Greetings ladies and gentlemen to a very special entry into the ScottIsHot.com weblog! Tonight I have something pretty crazy planned, but I’m sure it will prove to be fun and enjoyable, for most people at least. As you all surely know I recently began writing on my website again. After more than a year of silence (and an essentially empty front page for a good nine months) my blog re-launched approximately one week ago, complete with archived versions of all of the old entries. I’m still excited about the change; my website’s back. I’ve only been writing for a few days, so when an unknown person posted a comment last night beginning with “I’m a long time reader, first time poster”, naturally I was a bit skeptical.

How about we get right down to it? The comment was posted at 1:13am by Robert Dunlap and, well, I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. He posted from a computer with an IP address of 72.36.194.154, which is slightly unique because it’s not a home computer. It’s a server computer on the networks at Layered Tech, a company that provides hosting solutions to individuals. Following the IP address “here) yields an empty page on an account running cPanel. Unless he were using the computer at the server company (highly unlikely) it’s assumed that he was using his account as a proxy server. People usually use proxy servers to try to hide their identity when they visit websites online. (With a website that looks so crappy in standards-compliant browsers I’d want to be remain anonymous as well) All right, enough small talk! Let’s get right down to what Robert Dunlap had to say, shall we?

Hey Scott, Long time reader but first time commentator. I’ve always wondered a couple of things about you, but I never got around to asking you. Okay, here we go – What are your takes on homosexuality? Scott, you seem like a fairly good Christian, but from your pictures, it seems you dress in a highly ‘homosexual’ manner. Do you consider yourself homosexual? Maybe bisexual? Thanks for answering such an awkward [question], Robert RobertDunlap.org rtdunlap@msn.com robert@ptcs.net robert@robertdunlap.org

Robert, I’m flattered you think I dress like a homosexual. Let’s take a look at my wardrobe, shall we? This is my in my most common attire with jeans and a t-shirt. Hmm, nothing too homosexual about that, although I do know a homosexual who often wears jeans [ponders the connection]. Once again I’m pictured in jeans and a t-shirt. And now for some slightly more formal attire. I’m a good looking guy Robert, I’ll admit that, but that doesn’t mean I’m a homosexual. I have a cheesy smile in a lot of my photos, but that just means I’m happy! In that sense, I’m certainly gay. Don’t get me wrong here. I get happy about silly things, I have fun with bubbles, and I even wear a messenger bag from time to time, but all of these things fit into the heterosexual lifestyle and there is nothing specifically homosexual about my wardrobe (or any other areas of my personality at that). I’m just a comfortably dressing easygoing guy who smiles a lot these days.

So, in response to your question, no; I’m not a homosexual. Nor am I bisexual. I don’t like boys Robert, and right now I’m especially repulsed by you. You commented on this website about what you thought about me, and now I’m going to step up and do the same by posting my thoughts about you. I find it creepy, disturbing, and disgusting that you’re reading the website of a male college student at 1 in the morning. Even worse, you decide to post comments claiming that you think I look gay, then asking me if I’m a homosexual. Are you that interested in me Robert? It looks that way, because you quickly catch yourself in case my answer is “no” by following up your question with “maybe bisexual?” How about no; now stop posting retarded messages on my website.

I had the pleasure of following the links you left me, Robert, and I figured I’d do a little big of an assessment myself. On your wonderful homepage you have a photo of you on the upper left next to a woman. Why does it look like she was photoshopped-in beside you? With a little unphotoshopping, we can take a look at just you Mr. Dunlap! Now, I find it curious (even a little comical) that anyone would have the gall to tell someone that they dress in a highly homosexual manner when they themselves highly resemble everybody’s favorite interior decorator. I certainly hope you’re not offended! You told me you thought I looked like a homosexual. Now I’m saying that you look like a homosexual. It’s the same thing, only I used diagrams to illustrate my point.

My girlfriend thought your comment was especially funny. Interesting… I wrote about my girlfriend IN the very blog entry you commented on. I find it surprising; any reader (much more a “long time reader”) would know that I have a girlfriend. It’s not possible that you merely went to my website, looked at my pictures, then found the fastest way you could to write to me and ask me about my sexual orientation is it? That would be pretty disgusting Robert. You seem like an older, well established man. Although I will admit, your picture makes me cringe, but that’s probably because I looked at it only after I thought about why you decided to write on my website in the first place.

