Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Lo, I appear.
Yes, it has been a while, but with so many distractions, I can hardly be blamed for being a little lax in my updates. Besides, I did some more writing on my story; that counts for something, right? Right?
So what exciting news do I have? Well, there’s the usual parade of obscure but interesting stuff, but for now, I’ll stick with the highlights.
Last week, I had a midterm in my LAST CLASS. Sorry to harp on the fact that this is my LAST CLASS which ends DECEMBER 8th, but I am really quite excited by this prospect, and enjoy recalling it as often as possible. But yeah, the midterm. It went pretty well. There was only one question I didn’t know how to answer, and I’m not entirely convinced he ever taught us how to answer that particular question. It doesn’t cause me too much concern, these classes have such crazy grading curves that it’s impossible to know what your grade is until someone actually comes right out and tells you. “It’s a B+. That’s what it is. There’s a lot of math and bell curves and standard deviations involved, but you got a B+, because I know that’s all you really care about.” And really, it is.
Shopping anyone? Very caring parents presented me with a quite generous gift certificate to the ‘Republic of Bananas’, or some such place, which was awesome for two reasons. One, because it allowed me to get a very schnazzy outfit which looks just dashing on me, and two, because it finally got me off my lazy butt and shopping for clothes. I’ve been meaning to (and often repeating myself) improve the ‘formality’ of my wardrobe. I have a lot of t-shirts, jeans, casual stuff like that, good things for sweating in. But the more I look around at people, the more I realize that clothes, while not making the man, do give of far more of an impression than I had previously allowed myself to believe.
There’s a guy, call him ‘Sparky’, that hired in about 8 months or so after I did. He usually wore nice, white dress shirts with sharp pants or slacks and dress shoes. Nice, simple, yet formal stuff. I didn’t really notice it at first, he was a perfectly approachable, good-natured kinda guy, and we hit it off pretty much like anyone my age is liable to do with pretty much anyone else my age. Then I met him out at a bar one day on a weekend with a few more of our friends, and he was dressed in street clothes, casual clothes, and I was really struck by how different he looked. Much more like a kid, really. And more than the fact that he looked different, it was how much he looked different. I wouldn’t have expected such a shift, it really surprised me.
Well ever since then, I’ve been on the lookout for similar phenomenon. One of my best sources of information has been ‘What Not to Wear’. It’s a makeover TV show, pretty fun to watch, very entertaining. I know they select these people for their ‘improvement factor,’ they’d be foolish not to, but what struck me the most was that the transformations are incredibly dramatic. You really get people that go from ‘normal person’ to ‘amazing super-beautiful’, guys and girls. Around work, too. You see someone dressed up for a presentation and you really notice it. It jumps out at you.
So I’m running an experiment. I’m going to try being a bit more formal to work. Really only a bit, because I try to keep myself presentable regardless, but I’m really going for the ‘well-presented professional’ look, but all the time. I have a few pieces that fit the bill, and I can probably pick up some more as the holes in my wardrobe become more obvious. I’ll post some pictures of my new threads and let you know how it all pans out.
Oh, and this is fun. I was looking at suit jackets, just to look at them, when I realized that I don’t know what my suit size is. Not offhand, at least. Presumably, I’ve been measured before, because I, uh, *own* a suit, but I don’t have the numbers in my head right away.
But as J(5) and I are wandering around the mall (did I mention she was along with? Yeah, it was fun.), looking to pick up stuff I spy a shop called ‘Evening Somethingoranother’. It was a tuxedo rental place. So, being all clever, I stroll in and ask the professionals what size suit I should be wearing. A couple quick measurements and they had me all figured out. I’m 42 regular, if you’re wondering.
Here, for your amusement, is my fashion history. Back when I was first buying my own clothes, or at least picking them and having my parents buy them for me, I had a singular preference for sweat pants and shirts that were as large as possible. 3X-L, if you have it. I have no business wearing clothes that big, but I did anyway. I was all into comfort. I must have looked like an absolute twit. Heh.
