Pretty soon I will be moving my small flotilla of Burger King boxes down the street to a new apartment. One without cable TeeVee. One with Verizon instead of NTC InterWebNetTubes.

I’ve got some ideas for the place - maybe a small work area in the common room since I can never do work in my room? Add in a dining table that was a lab table in a former life, a matching couch & chair (with ottoman!), and some super antenna action (for AM/FM + TV), and I think it will be superbly livable!

…but I don’t. My watch finally crapped out today, and now I’m lost. Go-go-gadget overly-elaborate pocketwatch! (Cell phone display).

…was last night, walking in the light snow, listening to the Burruss Hall carillon play The Beatles’ “Michelle.”

In other news, have you seen these?

Random acts of meta-data are afoot!

Indeed it has. A fair bit has occurred since February 2007. I’ve made more good friends, I’ve seen some graduate, I made the Dean’s List for the second time in my (going on) 5 years here at Tech. Then there was that thing that happened in April. I’m not really going to harp on that too much, other than to say that I’m dealing with it in what I hope is a positive manner, and that my friends and family have been there for me (as I have for them). Things have definitely changed - [one can only hope] for the better.

I’ve been spending the summer in my apartment in Blacksburg, working two jobs. First, I’m part of an undergraduate research team with the Mobile & Portable Radio Research Group that has been researching how to use Ultra-Wideband to improve GPS in forest environments. Second, I’ve been taking measurements for the VT VLSI for Telecommunications Group that has been working on self-monitoring structures. I’ve been having fun, learning, and getting paid, all at the same time. Plus I’ve been able to hang out with my friends more often and get a jump on WUVT work. It’s been a lot better than sitting in a cube in Greensboro programming all summer.

I hope (but can’t guarantee) to update a bit more frequently. I say that all the time, but then sometimes a little thing called an Engineering Double-Major gets in the way.

The following are (in no particular order) a few quips that have been idling in the back of my brain over the past week or so:

• They’ll delay school for ice only when your first class starts 10 minutes after the delay ends.
• Valentine’s Day makes people mad. This was obvious to begin with, however I feel the need to reiterate this point until everyone gets it and just gives up.
• New Romantics were the 1980s equivalent of Emo kids. Bad hair, tight pants, sad lyrics.
• Warm air rises and cold air sinks. This is noticeable while sitting on the floor when it’s 16 degrees out with light snow.
• The amount of slacking a person does is directly proportional to how much work he/she has to do.
• No matter how hard you try, you can’t completely avoid gossip. You might take the high road and try not to participate, but in the end, we all like poking our noses in other peoples’ business.

And now I must return to the land of super-engineering-homework-death (plus plus)! Hooray!

So I saw two movies today.  And did homework.  But more importantly, I saw two movies today.

I forgot what it was like having a social life.

Every time a radio station plays the radio edit of Earth, Wind, and Fire’s Let’s Groove (the version lacking the minute-long instrumental in the middle), three disembodied, floating heads of Maurice White devour a dancing woman.

Man, 97 on July 4th. Insane.

They only want you when you’re seventeen; when you’re twenty-one, you’re no fun.

It’s that time of year again. Three finals down, one more to go. Three boxes packed, innumerable more to go. Sad thing is, I’ve been here long enough that some of the people I know are going on to parts unknown, to chart out The Rest of Their Lives (TM). Some of them I’ve known for a while, some I’ve just met.

Things have changed. A lot of things have changed. All in all I think it’s for the better.

Moving sucks, but at least all I have to do is cart a good chunk of my stuff a few blocks away into my new apartment

Is it sad that I experience a massive amount of joy from such a short spanish radio jingle?

Sauntering home on a warm night, with dreamy bossa nova playing on the radio as rain lightly falls upon your head. Everything lit in the warm yellow glow of successive faux Victorian cast iron street lamps. The smell of thunderstorms permeates the air as the people pass by, as oblivious to you as you are to them. You have nothing to do, nowhere to be. If only for a fleeting moment, you are at peace with the world.

   I’ve been lost today; lost ever since about 1:20 this afternoon. Lost? Yes, lost. As someone strapped for time, I schedule my day in advance and then fit things in on the fly, all of which demands an accurate, up-to-the-second chronograph. As luck would have it, the band on my watch broke today, causing it to fall from my arm and crash onto the ground. My watch is okay; my brain, however, is not.
   Boy George wasn’t kidding when he sang the line “time won’t give me time.” I keep turning to my wrist, expecting a date and time report; alas, it is no longer there. I’m merely wasting energy. I feel almost naked without my watch - it never leaves my wrist for more than ten minutes at a time, and it’s been several hours since it has weighed down my left wrist.
   Sure, I can look at my phone, it’s GPS-locked via the tower to the NIST Cesium clocks out there in Colorado, but it’s just not the same as watching the little second hand tick round and round the iridescent face of my silver watch. My phone doesn’t tick (unless I call WWV, which wastes batteries, minutes, and introduces ~500mS delay). Plus the analog feel of a traditional watch, fused with a digital display for the date and other time zones…it meshes with my personality in a way that my other electronic devices yearn to.

I could pull a Flava Flav and wear a clock on a chain around my neck - I always thought that was one of the coolest things ever…

Today’s Post Brought To You By: ABC’s Poison Arrow from the album The Lexicon Of Love.

Dancing the night away often proves quite fun. I should do it more often.

Plus, I think it helps me with my math homework. I hadn’t been understanding it before I went out for the evening, and when I came back, it clicked. I can already see it in the headlines - “Dancing Improves Math Scores - Local School Board To Require Ballroom Dancing Lessons for Students”

Alrighty, enough of my babble
-JM

I feel like I must constantly shake things up for fear of getting too comfortable. Sure, it’s one thing to establish a comfortable baseline from which to work, but to become too comfortable and stagnant is one of my greatest fears. It seems only when I upset the balance of things can I strive for something bigger and better.

Perhaps this is why the thought of suburbia scares me so - millions of people who’ve worked for a portion of their lives in order to become comfortable with their standing in life and thus stop striving for anything more.

There’s your morsel of vague insight from me for the evening