Advogato blog for eliot

18 Feb 2001

Sun, 18 Feb 2001 07:52:47 GMT

Nearly a month since my last post. I feel all pent-up since I haven't been able to write an entry. Unfortunatly, this one will be short.

I've been discovering how much I love photography and that I'm actually not too bad at it. With a good camera, anyone can be good though. A good friend of mine wants me to get some cash together and go spend the summer in Africa. He is a photographer and writer as well and wants to spend the entire time writing and taking pictures. Sounds fantastic. He says that you can live in a lot of places for like a dollar a day. He thinks we could rent motor bikes and just go all over the place. I really want to do something really different this summer. Maybe this is it. I wanted to spend my time making money, but I can do that anytime. I'm thinking I could write a few more articles for Web Techniques to cover the cost of the trip.. I'm not sure what I'd write about though. Will have to look at their schedule of upcoming articles. Wonder if LinuxJournal pays contributing authors?

It'd be amazing to compile the pictures and writings into a book. Wonder if there is any college students that have ever done that.

Welp, I'm going to try and write again soon. I miss pouring myself out on here.

[insert interesting lyric clip here]

31 Jan 2001

Wed, 31 Jan 2001 21:47:14 GMT

Ah, the dream is over. I got the big call today from Jabber.com, Inc. I've been put on "hold" until they get their financial situation under control. I'm just a regular open source guy again.. I feel alright about it I guess. Mostly because I've hardly been working because of school. I'll be turning in my last invoice today. :(

My dream is to always work for a free software company. Hopefully I won't have to shatter that this summer when I really do need a job.

Back to school.

29 Jan 2001

Mon, 29 Jan 2001 03:28:42 GMT

Went to Stone Works to go rock climbing this weekend. That was a blast. They've turned an old grain elevator into a rock climbing gym. A very cool idea. Here's some pics of the inside. Quite unique... supposedly the tallest climbing in the USA.

Applying for an RA position is tougher than applying to the school. Guess that's fair.

I'm tired.

26 Jan 2001

Fri, 26 Jan 2001 07:47:00 GMT

I don't enjoy politic talk at all. It's kind of weird because I love politics and government. I love the history of it as well. I'm not really sure why I don't enjoy political conversations. I think it goes along with my general despondency regarding the Christian culture. Don't get me wrong, I have a very close and real relationship with God and believe the Bible to be wholly accurate and God-breathed. It's just that I get very tired of non-thinking Christians who continue to spread non-thinking. I tend to not say anything about Christianity or Politics for the same reason: non-thinking listeners. As far as the politics go, it might have something to do with my interest in Ayn Rand and the Liberterian party. I usually shut down when people bring up a politics, religion or the breakup of Microsoft. Good grief! Now there's a topic I don't want to ever hear again. I get just terribly tired of everyone's opinions. Wow, I'm ranting. This is an area in my life that I've had a really hard defining well. I keep ranting in hopes that I can get it clear someday. I get all mixed up about what I'm upset about and then I'm lost. Even now I don't really know what I'm talking about. Maybe I need a counselor....

In other news, thanks iain for the music suggestion. I grabbed an MP3 from their web site and really enjoyed it. Amazon.com can have it to me in 2-3 days they say. I'm still debating it because I really want some depressing music with words. :) I really enjoy the song that A Silver Mount Zion put on their web site, but I want some good lyrics like Radiohead's. I probably should get the CD anyway. It's really very unique and enjoyable to have on.

I miss conversations at home with some of my friends about ideas that different authors present. I loved talking about what CS Lewis or Shakespeare or Charles Seife ("Zero") or TS Eliot or Jonathan Swift or Voltaire or Rousseau or Wordsworth or Keats or Shelley or Victor Hugo or even Douglas Adams said in a poem, play or book. Maybe that's what I'm frustrated with about conversations. There's no basis beyond current opinion. I want to compare with great authors, the people who shaped our modern world and see what they had to say. I'd love to discuss that. I'd love to discuss your opinion about that. But I don't want to discuss a random topic that can't be compared with beyond your opinion and mine. And no, the FOX NEWS or MSNBC guys don't count. Wow.. I think I'm finally putting some light to this thing that's nagged me for so long. Maybe I'll be able to think it out more this weekend.