I stuck with that…um…style (?) for a few years, until my senior year of high school, which is when I switched up a whole lot of things. I grew my hair long, got contacts, and bought *jeans*. Real jeans! Them’s regular people clothes! Got a few button-down shirts, some t-shirts that, while not exactly fitted, were at least able to ride somewhere above my hips, and bam! Style level up!
I think my next big leap happened right about then too, I was introduced to the concept of ‘nice clothes’. There’s a shop up in Juneau (Plum tree, I think) that specializes in these sorts of clothes, slightly more upscale, more presentable. It was here where a very nice woman (who totally miss-guessed my waist size) helped me select my first-ever ‘nice clothes’. I got a pair of slacks, and a couple of ‘clubbin’ shirts’ that I still have and wear to this day. It’s the black, silk, dragon-emblazoned one and the brown/black long sleeve one with the really clever weave.
I’ve gone through some other stages too. As I’ve gotten more into TKD, it’s taken a while for my clothing size to catch up, or catch ‘down’ in my case, perhaps, so I’m constantly having to remind myself to buy clothes that fit, dagnabit! And wear a belt if your pants start falling off…which happens a lot.
So there, fashion history. Tada!
Work news: things continue to plod faithfully along. Neat things happen every once in a while but for the most part, I just assume it’s all hush-hush and don’t tell anyone about it.
Relationship news: J(5) used the phrase ‘honeymoon period’ a couple days ago. I’ve heard it before, but had forgotten about it. It’s a pretty apt way to describe how things are going now. I suspect that eventually the shiny veneer will wear off the relationship and we’ll get down to what makes people either work together or not, but I see no reason to rush things along at anything other than their natural pace.
Heh, and you’ll find this funny, there’s something I’ve been wondering about relationships, and I need someone to ask. That someone is probably going to be my little sister. That’s right, I’m asking my younger sister, who, by all yearly measures should have less experience than me, for relationship advice. This is funny, so feel free to laugh.
Oh, and I’m going to be a ninja for Halloween, I’m going to try and fashion delicious weapons out of rice krispy treats. I’ll try and remember to take pictures.
-N
Yes, it has been a while, but with so many distractions, I can hardly be blamed for being a little lax in my updates. Besides, I did some more writing on my story; that counts for something, right? Right?
So what exciting news do I have? Well, there’s the usual parade of obscure but interesting stuff, but for now, I’ll stick with the highlights.
Last week, I had a midterm in my LAST CLASS. Sorry to harp on the fact that this is my LAST CLASS which ends DECEMBER 8th, but I am really quite excited by this prospect, and enjoy recalling it as often as possible. But yeah, the midterm. It went pretty well. There was only one question I didn’t know how to answer, and I’m not entirely convinced he ever taught us how to answer that particular question. It doesn’t cause me too much concern, these classes have such crazy grading curves that it’s impossible to know what your grade is until someone actually comes right out and tells you. “It’s a B+. That’s what it is. There’s a lot of math and bell curves and standard deviations involved, but you got a B+, because I know that’s all you really care about.” And really, it is.
Shopping anyone? Very caring parents presented me with a quite generous gift certificate to the ‘Republic of Bananas’, or some such place, which was awesome for two reasons. One, because it allowed me to get a very schnazzy outfit which looks just dashing on me, and two, because it finally got me off my lazy butt and shopping for clothes. I’ve been meaning to (and often repeating myself) improve the ‘formality’ of my wardrobe. I have a lot of t-shirts, jeans, casual stuff like that, good things for sweating in. But the more I look around at people, the more I realize that clothes, while not making the man, do give of far more of an impression than I had previously allowed myself to believe.
There’s a guy, call him ‘Sparky’, that hired in about 8 months or so after I did. He usually wore nice, white dress shirts with sharp pants or slacks and dress shoes. Nice, simple, yet formal stuff. I didn’t really notice it at first, he was a perfectly approachable, good-natured kinda guy, and we hit it off pretty much like anyone my age is liable to do with pretty much anyone else my age. Then I met him out at a bar one day on a weekend with a few more of our friends, and he was dressed in street clothes, casual clothes, and I was really struck by how different he looked. Much more like a kid, really. And more than the fact that he looked different, it was how much he looked different. I wouldn’t have expected such a shift, it really surprised me.
