Tag Archives: Rant

Personal

Staking in for the Blind and Showing of Hands – Texas A&M Commerce

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So today I took a journey to Commerce, Texas and take a gamble on my academic fate. A friend needed me to be navigator, but also found out that Texas A&M Commerce has a pre-pharmacy program. I figured “what’s the harm of sitting 1 hour in a car to navigate?” because ultimately, it could benefit me. If the event was a bust, then it wouldn’t be like going “all in” but rather folding my hand of cards. It wasn’t much something out of the ordinary, as I arise at 8am… but with torn glutes, quads, and hams… It makes for a difficult task to want to get out of a warm bed.

After brushing fangs and forgetting to mix my whey protein shake for breakfast, I’d make a beeline to my friend’s house to rendezvous with them for our trip. For once, traffic in Dallas was favorably nice! I had never been out to East Texas, so seeing the real country side was interesting. The amusing part for me was seeing a Carl Jr’s out on I30 East as that restaurant was a mythical restaurant that didn’t exist in the south, until today. The boring nothing was spontaneously broken up with scenic views of lakesides and the nice overcast sky with the clouds peeping out. The journey took an hour, but traffic was not as bad as my friend had predicted. Being avant garde made us extremely early, because our tour was scheduled at 2pm and it was 11am. I’d throw in my application and just inform them that I was going to have my school submit my transcripts via fax or mail. They have a policy of not eating the application fee unless acceptance is confirmed.

The next phase was to do “logistics” and locate shops for provisions. There was a Wal-Mart across I50 from the school. There are some fast food restaurants not too far away. The funny part is that there’s a liquor store about a short walk from the campus. An O’Reilly’s is about a short distance from the school, should I need car parts on short notice.

After eating a quick lunch and ratting around Wal-Mart for logistical reasons… We wandered back to the campus to prepare for the tour. It was brisk tour in the 40F cold with gusting winds, so it was not a pleasant for an experience. Our guide was great and quick… I was impressed by the facilities. The recreation center looked vast, but we didn’t explore there. The overview of the facilities revealed something very slick, a rock climbing cylinder! Something I’d kill to tackle after getting my arms back in shape… Most of the buildings are either being built or being upgraded, though some of the new buildings (1-2 years old) look great! The sciences building (where I will probably spend the bulk of my studies) looks like a pleasant environment to be in. After looking into things like transfer requirements and what essential courses I need to polish up on.

I like the campus, dearly. To be isolated in Commerce, away from the buzz of Dallas and the suburbs will keep me from wanting to spend a single dollar locally on weekdays to minimize my expenses. That and to be separated from “civilization” will allow me to concentrate on my studies. For once, I could care less about civilization and the metroplex. The big break from my family to be able to concentrate on my school work is the biggest incentive. The final hurdle is my coursework which I hope I just touch the 2.0 minimal GPA, after that, it’s more on me to pray I can get federal aid or loans for the $6,000 – $8,000 tuition.

For now… I hope that things work out for me, because I want to excel high. I would like to keep this as a surprise to my family if I get accepted… because I know right now, they see me as a “failure” or a pathetic buffoon. To be fair to myself, I have been slaving at my toiling to succeed. With fighting my personal demons, academic redemption, and debt, my mind has not been able to vector on progressing further with my education. I know Sol has witnessed me fall and pick myself up from shambles… With my supportive friends, they have helped mend and sew me together. I will fight on, because I know that I can succeed. I savor success and crave victory… I just wonder if family will cheer me on if I am accepted. If they do, then good. If not, then I shall hold myself high and stand proud.

Pictures are now online via my Flickr, enjoy! – ZeroXR

Pale Solar Flare
Pale Solar Flare

Expanse of Nothingness
Expanse of Nothingness

Gloomy Horizon
Gloomy Horizon

Commerce Sign
Commerce Sign

Personal, Rant

Christmas is HELL!!!

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I tried to pick up an iTrip for a friend for Christmas and I got to see wanton chaos in retail settings at an unprecedented scale. The shop next to my office had the iPod section striped BARE. You had remains of the peg board and some torn cartons just left. A second mass merchant yielded much of the same… The electronics specialty shop looked like a tornado ripped through it. You had children fighting with parents on “Mommy, I want [insert name of toy/electronic gadget here]!!!”, people on the phones with the person they were attempting to gift for, and the terrible checkout lines.

I understand the need to shop last second is apparent, but for the love of all that’s holy… People should have the courtesy of being polite to each other, not this frenzy of “I gotta buy this or my kids won’t love me!” If a parent is worrying about how much a child will love them, then they should have a better parent through out the entire year rather than be a jackass to the entire world for the last few days of Christmas shopping due to procrastination.