As far as your questions, I’d have hoped it to be far more obvious what I believe, but I guess an explanation certainly is warranted at this point. As a Christian, I know that the Bible condemns sex outside of marriage, whatever gender. Very simply stated, all aspects of the Bible support the claim that marriage is a relationship (recognized by law) between a man and a woman. I am confident that I am not a homosexual. I will admit, I certainly am having doubts about you, Robert. As a Christian, I’m very disappointed in all of the news we hear of people in positions of spiritual leadership committing appalling sexual acts, especially toward children. Many people today simply associate priests and other leaders with child molesters. It makes me sad when people (such as yourself) add fuel to this notion by your actions. Traditionally the church tries to keep such things quiet, to prevent people from hearing about the bad things that some people in the church do. I think that this approach is evil and destructive. The integrity of the Christian religion is tainted when people in the Christian community keep such news quiet by trying to hide it instead of publicly denouncing it.

I will admit, it was an insightful comment you left. Thanks for your input Robert! The AM950 webpage shows a picture of you (the VP of Palm Tree Computer Services and this site too) doing a radio show on Tuesday nights. Interesting, maybe we have something in common. You host a call-in show, right? I listen to Rush a lot and you know what they start their phone conversations with all the time? “Long time listener but first time caller.” Interesting, perhaps some of your radio energy is bleeding through your personal life. And, for the record, you’re not a commentator. Proof read your comment next time.

I’m going to mail-out my fans tomorrow morning! Yeah, that’s right, I send out snail mail regularly. Let me say, those people who have given me their addresses to let me send them letters are in for a real treat this week! What’ll they be getting? I can’t tell ya’. If you want to get mail from me too (in hopes of inspiring two way written communication between my website readers and me) email me privately (or use the form on the contact page) with your address and I’ll put you on the list. Right now I only have a small handful of people I mail regularly, and there are a few whose letters aren’t included in this picture (I accidentally left their addresses in Tennessee) so it’s no big deal. How do I pay for this? I don’t know; I just do. It’d be nice if some of my friends sent back a small strip of stamps when they replied hint hint but it’s pretty much all out of my pocket =o) Does anyone see their own envelope in the stack?

I still sleep with noise injected into my brain. Last night I fell asleep with the comfortingly familiar feel of my Sony MDR-D66 Eggo’s against my head, playing Steve Conte Heaven’s Not Enough through my Sony MD NH900. For a while I had stopped listening to music while I slept, probably because I went to sleep very late (and very tired) and wanted to go directly to sleep. For a few different reasons (some of which I don’t care to describe) I’ve begun listening to music as I sleep. It’s an easy way to stop thinking about whatever it is you can’t seem to get your mind off of. However, for the last year and a half I’ve been listening to the same music. Yet, surprisingly, I have no desire to change it. My “go to sleep” mix (yes, I have a sleeping mix, pathetic isn’t it?) consists of some Ringo Shiina, M-Flo loves Yoshika, Melody (singing “Believe Me”, don’t make fun of the music video =op), and some selected tracks from the Evangelion and Wolf’s Rain OST’s as well as Duvet sung by BoA and as the the Serial Experiments Lain opening theme (although I listen to the acoustic version, which is much slower and breathier). I don’t know why I felt compelled to blog about such a thing, but I did, and that’s what it’s here for. I sleep on the floor still, so ha.

I’m preparing to leave home once again and return to the student life reading textbooks, cramming for tests, and pulling all-nighter’s working on projects or preparing for exams. I’ll be stopping work in a few days (I don’t work today, but I work tomorrow and the next day, then I’m done). Yesterday I had an interesting experience. I took a table (table #713, for the record) and recognized the customers. They had come to the restaurant twice before, and by luck had had me as a server both times. The table consisted of a small family with a mom, dad, and daughter. The daughter was roughly my age (perhaps a little younger) and the parents were appropriately aged. They were impressed when I remembered what they ordered the last time they came (they all ordered and shared appetizers: a chicken flatbread, and a shrimp ceviche while the mom drank water, the father drank a corona light, and the daughter got a virgin strawberry frozen margarita). I mentioned that they came here a lot, and told them “this’ll probably be the last time I’ll get to see you!” They looked at me, “how did you know?” I was confused “What do you mean?” They responded, “I don’t remember telling you that this is our last week in Florida.” I chuckled “What? I never heard that, I was talking about me. This is my last week in Florida too!” I told them my story of going back to school and really missing it up there (the weather, the dorm room, the girlfriend) and they told me their story about how they were from Ohio and came for a month vacation (!) in Florida. We talked about careers, and I told him my story about perusing dentistry. At the end of their visit, they got up and found me (I was near the back computer putting in another order) and they all came to me and wished me good luck with my future! We both said goodbye, and an amazingly strange feeling crept over my entire body. It was creepy somehow; goose bumps covered my arms. I pushed the “feed” button on the receipt printer and snapped off a few inches of blank paper and scribbled a note to blog about the story on the paper, then stuffed it in my pocket. Oh yeah, there’s one other thing I wanted to mention about my work. It’s a Mexican restraint slash tequila bar (we carry over 70 different tequilas). So, yeah, part of the restaurant is sit down, part is a lounge, and part is a bar. If you have kids, don’t take them to a bar. Seriously, it’s just not right.

