The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey August 23, 2011

Condolences, belated...

I don't know what got into me (or out of me) - Sunday was a total wipeout, and the last two days at work have been busy. Not an excuse, I just have hardly been in my home office in days. Our condolences to the families and units of these fallen warriors: 2nd Lt. Joe L. Cunningham, 27, of Kingston, Oklahoma, died Aug. 13 at Laghman province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained in a non-combat related incident. Master Sgt. Charles L. Price III, 40, of Milam, Texas, died Aug. 12 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked…

Brian Bilbrey August 20, 2011

Productivity

Well, that's summer session done. By noon this morning, I'd taken both finals, come back home and mowed the lawns front and back. Then I replaced Marcia's broken fan/light in the sewing area. A productive day. I should have grades in a few days, but I think I did well enough to get the A in both courses. Eight more classes and I'll be done (unless I've counted/calculated wrong - hard to know until I file for graduation in late Fall, 2012). Anyway, slept badly last night (pre-test jitters, weird), and busy today: very tired now. Ciao!

Brian Bilbrey August 17, 2011

Culture Shock

Left over from yesterday: A bit of link-love for MIT's OpenCourseware. 'Cause they're totally worth it. I was told that using my Xoom to watch MIT Chemistry courses while working out on the elliptical was a bit ... nerdy. SRSLY? Oh, yeah, and bonus link for people wondering how homeopathy works: http://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com/. I promise that's no Rick-roll. * * * So, Culture shock. How, you ask? More specifically (since the topic even needs disambiguation at Wikipedia), I'm talking about The Culture - the pre-Sublimation galaxy-spanning "civilization" spawned from the mind of Iain M. Banks. I've read eight books from the Culture…

Brian Bilbrey August 16, 2011

Another use for the Xoom

It turns out that the Xoom fits right nicely in the book-holder slot on the elliptical machine. But I really can't read while I'm exercising ... and I've never gotten the knack of listening to audio books. But hey! There's a lot of video lectures out of MIT and elsewhere. That's one of my biggest problems with exercise - I get bored. This has possibilities! No, there's no woman with improbably blue contacts and a glass of some liquid fiber product lurking just outside of the frame. Multi-tasking has its advantages, though.

Brian Bilbrey August 14, 2011

Passages

Thursday: Oh, right, you heard from me on Thursday, at least to show you the yummy chili. Friday: Work, then I wrote that 600 word paper that came out to 840 or so words, and turned it in. Shortly thereafter, I noticed that the instructions didn't just say must be 600 words, but also included the "must not be over 800 words" category. Really? The prose that described the topic to be addressed was 534 words. Why can't I use as many words as I want? F#@(*U&. So I pulled the paper back, then edited down to 783 words, by…