Divine Lunacy

Dear Provisional License Holder:

The 2005 Session of the Rhode Island General Assembly modified the provisional license provisions of RIGL section 31-10-6. The changes are as follows:

Effective July 9, 2005, during the first 12 months of a limited provisional license, the license may have no more than one passenger younger than twenty-one(21) years of age. Immediate family/household members are exempt from this rule.

The penalty for violation of this section is $30, for the first offense, $60 for the second offense and $100 fro each subsequent offense.

Well… That sucks… Only 30-something days until my 18^th birthday though… Still sucks…

Surely we’ve all watched the sixth sense… Either way, you’ll surely understand this pop culture reference… I see pseudo-geeks. Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re not geeks. This technical era in which we live has brought about it’s own kind of fake—the pseudo-geek. They’re everywhere, and much like in the Sixth Sense, not just anyone can see them. Only Cole is able to see dead people, and in our real life geek parallel, only geeks can spot pseudo geeks. This is what makes them dangerous and annoying.

I know few people who lack the intelligence to browse an acronym finder. 4ny0n3 c4/\/ 5p34k 1337, 8u7 f3\/\/ 4r3 7ru1y 31337. I can go around talking about KDE, and how it’s a GUI, but I prefer my good ol’ bash shell. I could give a speech about how much I love cd’ing through my ~, and rm’ing all the junk. (this reminds me… I’m still running a 2.6.10 Kernel with SELinux. Time to update…) If I select * from readers where clue > 0;, only true geeks will be returned. Unfortunately, only a true geek will get a correct return on that query. All of the non-geeks who read this blog probably think that query is enough to make me sound like an ubergeek. So you’ve seen that I can talk the talk, but can I walk the walk? Do I actually know anything about something?(say yes or feel my wrath.) This is how we distinguish the Geeks from the pseudo-geeks. Pseudo-geeks are often able to compose nice sentences full of meaningless technical jargon. Here’s an example: I fsck’ed my main partition today because I had a bunch of orphaned GUI’s. To someone who doesn’t know that GUI stands for Graphical User Interface, that sentence probably makes perfect sense. (orphaned Inodes would be correct.) Only us true geeks can see through their facades. Only a true geek can expatiate about the benefits of *nix over winblows…

In the past, I have tried to avoid writing about idiots on this weblog. Perhaps because I don’t want to deal with their stupidity-ridden comments, or perhaps because I’m just too lazy to rant. There are few idiots who have been lucky enough to be featured on this Blog, and this person happens to be a returning moron. Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, Spiders, Googlebot, Feedster users, and Technorati users, I give you Rambacher. [Crowd cheers as Greg introduces the guest with a hint of disdain in his voice.]

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I’ve had a BlogShares account since last 2004 (although something happend with my first one.), but I’ve always thought that the game was a complete waste of time. In the last few days, I’ve proven myself wrong. I am completely addicted to the idea of gaining large amounts of fake money. My experience with mafia.org was very similar. I never really cared about Mafia, but when I tried it, I was addicted instantly. I plan to gain riches and grandeur while seeking world conquestion in BlogShares, much like I did in mafia. Unfortunately, my dreams were never realized in Mafia. There was a great server crash and all of the accounts were lost. The great leaders of the Time, Including Ganelon, became mere legends. Mafia would never be the same after that. The post-crash world began with total chaos. There were no real leaders—just underground groups each with their own candidate for world dicator. Of greatest note are Father_TeQ and his followers. Father_TeQ was the first registered user after the crash and was bound to make Made Man before anyone else. Father_TeQ’s cold ways soon lead to underground support groups. Each grouped offered you protection, and promised to avenge your death. These groups had to remain underground as Father_TeQ would put hits out on anyone who dared oppose him. These tactics eventually led to anti-TeQ cults who were responsivle for his downfall. Shortly after the fall of the evil dictator, order was restored to the mob and Ganelon had regained his thrown in Amber (though he would never match his former greatness.). It seemed things might settle down for a while, but a short time later, Ganelon allowed a low ranking player to attempt to whack him. The whack succeeded, and so passed Ganelon. The game was not the same without Ganelon, but I continued playing until Izzy left. Shortly after the departure of Izzy, the game crumbled, and has since been rebuilt from scratch. The new version is not the same. The idea of recreating the mafia has come to mind several times in the past, but I have dismissed the thought because of all the work involved. I think I might actually go through with it this time…. we shall see… Meanwhile: I just made $100,000 YAY!