What do you think? :)

i am fused just in case I blow out i am glued just in case i crack out

24 Jan 2001

Wed, 24 Jan 2001 07:27:24 GMT

Wax me
Mould me
Heat the pins and stab them in
You have turned me into this
Jush wish that it was bullet proof

So pay the money and take a shot
Leadfill the hole in me
I could burst a million bubbles
All surrogate and bulletproof

Well, this has been an interesting week to say the least. Last weekend I went to Dallas to have the first Texas Jabber dev meeting. It was at reatmon's house, so it was a limited attendance meeting. It was great to get away from school for a bit, have high speed Internet, great food and hack again. I didn't do much, but I played secretary and enjoyed the DSL. After getting back, I jumped right into the week with a call from my dad saying that my car is probably going to need the engine replaced and it may or may not be under warranty. Great. Still waiting to hear back on that one. This is our first week of school to not have a Monday off. This is going to be a long week.

I do not like the the new Dave Matthews Band single that is on the radio. I hope the rest of the CD isn't like that. Ugh.

I got a $10 off coupon at Amazon to buy any CD or DVD. The CD I want "leitmotif" by Dredg is $9.99. Hrmph. So, do I buy another CD or find a more expensive one? Iain, can you suggest a CD that you really like right now that I should try? I'm in the mood for some new UK acoustic / emo stuff. Dunno.

Poor Debian Gabber users are still waiting for me to fix the packages. I'm having a lot of trouble getting packages to fit all three distros. It doesn't help that it takes forever to rebuild C++ programs! Ah well.. I think I've almost got it.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is my busy day. I also get to decide if I'm going to apply to be an RA for the floor next year. I think I'm going to go for it. I'm going to miss not having a roommate though. :(

Every day, every hour
I wish that I was bullet proof.

16 Jan 2001

Tue, 16 Jan 2001 19:58:47 GMT

Oi! Oi!

Three day weekends are just fabulous. What is even better is that I didn't eat at the cafeteria all weekend. Just splendid!

I'm eager for julian to get home so that he can see that not only did I finish the Gabber 0.8.1 manual updates, but I updated the HELP button hookups in the source. Hmm.. I think that's my first contribution to any real source code of a program. Even if it was just replacement stuff. :)

For some reason I really like the Yahoo! Messenger for Linux. It's GTK+ and has some fun things. Of course, I'm really proud of Gabber now. 0.8.1 is going to be so beautiful with GnuPG. The interface is so nice (go julian!). I'm in love again. :)

Over Christmas break I got to see some art by Robert Therrien. Fascinating stuff. My favorite is Under the Table. It's basically a huge tableset (2.97 x 5.97 x 7.93 m) that you can walk under and around. Makes your perspective on things very different!!

We're all fugitives.
Just look at the way we live.

12 Jan 2001

Fri, 12 Jan 2001 00:29:02 GMT

I'm supposed to be doing a lot of homework right now. I'm tired and really good at procrastinating. Oh well.

It's been a great week. I love college. It's so great to see everyone again and look forward to all the cool classes that I'm taking. I made my first two CAD models today in lab. That was fun. :) I also went to my first Manufacturing Processes lab... that was a bit scary! I think I'm too much of a klutz to do welding. Oh well.. it'd be a great thing to know.

Ho hum.. Jabber was in Linux Journal again. It's so cool to see that Doc Searls completely "gets" how Jabber is a communication API for applications. It totally showed through in his article.

Our Internet pipe was down for exactly 24 hours (1pm-1pm). Such a pain. I can't even get to my old mail now because the server I use switched to IMAP. It was fun though to see everyone freak out. Everyone just depends on 24/7 Internet connection so much. Kind of a weird feeling.

Even when the ship is wrecked, I promise
Tie me to the rotten deck, I promise

10 Jan 2001

Wed, 10 Jan 2001 03:52:11 GMT

OI!!!! Good grief it's been ages since I've been able to write a diary entry.