Personal, Rant, Technology

Mobile Phone Crossroads, We Meet Again.

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Call me odd or a phone maniac… but I love mobile phones. Ever since engineers found ways to pack a wallop of technologies into a small shell, it’s no wonder why people are almost replacing their laptops with these devices. Though I will admit that in the early days, the devices were not the prettiest looking shells or operating systems.

I had my taste of smart phone ownership with a Motorola MPx220 and I can say it was quite possibly one of the most horrid examples of a “smart phone” ever to be experienced. The lack of being able to free up RAM from killing applications and Motorola’s poor expertise back then with Windows Mobile were the things that just made for a poor quality device. At the time, Windows Mobile 2003 was just terribly limited with growth and freedom. It had me desiring more out of a more “intelligent” phone.

I would eventually step into a T-Mobile MDA (Windows Mobile 2005) which I would unlock myself to use on Cingular/AT&T. Windows Mobile 5 was leaps and bounds ahead of the game, but there were “limitations” with this device as well. By default, the device is alright though it could use significantly better things to improve its usefulness. The only problem to increase the device’s productivity? Well, two issues:

  1. Productivity suites cost money. The best of the suites that I got to try on my friend’s device were the SPB Software programs. These programs re-skin the Today screen of a Pocket PC device to display information in a more intuitive manner. But to get a good suite for a Windows Mobile 6 device that does not have HTC’s touchFLO interface on it, you’d have to spend almost $100 for a great set-up of the SPB Mobile Shell ($29.99), Pocket Plus ($29.99), Diary ($19.99), and Phone Suite ($19.99). Granted, this argument can be nulled out with any HTC device that has the HTC touchFLO interface which does the same as those programs, but is built into the phone at no cost to the end user.
  2. Additional RAM is required from running these instances of productivity suites. Back when I had my MDA and had a “tricked out” Today screen, my phone was not running at its best… So I had to remedy that with overclocking the processor from its stock speed of 195 mHz to a 220 mHz. The only thing was the crippling the device was the limited amount of RAM. I dare to say that on devices like the T-Mobile Wing or HTC Herald, running productivity suites would just diminish the device from being a “great” Pocket PC. For devices like the AT&T 8525/HTC TyTN, AT&T Tilt/HTC Kaiser (or TyTN2), or the HTC Athena, this may have minimal impact and nulls that argument. (Any owners of these devices, feel free to correct me.)

Why did I give up the MDA? A vital function for any phone I own is that is must be able to be a reliable alarm clock for me. After a few occasions where the MDA would lock up from RAM issues, I had let it go. I would try Nokia’s Symbian S60 smartphone interface and lack of touch made the experience feel so disconnected, though the phone features were dead on reliable. Palm’s tired out Garnet OS would make for a great experience, but with limitations on using the phone properly with T-Mobile would have me seeking to trade out the phone for something more along the lines of a Sony Ericsson device.

I love my P990i, don’t get me wrong. Quite possibly one of the best phones I have EVER owned and I do stand by that statement. It’s a dead reliable phone and even has a touch screen interface with a keyboard. Sony Ericsson has made me a fan for life and I will continue to recommend their devices to people seeking a fun alternative to bland domestic phones while trying to avoid high prices world phone imports. I have played with the P1i and it just feels like it has lost its sense of identity from the lack of a keypad flip. The failing of the P-series currently is the devices have a memory leak after awhile and reclaiming the RAM can only do so much before the phone needs a reboot. Something that reminded me of my old MDA when the memory leak was so bad that the device needed a reboot. It was a shame that Sony Ericsson’s delay of the P990i’s release only made it a device that was just too late to make a big splash in the ocean of smart phones and PDA phones.

This leads me to a debate of what I should consider stepping into later on. With my site up and having my own mail server, getting push e-mail will be a service that I will definitely be considering. Web use is more an optional thing, but would not hurt which makes wi-fi a great option to look for. GPS is a nice thing to have as I have had moments where I thought to myself “Why don’t I have GPS?” Productivity is a big thing as it would make a “smart phone” pointless if it is not productive. So what options does that leave me?

I know some of my open source friends would say “Why not Open Moko?” My response is just I don’t have much time to be mucking with my phone’s innards. With the eve of Google’s Android and the Open Moko team not making a fast enough push to make it a viable platform, it has left me a bit sour on considering it. I don’t much like Android either as it seems to push a guise of “open source” but with an influence of “Google is your new god” somewhat makes me a little uneasy like it is a false sense of freedom. (My buddy JJNova has shown me some things that even make me a bit distrustful of Google as well.)

