CalvinDude.com

One more hour and my Saturday work will be finished.

But I do have to come in Sunday too :-( Stupid Bush and his ebil Global Warming.

Well, I’ll be leaving in about 20 minutes, but had to take a quick break before my brain completely melted. We have 141 batches remaining. About half the department will be in tomorrow (while we mutter about the other half that can’t be bothered to come in, and who also amazingly don’t work overtime during the week either because they’re under this false delusion that little gnomes do all the work for them when they are away so they don’t have to worry about being team players at all and…oh wait, I need to breathe.)

Anyway, it could be worse. Actually, it probably is worse. I figure at least some of us will be working on Sunday too :-( *sigh*

This is Bush’s fault somehow.

Here it is, almost a year since The Incident when my roommate got arrested. I decided to call the detective who was working the case to see if he knew when it would go to trial and all that fun stuff. He said that he was pretty sure my roommate did a plea deal already, so I asked if I could get my computer back. He said he’d have to talk to the DA and see if they needed it any further.

Of course, when they give it back they have to wipe it completely clean. This means that I will lose everything I had on it. Yeah, lots of half-written books, short stories, and music files are going to be vaporized.

If my ex-roommate had any money, I’d sue him for lost productivity. But since he couldn’t even afford his bail (which was set way to low in my opinion)….

Anyway, we shall see how everything shakes down. The detective wasn’t positive that my roommate had plead (he said, “I’ve had 60 arrests since his”, which is scary when you think about it), so it would depend on if that happened or not, and then it would depend on what the DA said. I asked if there was any way that I could get the files I wrote of my book projects and such saved, and he said probably not due to the fact that if there is anything illegal at all on the computer they cannot give it back to me and it’s a lot easier to simply wipe the hard drive than it is to have a techie look over a bunch of files to see if they contain anything illegal. :-( (Actually, he didn’t say it that bluntly, but I know how to read between the lines.)

So again: oh well.

Well, I’ve found out that I’ll be working this weekend. :-( Never much fun. Hopefully it’ll only be Saturday, but we had 220 batches left when I left work this evening and they all have to be done by Monday, including the work we will get tomorrow and Friday.

Urgh.

Oh well. The OT pay will be nice. Working the OT will not be…

This is probably the most difficult post I’ve ever had to write. Not because the words are hard, but because I’ve had to come to grips with something about my nature. About who I am.

I remember when I was a young boy, I played a game of chess against another boy about my age. After his opening move (Pawn to A4), I felt the beginnings of…well, something inside me. I knew that there was something “wrong” with this feeling, but as the game progressed it only got stronger. Seven moves later, after I checkmated him, I told him exactly how I felt.

He punched me in the nose and called me a slur. Since then, I’ve lived a double life, afraid to come out and be who I really am.

It appears that the truth has a way of coming out anyway. Despite my best efforts at hiding it, several bloggers have discovered the truth. And while I tried to laugh off their attempts to ridicule me and pretend it wasn’t true, I realize now that this has only harmed my self-image. I must come out of the closet. And so, publicly, I now reveal to everyone my deepest secret.

I am smarter than you.

I cannot help it. It is partly in my genes: both my parents are intellectuals. But I also know that my lifestyle has contributed to my inability to overcome this weakness. I am addicted to internet arguments. It began simply, and it began before the internet was widespread even. I saw a book and I read it. Then I needed to read more books. And soon, I began to act out on what I had read. I am ashamed to admit it, but I began to do math. It got so bad that some days I would do math as many as six times a day. I started with simple math. And it progressed (oh, how does it progress!). Soon not even algebra was enough for me. No, I had to progress into the realm of calculus.

After I got online, I discovered a whole new world of argumentation. When I read many arguments (especially if they were on BHT), I couldn’t help but think: “The guy who wrote this is just plain stupid!” It was the same feeling I felt playing chess against my stupid friend so long ago.

But I didn’t say it out loud. I tried to respond in a way that would subtly deliver my point, but still they accused me of being an intellectual elitist. They accused me of being a smart ass and wise guy, as if there was something wrong with being smart and wise.

I’ve been called many things in my life. I’ve been called a nerd, a geek, a braniac. All of these slurs have hurt. And I want to know…just what is so wrong with being smart anyway? It hurts no one but me! Is my intellectual superiority so hard for you to stomach that my mere existence causes you pain? If you are dumb enough to write stupid things, then why should I be the one who has to suffer? If you run with scissors, put your own eye out, not mine.

