AMP Is Very Bad.

I don't know if many of you have experienced AMP, that wretched drink by Mountain Dew... It seriously messed with me last night. I experienced the shortest highest high I've ever gotten out of a caffeinated beverage, followed by one of the lowest mental crashes I can remember--definitely not what I was aiming for last night. I drank it hoping that I could finish my ENGL210 critique assignment and go to bed, not having to worry about it. I went to the lab last night at about 7:30 hoping to crank it out... but my brain just felt like mud. Futilely I tried to read the article I was supposed to be critiquing, but the AssultCube, World of Warcraft and some other generic World War II FPS that Steve and Adan were playing looked way more exciting. I couldn't concentrate at all.

So I woke up at 6:00 this morning and finished the whole paper in one sitting. Yay!

So... just for future reference, I'll document it here--if only for myself.

AMP is very bad.

I just sent the love of my life off to her new job this morning. She looks so much happier, and I can definitely tell that she's more excited to be going to work. I gave her a kiss and told her to have a good day at her new job. Instead of a sigh, this time I got a smile back. Things are looking up.

The house is clean, and I'm off to school. Looks like English, Web Programming and Old Testament are on the schedule today--nothing too tough.

C~ya

Check Out My New Stress Ball!

Life is changing a little bit around here. I got a new stress ball, a new pair of shoes and Tiffany got a couple new jobs.

I think it's going to be for the better. We've spent some time talking and praying about it. Turns out she couldn't take working there much longer... so for sanity's sake, we thought it would be a good idea if she went to work somewhere else. We may have to pinch a few pennies to make it work, but I think it's going to be a better deal in the long run. Maybe now she'll be able to get that Special Ed. certification over the summer. I'm sure she'll have plenty of time to work on her references and polish up her resume before next year.

We spent some time at the mall tonight. That was fun. It felt like a date.

...So I almost bought presents and pizza for Amy Jo on Saturday--I accidentally gave her read and write access to my Google Calendar, and some events I didn't remember putting on my personal agenda started popping up. :-p

Yes, I love technology...

I had a pretty swell day at work today. I got to learn a little more about Linux and shell scripting at work. The backup server now creates the backup folders, then purges the week-old ones automatically (leaving me more time to do more difficult work. yay!)

I even wrote a new module today that grabs advanced statistics from Popsicle. It's pretty swell. Utilizing loops, it dynamically writes 224 queries in under a second... which is cool on one hand, but on the other, I shouldn't have to use so many queries to get the data that I need.

select sum(numberofpeople) as sum, count(numberofpeople) as count, avg(numberofpeople) as avg
from #tableName#
where dateof > dateadd('m', -1, Now())
and datepart('w', [dateof]) = '#numweekday#'
and datepart('h', [dateof]) = '#hour#'
and datepart('n', [dateof]) = '#minute#';

"Select sum(numberofpoeple) as sum" gets the number of people who have been in the lab for each half hour mark in the past month. "Count(numberofpeople) as count" gets the number of population counts taken in the lab for each half hour mark in the past month. "Avg(numberofpeople) as avg" gets the average number of people in the lab for each half hour mark in the past month.

I'd say I'm learning a lot about database in my CSIS 245 class. A month ago I wouldn't have been able to write something like this, so I guess I've learned something from Dr. Bareiss.

Database is Killing Me

CSIS 245 will be the end of me.

CSIS 326 isn't fun.

I don't mind BLIT 202.

ENGL 210 doesn't take much effort.

CSIS 480 is probably my favorite.

Classes aren't going so well right now... turns out my partner forgot to turn in the last lab report for Network Admin and Theory... Big Fat 0 for that. The lab before that one didn't go so well either. I just wish it wasn't so hard to do well in that class to begin with.

I Beat Portal!

I just beat Portal. It was pretty good. The artificial intelligence says some funny things during the last level. It's creepy because that whole level takes place in the dark. I didn't think it was going to end... The robot definitely lied about the cake... There was no cake, but the song during the end credits made up for it. ^_^

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(video_game)

EDIT:
Oh, and we just got Wall-e for the Wii. We've noticed that the gameplay is kinda buggy--so much so that two or three times we've been forced to shut the system off because Wall-e got stuck in a wall or in the floor. But, it's still fun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E_(video_game)

Made it Home

What a ride! Tiffany and I drove down IL-26 hoping to get home on time for me to get to work, but right before we got to Princeton, the road was flooded... We ended up going back to Ohio, through Mendota, and I think we got on I-92... I'm not really sure. Somehow, we ended up in Morris and we took 80 until we got to IL-53 or something like that, we went through Coal City and got to Wilmington... IL-113 was flooded too! So we ended up driving back again so we could find Morris... we didn't really know where we were going still... 'cause we followed the signs to Morris, and somehow missed it...

...Anyway, we eventually made it back to Bourbonnais, after a long, frustrating trip. I ended up missing an hour of work, but no worries, AmyJo was able to give me Grace's phone number and she covered the lab for me.

I had a lot of fun at home this weekend. Living Well had their 3rd Anniversary Service. I got to sing and play in the worship set.

I don't think I've been home since Tiff and I have been married. We'll have to visit more often. I miss home sometimes...