Well ever since then, I’ve been on the lookout for similar phenomenon. One of my best sources of information has been ‘What Not to Wear’. It’s a makeover TV show, pretty fun to watch, very entertaining. I know they select these people for their ‘improvement factor,’ they’d be foolish not to, but what struck me the most was that the transformations are incredibly dramatic. You really get people that go from ‘normal person’ to ‘amazing super-beautiful’, guys and girls. Around work, too. You see someone dressed up for a presentation and you really notice it. It jumps out at you.
So I’m running an experiment. I’m going to try being a bit more formal to work. Really only a bit, because I try to keep myself presentable regardless, but I’m really going for the ‘well-presented professional’ look, but all the time. I have a few pieces that fit the bill, and I can probably pick up some more as the holes in my wardrobe become more obvious. I’ll post some pictures of my new threads and let you know how it all pans out.
Oh, and this is fun. I was looking at suit jackets, just to look at them, when I realized that I don’t know what my suit size is. Not offhand, at least. Presumably, I’ve been measured before, because I, uh, *own* a suit, but I don’t have the numbers in my head right away.
But as J(5) and I are wandering around the mall (did I mention she was along with? Yeah, it was fun.), looking to pick up stuff I spy a shop called ‘Evening Somethingoranother’. It was a tuxedo rental place. So, being all clever, I stroll in and ask the professionals what size suit I should be wearing. A couple quick measurements and they had me all figured out. I’m 42 regular, if you’re wondering.
Here, for your amusement, is my fashion history. Back when I was first buying my own clothes, or at least picking them and having my parents buy them for me, I had a singular preference for sweat pants and shirts that were as large as possible. 3X-L, if you have it. I have no business wearing clothes that big, but I did anyway. I was all into comfort. I must have looked like an absolute twit. Heh.
I stuck with that…um…style (?) for a few years, until my senior year of high school, which is when I switched up a whole lot of things. I grew my hair long, got contacts, and bought *jeans*. Real jeans! Them’s regular people clothes! Got a few button-down shirts, some t-shirts that, while not exactly fitted, were at least able to ride somewhere above my hips, and bam! Style level up!
I think my next big leap happened right about then too, I was introduced to the concept of ‘nice clothes’. There’s a shop up in Juneau (Plum tree, I think) that specializes in these sorts of clothes, slightly more upscale, more presentable. It was here where a very nice woman (who totally miss-guessed my waist size) helped me select my first-ever ‘nice clothes’. I got a pair of slacks, and a couple of ‘clubbin’ shirts’ that I still have and wear to this day. It’s the black, silk, dragon-emblazoned one and the brown/black long sleeve one with the really clever weave.
I’ve gone through some other stages too. As I’ve gotten more into TKD, it’s taken a while for my clothing size to catch up, or catch ‘down’ in my case, perhaps, so I’m constantly having to remind myself to buy clothes that fit, dagnabit! And wear a belt if your pants start falling off…which happens a lot.
So there, fashion history. Tada!
Work news: things continue to plod faithfully along. Neat things happen every once in a while but for the most part, I just assume it’s all hush-hush and don’t tell anyone about it.
Relationship news: J(5) used the phrase ‘honeymoon period’ a couple days ago. I’ve heard it before, but had forgotten about it. It’s a pretty apt way to describe how things are going now. I suspect that eventually the shiny veneer will wear off the relationship and we’ll get down to what makes people either work together or not, but I see no reason to rush things along at anything other than their natural pace.
Heh, and you’ll find this funny, there’s something I’ve been wondering about relationships, and I need someone to ask. That someone is probably going to be my little sister. That’s right, I’m asking my younger sister, who, by all yearly measures should have less experience than me, for relationship advice. This is funny, so feel free to laugh.
Oh, and I’m going to be a ninja for Halloween, I’m going to try and fashion delicious weapons out of rice krispy treats. I’ll try and remember to take pictures.
-N
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Yeah, I’m watching my lecture as I write this, but this is definitely a low-mental-stress class. Midterm’s in less than a week, and I haven’t even started studying yet. Partially cause I’m lazy, but partially cause I’m not really worried. I’ve seen a lot of this stuff before. I take that back, in some form or another, I’ve seen all of this stuff before. This is good by me, makes it much easier.
