the payroll for the sake of the bottom line. It is in the nature of honest business. Business thrives on efficiency, and having a “Rank and Yank” mentality is the most successful method of existence. With that being the case, businesses hire intelligent people, who will also seek to better themselves by any means necessary. That can easily mean dropping the job that pays your way through school for another position, just because they will pay you more for having gone to school. If (when) I employ people, I will hire people who are undereducated, if they can convince me that they are undereducated by circumstance, and not by choice. If (WHEN) they leave my firm for another, I will not be resentful or taken advantage of. I will consider it a cost of doing business. If I were to hire well educated people, and pay them for their education, I would still be expected to contribute to their betterment. I would imagine that hiring less educated people and contributing to their education would cost less in the long run. Education is priced to be just out of reach. The educated people make just enough to send their children to school. That is kept in check. The salaries of the educated are controlled by so many other factors that it would be senseless to try to identify a controlling factor. A person can leave college and make $35K, or $350K, depending on the interpretation of the need. Salary increases are expected. Salary decreases are unheard of. Secondary education is pricing itself out of existence. As this happens, other forms of education come into practice. This is evident with the number of “certifications” one can get without stepping foot on a college campus. Colleges are meant for the children of the college educated parents. Tuition assistance does not, could not, and should not keep up. It only assists in allowing the price of tuition to outpace the ability of the student (or the student’s family) to pay. Unfortunately, tuition for self or child does not count as a significant reduction to the tax burden of the working family.

[	Tags	|	blah blah blah, blog, butterthug	]
[	Current Location	|	Elizabeth	]
[	mood	|	confused	]
[	music	|	PodFunk	]

·      01.09.08

o    Blogs vs Social Networking

§      For some time now, I have noticed that whenever I run into old friends, people don’t ask for phone numbers anymore. They don’t even ask for email addresses regularly. Now, everyone asks where you do your social networking. The usual form of the question is “What is your MySpace?” I do think that social networking sites are cool. It’s an idea that I had thought of a long time ago. With that being said, I am not really a social networker. As I said, I have a MySpace, a FaceBook, and I even have a StumbleUpon. According to my habits, I am more of a blogger. I enjoy LiveJournal for the simplicity, which is the lack of advertisements. I also like it for the fact that I have had it since 2003, and as far as I know, all of my work is still online, still in the form that I created it. Longevity may not sound important in the world of instant online profiles, but what we do takes our time, and that gives it some value, even if the account we do it on is free. Free service providers that disappear don’t do a disservice by offering service for free, but a certain amount of effort is wasted with every free account that disappears into the ether without a trace. Every now and then, when I write, I stop to think, am I writing for myself, or for the nameless, faceless audience that could be lurking about, reading the site? The real answer is “I blog to blog”. I am not compiling a book, there is no massive underground audience clinging to my every word, and I might never read what has been written. With that being said, how does social networking fit into it all? While it seems like a good way to keep up with people separated by time or distance, I often find that when I check on the sites of people I know, I find out less about what is new in their lives, and more about what new Social Networking applications are popular with the rest of the 50 million users. Of course, if they do not fancy themselves as writers, it might be unfair to expect them to put details of their lives in writing, just because I do it…

[	Tags	|	bits, blah blah blah, blog, butterthug, chilltyme, codethug, comedy, complaining, daydreaming, disappearer, education, el politiko, epundit, excercise, happytime, ponderation, questions, reflectives	]
[	Current Location	|	Elizabeth	]
[	mood	|	bouncy	]
[	music	|	PodFunk	]

·      Hape://Bertha.de

o    BirthDay Funk

§      http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PodOfFunk/~5/209000705/funkpod_30.mp3

§      I have some BirthDay funk, but it’s not like a down feeling. Actually, it’s like a great excitement. Tomorrow, I will be 34 years old. Because my birthday is so close to the New Year, I generally spend the nine days in between thinking of “resolution candidates”. When the deadline rolls around, I usually settle for what I think of as “recent improvements” in my behavior, as I have never been the type to improve my own behavior intentionally.

§      So what’s news?

·      Lots of news, a lot of it is great, and much of it is not for consumption by the general public. Nothing extra special, just not very interesting. For example:

o    Every year, I come up with a new budget and a plan to be debt free by the end of the year. It is usually not very realistic. This year, I actually make enough income to make it a remote possibility.

o    I am fully geeked out. I have two different bar code scanners. One is a light pen, and the other is the light gun type.

o    I just got a degree, and I am going back to school. It is an online college. The future looks bright, but the web sessions that pass for classes are not so exciting. The courses are easy, but the assignments are like an Easter egg hunt. The professors don’t put the assignments with due dates in the syllabus. You have to go looking around for them.

§      What would you want to be asked if you were being interviewed?

·      That is not a rhetorical question. I am actually writing this for my blog and to send to myself on http://FutureMe.org. I like to talk to people, but I can’t stand superficial conversation. When I say this, I mean, I can’t stand conversations about celebrities, or complaints about “the system” or “society”. Needless to say, I often find myself wishing I had better questions to get people to expand on what they think about life the universe, and everything. Thinking more on it, I should probably develop some questions. What would the future me want to be asked about? While I can’t think of anything good, I can put down what comes to mind. Actually, these come from the book “All about me” by Phillip Keel.

o    If you had no commitments to others, what would you do?