I had originally planned to postpone this entry indefinitely, but I’ve just realized that my keys are stuck in the truck. Now that I can’t go anywhere, I have some free time to blog. (As if I didn’t have time before…)

As many of you may already know, I attend Camp Yawgoog during their fifth week of operation every summer. As most of you are also probably aware, the camp was shutdown due to a norovirus outbreak that week. After being at camp for less than a day, I was sent home with hopes of returning week 7 or 8. My dream was finally realized last week. I returned to Camp Yawgoog for my 8th and final year at camp. (As a scout.).

Before I go into the events of last week, I find it necessary to waste a paragraph summarizing my previous two years at Yawgoog. In the fall of 2002 I was elected Senior Patrol Leader of My troop. I was then reelected For the spring-summer term in April of 2003. As SPL at Yawgoog, I had to take on a great many responsibilities that I wasn’t quite ready for. The week went kind of poorly for me. As I look back on that week, I think SPL’s have it easier these days, but perhaps this is just the result of greater experience. I was a life scout at the time, and nearly Eagle… Being such a high rank, I was under the impression that I didn’t need to take any merit badges. I now realize the stupidity of this assumption, and wish I could change things… The next year, I again didn’t take any scheduled merit badges, but I did complete wood carving and orienteering, which gave me enough merit badges for a bronze palm. I had been eagle for about 7 months at the time. If I had enough Merit badges, I could have earned a bronze palm four months earlier. If I had taken just two merit badges in 2002, I would have been eligible for a bronze palm exactly three months after my Eagle Scout board of review. These four months would have enabled me to get a second bronze palm, and perhaps even a second gold. Now I will have to settle with one silver. The morale of the story is: Lethargy Kills.

I think you get the point. I have seen the error of my ways. I took, and passed both Wilderness Survival and Forestry this year. By this year, I was accustomed to doing nothing all day. I could not bear to fill all of my free time with merit badge classes. As a result, I left my two afternoon classes free. I regret this even now. had I taken two more merit badges, I would be only one merit badge away from a silver palm now. As you can clearly see, I am full of regret.

As my Scouting Career comes to an end, I feel myself rushing to become even more decorated than I already am. By my eighteenth birthday, I WILL have attained the rank of Eagle Scout, Silver Palm, thus having thirty-six merit badges, including both life saving and Emergency Preparedness’s. I spent twenty minutes looking over the Yawgoog leadership handbook this past week. Again with the regret… I have this sudden affinity for Yawgoog Segments. I WANT MORE!… had I shot just one round at the trap range, I would have a segment. Were I not too cheap to join the YAA, I’d have another. Damned order of the arrow segment. There’s an OA ordeal in September or something… Perhaps I should get myself voted in and go. I’m rambling…

Yawgoog was weird this year. John could not make week eight. My mom was there all week. I’m too lazy to go into the evils of Women in Boy Scouting at the moment, but I’ve surely posted something to that effect in the past. Most of the Philmont crew decided not to come. I was left with Tim, Kevin, and a bunch of eleven-year-olds. Monday went about the same as usual. Jerry was once again the Sandy Beach Waterfront Director. YAY JERRY! (He hails from my troop.) Those scouts who attend Yawgoog during week eight seem to be perfectly content with it. Perhaps they’ve never been during one of the better weeks. Week eight seems to be the least tradition filled, the least spirit filled, and the least exciting week of camp. On top of all of the rag tag troops like 28 Primrose, and 102 Chopmist, the process of breaking camp for the winter begins during week eight. In week five when the staff starts a song, all of the troops stand and participate. We have all been coming to Yawgoog for years; we know the routine. Such is not true with week eight. They seem to lack the brains to sing, and furthermore, they fail to comprehend the idea of a Moo-moo. Even the staff seemed to sing a bit slower. (though I am now told that we sing too fast.) On a final note, I can’t imagine any troop in week five toilet-papering all the shooting ranges. I lied, here’s the real final note: There was a week six Three Point troop staying with us. They actually had the audacity to start Three Point cheers in the Sandy Beach dining Hall. This would not have gone unstopped in week five. But alas, the staff alone could not overpower this enormous troop.