Advice. Lets talk about it. For some reason these past few weeks, people have been asking about my advice a LOT. My sister has been crunching through a particularly tricky class, and for some reason, all the things that she’s not good at in this class are all the things I am good at. Imaginary numbers? I don’t even think about them anymore because we use them all the time. Of course they don’t really exist, but who cares? I see them so often it’s just like another variable in an equation. Wave equation? I remember that. Complex sinusoidal equivalents? Yep. Done that a few thousand times in my life. It works out really well, and I seem to be good enough at explaining things to be of help. Booyaka!
Advice number two, one of my cousins called me up and asked if I could help him find some CAD software for something he was trying to do at work. Advice number three, one of my workmates called up to ask advice about her upcoming midterm in Estimation Theory, which I have taken before. I’m just a bucket of useful information. Yay me!
J(5) and myself continue to spend a lot of time enjoying each others presence, which is just a great way to spend time. We went out shopping for some stuff like towels and bed-stuff, hit up Ikea to buy myself a *suede chair pad* for my Poang chair (oh yeah, sweet), and on Friday I watched her play Hockey. It was pretty cool (get it? Hah!). J(5) is the ‘enforcer’, and was on defense most of the game. She’s not the quickest girl on the team, that distinction belongs to their center. She’s bloody fast! But J(5) on defense is aggressive (B-E, Aggressive!), but evidently not quite enough to ever get called for penalties, which, I am told, is a relatively common event most other days. They didn’t quite win the game, but it was definitely exciting to watch. Go team!
Afterwards, much of the team went out to Stick and Stein, which is the traditional after-game bar. I had a great time, got to meet a bunch of people, got along great with everyone. We had alcohol (and a delicious Salad for me!) and toasted victory and loss and hockey and friendship and made crude jokes and laughed uproariously. I like those people. Crazy like both J(5) and like me.
The avalanche of holiday video games has started. I’m excited about a lot of them, though it’ll probably be a while before I get to most of them. Just too many games! What a wonderful problem!
Weird thing of the week: When I got into work on Thursday, there was an acoustic tile sitting in my chair. It had broken off and fallen from the ceiling sometime during the night. Good thing I don’t work the night shift. Close call. I even had someone come over to witness the strangeness, cause I didn’t think anyone would believe me otherwise. He he.
Yeah, I’m still writing, but class is still going, too. 8 minutes left!
J(5) has started reading both THIS VERY BLOG ITSELF and my newest story. Which is good news for mom, because J(5) can more actively bug me to finish writing it, so that’s more literature production for everyone. Hoorah!
Hang on, we’re proving something…okay, class done!
-N
Advice. Lets talk about it. For some reason these past few weeks, people have been asking about my advice a LOT. My sister has been crunching through a particularly tricky class, and for some reason, all the things that she’s not good at in this class are all the things I am good at. Imaginary numbers? I don’t even think about them anymore because we use them all the time. Of course they don’t really exist, but who cares? I see them so often it’s just like another variable in an equation. Wave equation? I remember that. Complex sinusoidal equivalents? Yep. Done that a few thousand times in my life. It works out really well, and I seem to be good enough at explaining things to be of help. Booyaka!
Advice number two, one of my cousins called me up and asked if I could help him find some CAD software for something he was trying to do at work. Advice number three, one of my workmates called up to ask advice about her upcoming midterm in Estimation Theory, which I have taken before. I’m just a bucket of useful information. Yay me!
J(5) and myself continue to spend a lot of time enjoying each others presence, which is just a great way to spend time. We went out shopping for some stuff like towels and bed-stuff, hit up Ikea to buy myself a *suede chair pad* for my Poang chair (oh yeah, sweet), and on Friday I watched her play Hockey. It was pretty cool (get it? Hah!). J(5) is the ‘enforcer’, and was on defense most of the game. She’s not the quickest girl on the team, that distinction belongs to their center. She’s bloody fast! But J(5) on defense is aggressive (B-E, Aggressive!), but evidently not quite enough to ever get called for penalties, which, I am told, is a relatively common event most other days. They didn’t quite win the game, but it was definitely exciting to watch. Go team!