In the meantime.. After breaking from school, I immediatly flew up to Denver to work a bit at Jabber.com's HQ. I realized nearly immediatly that I do not want to work in an office. Of course, I was sick (cold junk) and I missed my family and friends from school terribly. I still didn't like the whole getting up, going to work and figuring out what to do for lunch routine. No thanks, I'll stick with working from home.

Following that I came home and did nothing. It was fantastic. At first I couldn't figure out what to do because I've never been bored before. I always have projects or deadlines or something. After I figured out how to enjoy having nothing to do, I had a brilliant time.

Desperate for some new music, I picked up the Coldplay Parachute CD. I was a bit saddened by the loss of the acoustic piano, but I still enjoy their drummer's jazz beats. The lead singer's voice is very enjoyable as well. He reminds me a lot of Dave Matthews.... I also got the Beatles 1 CD as I've never listened to the Beatles much and wanted to get to know some of their songs. What better way to do it? I was surprised at how quick a lot of the earlier songs are. The song is over before you even know it started. I really like Help. :)

I wasn't too happy with my semester report card.. too many B's. I only had two A's and one of the classes I got an A on was just a one credit hour class. In the constant reflection of a college student, this year will be better.

I'm in total chaos about where to live next summer. I was sure that I would go live in Denver, but now I don't think that's a good move. Ah.. I've got lots of different places to live, but I just don't know which one is good. How's the weather in Australia in summer? :) I'm also in a bit of a conundrum about whether or not to take English as a second major or just do a minor. I want English something. I figure a Computer Science Engineering student mixed with a little English would make an interesting enough background to stand me out a bit from all of these idiots taking CS courses.

I'm finally the maintainer of the campus Debian server. It hasn't been updated since a year ago. The previous maintainer was a RedHat user and didn't know about apt I guess. Loads of packages are being updated..

You don't hear many people say this, but I'm not afraid to: I am really glad to be back at school. I miss the people here and the schedule and just college life in general. highly recommended :)

Welp, I want to get back into Advogato reading. Over break I just visited fejj, Iain and julian .. I should probably branch out a bit.

I'm looking forward to classes tomorrow. Today I had Engineering Graphics (CAD stuff!) and tomorrow I have CalcI (again), Speech (with a fun teacher), Engineering Graphics Lab, CompSciII and chapel. Good stuff.

Odd.. I'm not a Journeyer anymore. Guess I'm losing grip in Advogato. Oh well.

This is going to be a fantastic semester.

3 Dec 2000

Sun, 3 Dec 2000 04:19:16 GMT

Iain: Hmm.. you've struck a cord with me (ooh, I think I really used that phrase wrong). In this post you talked about Radiohead becoming old news. I've been feeling very similarly lately, yet I have a delema. I still love Radiohead. I've been looking at some new bands to try and move me away from that.. among them are David Gray, Aaron Sprinkle, Jeff Buckly, Belle and Sebastian, Sunny Day, Pedro the Lion and most notably, Coldplay. I haven't been able to scrounge up many besides Coldplay.. but I'm hoping I'll be able to find a band I like a bit as much as Radiohead. So what do I do? Just forget Radiohead because now they are popular? I feel like a deserter then. I love their style and their words.

*sigh*

2 Dec 2000

Sat, 2 Dec 2000 19:09:11 GMT

And so finishes another week in the life of Eliot.

It was a good week really. At julian's insistence, I finally got some big junks of the Gabber manual updated. Hopefully will be able to finish that off shortly so he can release 0.8.0. I hear it will have message queing! Beautiful....

I sent an article I wrote about the University's censor ware (Internet filter) to the director of student activities (who happens to be a good friend of mine) after he brought up over dinner one evening how much he hated Internet filters. I was surprised because I figured him to tbe the normal Univ admin kind of guys regarding this area. Anyway.. he was really impressed with my article and wants to print it in the school newspaper. I'll need to dig up some more facts and structure it a bit better, but I think I'm going to do it. I hate the filter and I hate what it stands for.

I'm off to take a friend to Lufkin... Hopefully will be back in time for some Christmas parties!