I say enough is enough! No longer will I stand in the shadows content to draw geometrical figures in the dark! I say it’s okay to be smart! I challenge all my dumber brethren to cut me some slack. Just because I’m smarter than you doesn’t mean you have to be offended when I demonstrate your arguments are as pointless as a water buffalo in Cleveland! I say it is YOU who should change! It is YOU who should start to be smart!

Say it with me now:

START TO BE SMART!
START TO BE SMART!
START TO BE SMART!

Yes, yearn to learn my brothers and sisters! Don’t succumb to being dumb. Open your eyes and choose to be wise!

Last night, I watched Kill Bill: Volume 2. In one of the scenes at the chapel flashback, music plays in the background. I was like: “I know that tune. That’s from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.” And when we got to the credits, sure enough there were several Ennio Morricone songs, incluing The Sundown aka Il Tramonto, which you can hear here. It’s my second favorite track from TGTB&TU.

By the way, the best track from TGTB&TU is The Ecstasy of Gold. Just MY awesome opinion.

Well, despite being a nerd (and despite watching several of the free courses that MIT offers), I still managed to be a geek too :-P Yup, I got gold stars on every possible song for Guitar Hero, not counting the downloadable content since I don’t feel like paying $100 just to get a wireless modem for the Xbox when I know that regular wireless modems cost as much as $50 normally…yeah.

Obviously, getting the gold stars on all the songs meant…I was playing on Easy. I can most certainly do it with Medium too. And can probably get quite a few on Hard, and maybe one or two on Expert. Some day, I’ll beat them all perfectly.

Until then…my fingers shall remain numb.

I’ve known this for some time. But it’s been proven even more so today.

It used to be this time of day on a Friday, I was looking forward to the weekend where I could spend all my time trying to defeat Guitar Hero. But now….

…I’m looking forward to viewing the free on-line mathematical lectures provided by MIT.

One never knew matrices could be so kewl.

Okay, I’m not really predicting it. I already know it’s happening. We’re only a hundred batches behind right now, and we have to be finished by the end of next week…which has a holiday on Monday. (I’ll probably be working Monday anyway though.)

Oh well. I will not go insane. Yet.

I realized something today as I rode the bus home. See, today I wrote an article on DNA (genetics, biology, probability, information theory), I read a section from a cosmology book before getting on the bus (it dealt with galaxies, so: astronomy), and then on the bus I watched the clouds (weather) play over the mountains (geology). And it hit me.

I love science.

Perhaps it’s because I just want to know. I want to know how things work, why they work, what they’re there for. I actually enjoy watching natural interactions, like the weather. Or watching how birds fly around chasing after insects. Name a scientific endeavor and I find it fascinating.

And I realized that this means something else. I am my mother’s son. See, I think most of my intellectual reasoning ability has come from the influence of my father. He’s always been the one I could discuss “deep thoughts” with. In fact, when my parents are visiting from Ukraine we often talk a great deal about virtually any theological or philosophical subject. I’ve known for some time that I am my father’s son because of the intellectual aspect of my character.

Don’t get me wrong. My mom’s not stupid. In fact, in any other family that did not have someone like my dad in it, she’d be the intellectual head hands down. But my mom is different from my dad. Her intelligence isn’t as “out there.” Her intelligence is more introverted while my dad’s is extroverted (if that makes any sense).

My mom loves science though. I can remember my mom watching the clouds in the sky on many occasions (she really loves thunderstorms). Growing up, our family spent many a night gazing at the sky, watching the stars in the endless void above…and it was mostly at my mom’s instigation. I remember her stories of the Northern Lights in Alaska. She watches the way animals behave, and even the way Ukranians behave differently than Americans now. She is a keen observer, a watcher.

And I realized that as much as I am my father’s son, I am my mother’s son too. I am definitely blessed to have the family that I have. To have people who love science just as much as I do, and who love intellectual discussion just as much as I do. I wish more people could have families like I’ve got, so that they too can spend an hour watching wind rustle through the grass and not be bored because you’re trying to figure it out. To watch the patterns that rain drops make on the window pane. To see comets in the night sky. To watch the color of the sky change as the sun peeks out over the horizon.

We have such an amazing world God has given us. I thank Him for giving me parents who enabled me to see it.