Sawblade's speeches

,tfel ot thgir gnitirw yb etuc s'ehs enoemos llet uoy nehw yltnerappA
.sdrawkcab daeh eht revo uoy stih neht ehs
.spoO

(This is lefty writing if you couldn't figure it out.)

Yesterday was my pseudo-debut public performance on the guitar for the WF informal worship service. I say pseudo because technically I tried doing it last year on a nearly unplayable guitar (Andrew is convinced I should leave out the word "nearly") and that I didn't know chords well enough to keep up at all. Now, I don't think I did great this time but it wasn't bad either. Andrew, young Alex (as opposed to tall Alex), and I were playing the guitars, and Ashlee was on keyboard. I think we were glad to have each other there... Ash was just glad that she wouldn't have to play any solos, and Alex was glad that I knew how to play a C#m7 chord (yeah Hoobastank!). Andrew was just glad to be playing again, and I was glad Andrew was there because Alex's strings broke during the performance; if Andrew wasn't there I'd have to carry a solo and that woulda been interesting....
After the service a bunch of us went out to Anna's Pizza for a good time. It's a shame that going to places with friends is so expensive; at this rate I'll be broke in a month! (I can only allocate so much spending money considering all these bills I get every month, blah blah).

Well, the Internet in the Moosetrap is finally working so I can make a post. Apparently when Geoff got here it was working... maybe that blackout at the Dwelling made the repairmen around here find what was wrong with our cable, I don't know. So much has happened since my last post that I'll try to nutshell it now, probably delving into more stuff in a future post:

1. Jennifer has taken over my position at the Odessa inventory project, and I'm assuming since I haven't heard from her much that she's doing ok. At least I hope she's doing ok; Lynn, my boss, says that I've been exposed to the working world issue of creating a project from scratch and then giving your baby up to someone else.
2. My brother came to visit, and we went to a party at one of my brother's old friend's new digs. While I was there he bet me that I couldn't do 50 pushups on a deck and I showed him up! He says he owes me a case of beer when I turn 21, although I don't care too much about that because don't drink very much as it is, and because he never repays me for anything!
3. My folks, my brother and I went to Wintergreen for a few days before band camp... we did a lot of hiking (yeah gorge trails that you go down at 45 degrees!), swimming/hot tub action, watching Michael Phelps and other Olympic athletes, etc.
4. Band camp for the past week! Feels good to get back out on the field. We've got 9 Mellophones, now tied for the smallest section because the tubas recruited from other sections (grr...). The director's a pretty nice guy as long as you're not on drumline. I'll probably talk more about this stuff in a future post...
5. Took half a day off of band to drive to Richmond in pitch black and met the other members of the Wesley Community. Sasha was impressed that I "hauled ass" to get there at all! I "re-met" "the Brain" (DV's brother) and met Ashlee. She noticed I was left-handed and said it would be easier if I wrote from right to left so I tried that and she was able to read it, so now she says she'll be my translator. :-P
6. Move in day!
-Moving into the Moosetrap, seeing the G-man for the first time in months!
-helping first years move in with DV, April, and tall Alex
-handing out cookies to the first years
-Re-meeting "the Brain" (DV's brother)
-Meeting Ashlee for the second time; helped her, her boyfriend, and her mom get a
bed set up so she has a place to sleep (hopefully it didn't come out too crooked!)
-Watching USC beat Tech and falling asleep in several locations at the same time!
7. Worship service this morning at Wesley Mem; seeing J-Dub with a new 'stache!

Well, time to go.....
.od ot hucm evah I (I think you can figure this one out.)

Today I start training my replacement....

Well, after taking a day off from Odessa, no progress has been made in the data coming to me, so I'm still without something to do. Arrgghhh.....

"Some things never change....some things do" - the Matrix

perhaps oui, perhaps non....

Well, it turns out that I was working too quickly for the inventory teams so I got sent away from Odessa today. :-P Back to the home base, I guess..

Day 1 in Odessa: the massive inventory begins. After getting situated, we went through the hardware and I loaded the information that the teams will need onto the laptops. My inventory forms seem to be working well so far, although we ran into a technological misfunction today: the memory cards that came with the cameras don't like the computers! The thumbnails look fine but if you open them you either get a "damaged image" error or the image is scrambled. Fortunately some 3rd party cards seemed to work just fine after that, but it meant we had to reshoot pics of a room. Also a mishap with a battery charger ... may those batteries rest in peace...

More work related stuff...
Well, by implementing a very efficient sorting algorithm into my accession number matching/merging program (as opposed to bubble sort which I was using), it speeded my program up 1000 fold; instead of taking all day (which I anticipated bubble sort would based on some time trials), it did it in about 30 seconds (well, once it started doing the combining; I spent about 5 minutes setting up the output form for it!) So thanks to that algorithm, my boss thinks I'm a hero instead of a goat. :-) Whoever invented that mergesort algorithm was a genius!

Today my program determines whether I become a hero or a goat....

finally.... :-)