§      I would maximize my education and work experience. I would make my dwelling where ever I found the highest paying job. I think the online education thing is good for the lifestyle I live. It is also good for the lifestyle I would live in such circumstances. I would always keep putting in resumes with different firms. When I get a new job, I would stay for a year. This would be long enough to satisfy the apartment lease. When the lease is up, I would start the job hunt again. I would continue to take classes in the field as opposed to classed for a new degree. I would do this because the industry is always changing, and the moves would be costly to perform, no matter how paltry the new dwelling. I would live meagerly. I would not take huge apartments even if I could afford them. I would also not take anything without a washer and dryer. I would invest all I could in traditional investments, and in my own business, which would have a forwarding post office box, if necessary. For my “own business”, I would do application programming, which I have a lot of great ideas for, as opposed to service programming, with which I have a lot of experience.

o    What is a dream you have had more than once?

§      This is a bad question for me to ask, because I don’t have a real answer.

·      I dream often of climbing on something big and moving, like in “Shadow of the Colossus”.

·      I dream a lot about chasing something very small that moves very quickly. The recurrence is the fact that I always move very slowly, if at all.

·      I dream of being lost in a big place, with a series of closed off areas. There always seems to be a choice of which area to go to next, and each area seems more inappropriate than the last. It is not always the same setting. Sometimes, it is like a Wal*Mart, other times, it is like a hospital, other times, it is like a cave. In every instance, there is never any going back, and there are always multiple choices, and there is always someone calling me by name from an unknown direction.

o    List 5 things you would like to accomplish within the next year. This is my own question.

§      Debt Freedom

·      Credit cards are a real pain in the ass, especially when it is so easy to keep using them and paying them off than it is to simply cut them and pay them off. My mother recently told me about prepaid cards, which are not the same as the secured cards. A prepaid card can actually accept money from direct deposit. They look and work just like other credit cards, except for the fact that they appear to have no connection to your credit, and they extend you no credit. They are simply a spending mechanism, nothing more. I thought of this idea years ago. It is good to see that the rest of the world has caught up.

§      A good schedule

·      Many people try to avoid the 9 to 5 lifestyle. I aspire to it. I would like nothing more than to set a schedule, and follow it for two weeks in a row. I would be ecstatic if I could do the same for two months. Time and money are separate commodities, but time, like money is a highly valuable commodity. If you don’t know where it is going, it is easy to waste a lot of it. If you can not account for it, you can count on the fact that you are wasting it.

§      One (1) or zero (0) packs of cigarettes every month.

·      Currently, I smoke One (1) pack of cigarettes every week. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is so hard to not smoke any that I have been considering hypnosis as a method of elimination. If any readers have tried it, please feel free to offer your opinion on the matter.

§      Successful completion of all classes I am taking.

·      This is less of a hope and more of an expectation, as long as I don’t get the rigorous travel schedule I had last year at this time.

§      An initial release of one of my applications.

·      I have a lot of good ideas; some of them might even be considered good ideas. All of my applications are 75% complete, as far as a release is concerned. I write these applications for myself, and that 75% represents what I need them to be to be functional to myself. That last 25% would represent my confidence in the fact that others would find them useful, if I were to move them to completion.

[	Tags	|	blah blah blah	]
[	Current Location	|	Elizabeth Street	]
[	mood	|	ecstatic	]
[	music	|	Crazy Lady Upstairs	]

·        Fred Thomas, he’s our man

o       I saw a Fred Thomas commercial on immigration.

o       Right now, I’m willing to place bets that he will be the next president of the United States.

o       I still have not met one single person that I would consider to be both intelligent and productive that would vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. I have not stopped looking.

·        The fat black cat peed in the house because Deb wouldn’t get up at 5am to feed him.

o       I put him out, and told her to leave him out for a number of days instead of simply letting him in when she returns home.

o       I’m sure he’s back in now.

·        I almost took a nasty tumble down the stairs while changing a light bulb on the back porch.

o       The wooden chair I was standing on flipped over on its side when I was stepping down. The first movement put the chair at a 45 degree angle and brought my body to a 90 degree angle to compensate, with my top half hanging over the edge of the stairs. I bent my knees to compensate, and as the chair collapsed over on its side, I bent my knee (I only had one foot on the chair at that point, the other was hanging off for balance) just enough to compensate for the fall. I literally felt the banister scrape the top of my head as I came down. The fall hurt my shin, which slam-scraped the chair. Fortunately, I’m used to that kind of action from skating. The near head smash, on the other hand, is entirely new to me.

·        I am enrolling at Kaplan University.

o       I should have my bachelor’s degree within a year.

·        I stopped by the skate shop on my lunch break to see if the decks were included in the 90% off sale.

o       Unfortunately, they were not.

o       I ran into my friend CR, from the skate park.

§        He’s a snowboarder who works at a skate park. He works Massanutten during the winter. I might to see if he wants to accompany us to the Via Ferrero when the warmer weather returns.