If you’re a good Blog reader, you’ve already read last year’s post about camp. This means that you know all about the cargo net, right? I decided to make something this year as well, but more of a web than a net. I made it exactly like a spider web. (using three trees.) if came out perfectly, but the holes were too large for people to sit in without the fear of falling through. My work around for the large holes turned the web into a net, but it was still a web at heart…

My out of country Aunt (Africa), her out of state daughter, and my out of state second cousin all flew in on Tuesday. They usually only make it up here once a year, so it’s a pretty big deal. (I guess it will be twice this year.) As a celebration type of thing, they took my Grandma out to eat yesterday. There was room for everyone except me. Even my brother went. :(, I suggested that they give me a ride home, so I could pick up the truck, but apparently they were rushed for time. The baby (second cousin, who is old enough to talk) has to eat at the same time everyday. They agreed to bring something home for me. That was nice of them, but they’re lucky I’m not spoiled like that baby. I had lunch around 1400, which seems kind of late… I wonder if I could have gotten away with saying that I need to eat lunch at the same time everyday…

When I finally finished lunch, I ran off to attempt to drown myself. Last year, sailing didn’t seem to be a very blog worthy topic. I went sailing every chance I got last year, but I’ve only been twice this year. The weather yesterday was like gnarly dude…(uh..yeah.). I was out for about for hours, and only flipped once, which leads me to the point of this whole paragraph. I actually flipped three times, but only one of them was an accident. The wind was blowing from the South, and I had to go North to get back… Naturally, the ride was quite fast… a little too fast. The rudder on my 30+year-old sailboat decides to ‘pop out’ sometimes. Unluckily for me, this happend when I was sailing right next to a jet ski lane that borders a VERY rocky area. When the rudder popped out, I completely lost control of the boat. All the slack that was then in the rope somehow managed to wrap itself around a buoy three times. The boat didn’t really care, it just wanted to keep going, so it did, but I wasn’t in control. In order to fix everything, I had to flip the boat. While I was busy untangling the buoy, the boat began to flip all the way over, such that the bottom of the boat would be horizontal. The sails on these boats are pretty much water tight, so righting a boat with a water-logged sail can be challenging. I was lucky and managed to finish with the buoy before my situation got any worse. I righted the boat and was ready to sail away when I noticed that the boom was pointing straight up into the air. For those of you who don’t know, the boom is the pole on the bottom of the sail. During normal operation, the boom is perpendicular to the mast, not parallel. I decided to flip the boat before it flipped on it’s own. The people who watch and laugh can never tell the difference, but it makes me feel better anyway. Although the boat was lying in the water waiting for the sail to be unwrapped, my predicament was far from over. If I had left the centerboard to unwrap the sail, the sail would have filled up like a bucket and sank… I needed help from someone, but who? Being a Boy Scout, I’m always careful to follow the buddy system. (ah..sometimes..) My brother was in a kayak not too far away from me—or so I thought. He got tired and decided to rest about two hundred yards back. So there I was: Sitting on a half overturned sailboat waving my arms frantically to get his attention. He finally noticed me, and rushed to the scene, only to stop and ask me what was wrong when he was fifty feet away. I’ve had my suspicions about him, but they were realized that day: my brother is an idiot.(oh, hi Jeff!). I would think that upon seeing the boat, he would instantly realize what was wrong. I’ve been sailing for years. I can right the boat in a number of seconds after flipping.(providing everything is normal) He should have realized that. I yelled at him for stopping, so he he quickly hurried along. By the time he had arrived, I had explained my problem to him. All he had left to do was solve it. His solution: float around in the Kayak while I sit there and wait. Again I yelled at him, and again he rushed to my rescue, and again, did nothing. I yelled at him some more, this time explaining in detail how to lift up the end of the sail and throw it over the mast. That went surprisingly well and I had the boat back upright in no time. I was ready to sail off when I noticed that the sail had done a 360 around the mast. The wind was too strong for me to just pull the sail back to the other side. I had to use the wind to turn the sail… I began turning the boat and again yelled at my brother for just sitting there. He came to my rescue by pushing the boat in the wrong direction. I pretty much gave up on him after that. The whole thing took between ten and fifteen minutes.

Congratulations to Steve Lafaille for passing his Eagle Scout board of review! yay!

If you read my away message on Sunday, which I suppose you probably would have out of shock, you probably know that I was off Biking. My family decided to go to some bike trail around Providence. I don’t really know where we were… I just biked… Anyway, The trip was supposed to be about 30 miles, but I doubled back so frequently to allow the rest of the family to catch up that I ended up doing 51.55 miles in 2 hours and something minutes for an average speed of 18.4 Miles per hour. ( I guess it would have to be about 48 minutes. ) My doubling back caused me to pass some people up to five times. Thankfully, I went the whole day without being passed, even by the biker dudes(I passed them…). Had they passed me, I would have become angered and forced myself to go faster than the normal 21 mph. I then would have over exerted myself and died… You know, I have a thing about that… All of the hardcore cyclists have the tight pants, shirts and biking gloves. That biking attire screams “Hey sucker, I’m faster than you, piss off!”, yet I was faster than them… this angers me as well. They really need to live up to the reputation of their clothes. I think I’m ranting now. I’ll stop.