Afterwards, much of the team went out to Stick and Stein, which is the traditional after-game bar. I had a great time, got to meet a bunch of people, got along great with everyone. We had alcohol (and a delicious Salad for me!) and toasted victory and loss and hockey and friendship and made crude jokes and laughed uproariously. I like those people. Crazy like both J(5) and like me.
The avalanche of holiday video games has started. I’m excited about a lot of them, though it’ll probably be a while before I get to most of them. Just too many games! What a wonderful problem!
Weird thing of the week: When I got into work on Thursday, there was an acoustic tile sitting in my chair. It had broken off and fallen from the ceiling sometime during the night. Good thing I don’t work the night shift. Close call. I even had someone come over to witness the strangeness, cause I didn’t think anyone would believe me otherwise. He he.
Yeah, I’m still writing, but class is still going, too. 8 minutes left!
J(5) has started reading both THIS VERY BLOG ITSELF and my newest story. Which is good news for mom, because J(5) can more actively bug me to finish writing it, so that’s more literature production for everyone. Hoorah!
Hang on, we’re proving something…okay, class done!
-N
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Hey, you know what else is lame? I got all excited from the rock-stacking I did on the hike a couple weekends ago, and I wanted to get a buch of rocks and throw them on the patio so I could just stack them...but I can't think of WHERE TO FIND ANY ROCKS! LA sucks!
-N
-N
It’s not for me
* * * *
When I first got moved up to the 10th floor, there was a co-worker of mine already up there that we’ll call ‘Tuna’. The man had a lot of snacky-munchy foods in his cube, and was usually quite fond of letting people drop by and grab some eats if they ever got hungry.
Eventually, Tuna got moved off the 10th floor, and I decided to take up the banner of free foodstuffs. I went out to Costco and picked up some Cheez-its and graham crackers. They were pretty popular. I’d eat some of my own stuff too, of course, the reason I have a snack shelf is cause I get hungry during non-eat hours, sometimes, and a man’s gotta have his nourishment. So then I figured, as long as I was going to have food in my cubicle, why not make it public food? So I did. I put a sign up outside my cube proclaiming ‘Noel’s Café’. I even put up prices on it, despite the fact that at Noel’s café, everything is free, free, FREE!
It seems to get larger every time I go to Costco. :)
Well periodically, I run out of food, and it seems like every time I go back to Costco to restock, Noel’s Café gets bigger and bigger. I take requests for food, and the most common one is ‘chocolate’. I usually don’t eat the candy stuff (the more nourishing foods are for me) but it’s popular, so it gets first billing.
I’ve occasionally had people offer to pay me for food, but I figure Raytheon has to have some sort of policy against running a personal business out of your cubicle, so I just keep it free. I have, however, gotten money snuck into my possession somehow. Tricky people, these engineers.
My favorite, though, was one time when I was riding the elevator down with one of the security guards. He looked at me and said, ‘Hey, are you the candyman?’ Yeah, I do good deeds.
So the weekend! It was productive, but not terribly exciting. Come Friday I was *burnt out*. There were a couple of festivities this weekend, but I decided to bypass in favor of rest. Got my lectures watched, my homework done, went out running (sprints) did cleaning, and got myself some food. I also went out to buy myself the sequel to Katamari Damacy. (Which I believe fiancé-in-law ‘M’ bought for me, so thanks that.) It’s called ‘We love Katamari’ and it’s very much like the original, but with enough extras and cool further touches, that I very, very enjoy it. I also picked up ‘Kung Fu Hustle’, one of my favorite movies of late. Good stuff, glad to own it.
J(5) was out of town this weekend, back home at a wedding. Yeah, I missed her a bit.
And the weird thing of the week this week was that I witnessed a huge truck with a huge trailer coming off the freeway by work. And on the huge trailer was another huge truck with another huge trailer on it. Yay, irony! If the truck on back had been carrying a vehicle of some kind, that would have been boss, but it was just a liquid-tank-transport of some sort. Made me laugh, though.
-N