BlackBerry devices currently are a bit limited on features depending on which path you follow. T-Mobile USA is getting a BlackBerry Pearl update with wi-fi in February after their Suncom merger, but it will lack GPS. Then there’s the case of the Blackberry Curves for T-Mobile and AT&T. T-Mobile’s version has wi-fi, but lacks GPS. AT&T’s is the opposite with having GPS and lacking wi-fi. While Research in Motion (RiM) has said the FCC is limiting what they can and cannot put into their devices… They supposedly have a new device in the works. If the new device can combine wi-fi and GPS, RiM may just win me over. Now, if they can make their net browsing just as good as their mail system… it may be serious heat for the Windows Mobile crowd.

Windows Mobile would return me to a device I am “familiar” with. The only issue is that syncing in Linux with Windows Mobile is a rather difficult matter to resolve. To be with a device of this caliber, I’d have to muck about just to make a back-up of my contacts on a Windows XP machine. So a sacrifice of freedom all in the name of smartly backing up my phone book… An odd sacrifice if anything. Going BlackBerry still runs into this issue as well, so it is “lose-lose” to a sense.

If anyone wants to throw some insight to help me with my future decision, it would be much appreciated.

Rant

Random Blurb and Ranting on a Cold, Rainy Day

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I have lived in a small suburb for damn near all my life, so I have seen some interesting things with my 23 years of living… One thing that amuses me about the majority of DFW area drivers is that rainy roads and rain instantly sets off the “panic mode” on many people’s minds and their driving gets offensive rather than defensive. Naturally, rain or adverse weather conditions makes drivers learn to bide their time and take a slower pace to avoid any additional delays from getting into an accident. I see the following annoyances with the drivers in my city panicking:

  • Failure to go below the speed limit
  • Reckless lane switching
  • Heedless stomping on the brakes at the absolute last second
  • Hydroplaning

Unfortunately for me being a roadster (tiny) manual transmission driver, this puts me and other fellow drivers at risk for some careless person to suddenly panic or behave poorly on the road. I know on my way to the gym at 8:00 that there were 2 multi-car pile-ups from some clown losing control of their vehicle. Here’s the irony of it all: it took place in a SCHOOL ZONE! A twenty mile-per-hour school zone. I can only imagine that the reactions of the asinine drivers must have been embarrassing to hold up school traffic from their short witted thoughts.

The last exam of the semester was today for me, boy… was it a doozy. The questions blitzed my mind and ransacked my memory banks to thoroughly exhaust me completely. I mean, the class was great but for some reason… that exam “kicked my ass”. I know that I actually enjoyed my classes this semester, but I wish I could have dumped more time on them… It sucks having to work and go to school, but that is the price to pay for freedom. With the holiday season here and the office spitting out more and more paperwork, I hope to increase my intake of hours to pay off things and maybe have a little money to spend on myself. I am not sure if I can afford to attend school next semester, but I may ask family if they are willing to make a plea bargain with me… I just don’t think it will bode well though, unfortunately… I pray that ’round tax time… I should be seeing a bigger return for working a whole year with a company that does not use shady methods to write off taxation.

For those wondering when the next “serious” reviews are coming… I will say that they will be hitting home soon. The next review will be over my feelings over the wildly popular Nintendo DS  game: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. I will give Nintendo credit for making a wonderfully refreshing game that makes even the most casual fan feel at home. Keep watching the blog, I will have the review up once I get through the game or even beat it.

Personal

Finals, Excitement, and a Reprive

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So my last few finals are today and tomorrow. I am fighting to do battle with a paper on evaluating a symphony and sleep is killing me. Let this be a lesson to myself: I shall learn better than to procrastinate on something absolutely vital to my academic success. Don’t get me wrong, I love the topic I am writing about, but after a week of drama, rage, high speeds, and coffee… It has reduced me to a crawling pace. Once it’s all over, then my pain shall be uplifted from me from academics.

Work is getting better, I think. Progress at the office has been wonderful with regard to the new lady working with me. She fulfills the term “partner” very well as she works with me rather than being a hindrance to me. My recognition for my merits have been growing from both my superiors as well as my clients. This has bumped my morale up a notch, so I am feeling rather good about it.

I am already looking forward to the weekend as it will be good to kick back and relax. My cousin Sol is coming back in town and we’re looking to kick it “old skool“. I will also be able finally relax and rebuild on the tattered remains of my life and attempt to get it back on track. I am also trying to hastily speed up the rate of repayment to my parents so I can be square with them for their assistance. I just hope that an end to the nightmare is coming soon. I know I could use it.