We stopped at that Greenville shopping center thing on the way home. I bought graph paper and a new router at Staples, and a HUGE caribiner (lager than my other huge one.). We also stopped at Radio Shack, where I had hoped to avoid being attacked by the evil vulture-like employees. DO I LOOK LIKE I NEED HELP?!? Anyway, by the time I was attacked, I was already on my way to the registers. I thought I was free at that point, but I guess I was wrong. The vulture asked me if I have a cellphone. I said no. He said why. I said that I despise phones. Hiss boss said “Maybe phones don’t like you.” I said “Maybe they don’t…” Then I left!!! I still haven’t gotten around to debricking the router :’(. I bricked and debricked the new router all within five minutes. All hail boot_wait.

Introduction

I have put the writing of this summary off for sometime now. The only reason for my procrastination is laziness, but although procrastination is bad, it has given me time to think about how I intend to organize this. I had originally intended to make a straight chronology. I stick to my original plan, but with the addition of chapters, to add some sense of organization. I’ve written about 1.5 pages at this point, and I haven’t even finished the first day. For this reason, my experiences will be split across several blog posts. The cuts will be dependent on the volume of information.

The beginnings

It being summer vacation, I was accustomed to going to bed at 0100. Going to bed at 0100 is a bad idea for one who needs to wake up at 0300, but after trying to get to sleep since 2200 the previous day, I finally managed to sleep at 0100.

After a mere two hours of sleep, I woke up, put the finishing touches on my packing and departed for Logan airport. My lack of sleep made the whole experience feel surreal. I needed coffee…

Our flight was scheduled for departure at 0700. By then I had already devised a most ingenious plan to get coffee. Between my two personalities, it was decided that a large black coffee would be my main priority at our Layover in St. Louis. I spent a large amount of the first flight drawing graphs of orders four and five. (still haven’t completely completed that.)

By the time we disembarked from the plane, my want for coffee had consumed me. I needed coffee, and I needed it immediately, lest I fall into a deep caffeine deprived insanity. My wants were quickly satisfied, when upon looking around the Airport, I spied not one, but two Starbucks. I’ve always thought that those “Caution contents hot.” warnings on coffee cups were stupid, but when I tried to touch my coffee cup (without the cardboard insulator thing), my hands were instantly scalded. I learned a few very important lesson that day: (more…)

I’ve spent some time researching third party router firmwares lately. I was reading about OpenWrt, and learned that it supports a variety of routers, including Motorola’s WR850G, which I happen to have (not in use.). I decied it would be nice to ‘evaluate’ the firmware on this router, so I downloaded the latest source for OpenWrt, compiled it and loaded it on the router, which has since become a brick. My problem is pretty much described by this post on the OpenWrt forumns. I’ve tried talking the router out of the coma, but it has decided not to listen to me. Surgery is imminent. I’ve quite literally made the cuts and opened the router, which has support for serial(two interfaces) and JTAG. I plan on making a JTAG connector as soon as I can get to RadioShack to pick up some resistors. Tune in next time…

Since we were given the boot, yorti has been working ’round the clock to get us back into Yawgoog. Alas, we have been given a site. We were prepared to take a side in Medicine Bow or Three Point, but we ended up being lucky and manged to get a site in Sandy Beach. We’ll be staying in campsite Autobon during week 8. (Autobon, yay?). I was kind of looking forwards to singing Sandy Beach songs in the Three Point dining hall, but whatever… Even though we were only at yawgoog for two days week five, we were given the Honor Troop and the ‘A Scout is Reverant’ award. Now I’m wondering… Can I get an eight year segment for week five and a nine year segment for week 8? (They are year segments, in my book a year is a week.)

I really need to stop procrastinating and start writing! I wake up everyday and I think to myself ‘I really need to write about Philmont today’… I still haven’t finished the first paragraph. Pathetic. Maybe when I finally finish, I’ll finally get around to alerting the press. Damn, I’m slow.

Unless you’re blind or stupid, you’ve probably noticed the ads at the top of this page by now. Yes, they’re by Google. Thanks to Josh, I’ve been accepted to AdSense. The search box in the navigation bar displays ads in the results… When I get around to it, I’ll make everything look pretty. (or something like that.)