I spent about a week working on a computer project after I took my dental exam. My dad has a dental office here in Orlando and all of the patient information (finances, addresses, patient procedures, etc) is stored on computers. The software is dos-based (written in 1981, with an applied upgrade patch written in 1989 (almost 18 years old)). There is a need to switch to new software because the two-decade-old program isn’t able to do very simple tasks, such as print schedules, send email, or handle online insurance processing. The new software (obviously) requires more than a PC running DOS. I heard my dad talking about getting this new software soon, and he said he would upgrade the computers. He’s not very interested in technology and doesn’t usually do things dealing with computers, so he was planning to have the same company that distributes the dental software come to his office and set up new computers. I cringed realizing how much money they would charge for the hardware, and told my dad that I could set up the new computers to run the new software for a fraction of the price, which is what I did. I spent about a week and got parts and assembled 4 nice new computers with LCD flat screens (pictured below), wireless networking, and two new laser printers to replace their existing setup.

I had an incredibly hard time making the software (written for DOS) run properly on WindowsXP from a network. This software is so archaic, there’s no special network mode. It’s just flat executable files with a timed locking system that cycles through locking certain files so that multiple computers can’t see the same screen at the same time. It’s retarded. It was top of the line I’m sure 20 years ago, but in 2006 it’s ridiculous and impossible to work with. I finally got it up and running, but only temporarily. It was really touchy and the more I figured out how it worked, the less confident I felt about it. This is everything. This is all of my dad’s dental practice, and it’s stored in a flat file with a timed lock mechanism, equally edited freely by 4 computers simultaneously. Regular backups are made, but they’re impossible to be made to run standalone. If there’s any kind of problem, the data can be recovered, but only by an expert with this software. When I’m gone (which I will be in a week) if anything happens, they’re toast. They needed to get the new software as soon as possible, and the original plan was to do so. The computers my dad would have gotten from the company were so expensive.

I discovered that the software company only sets up one type of computer (the same kind they use for digital x-rays and in-mouth video cameras) which is a PIV based processor, which I could give a conservative estimate of two grand a pop. (I’d say it’s more like $2,500 plus labor of installation, but whatever). So, 4 PCs at 2 grand, that’s 8 grand. Plus a wireless network, 160GB network storage system, and two laser printers, that 8 grand would easily sour over ten grand. I got my dad’s office running on all of that for way less than half of that, but I’m still scared about leaving it. I’ve since discovered that he no longer plans to purchase the new software (for reasons I don’t actually understand, and certainly don’t feel like ranting about) until at least a year from now. I’ve told him (and his employees) how badly their current setup is configured, and how dangerous (my words) the configuration is for the practice. He confesses that he’s been warned by me, but I still feel like I’ll be blamed if anything happens. (if nothing else I’ll feel responsible) I’m not expecting anything to happen, but with computers (especially people who don’t know how to use computers very well) anything can happen, and it scares me. I’m writing this now because I can see this turning out badly and it scares me. I don’t want to be to blame for this; it was he who changed his mind, he who understands the risks, and he who wants to keep things the way they are. So, until normal software is purchased and installed, those crumbly, flakey, and touchy DOS 4 programs are running on 3ghz machines with flat LCD monitors. I plan to have a dental practice one day. I’ll make my own decisions then.

Welcome back to the world of family drama. It’s not big, it’s not ironic; it’s just stupid. I feel like I’m back in the second grade trying to explain to my teacher why lightning strikes. Do I care that they care? I must, because it bothers me that other people don’t think the same things that I do. I guess that’s life. Not everyone can understand everyone else, and few people care to I guess. I’ll just keep tootin’ along and worry about what I need to. I hate getting involved in other peoples’ drama. I feel trite. Then again, I expected this. I expected a mental collapse near the end of my summer stay in Florida, in a house that is no longer mine, in a room that is no longer my own, and with relatives that used to feel like my family. Five days left, then things will be put back into their proper perspective. Until then, I’ll just hold on and try to remember the ride; these are the days my life will change the most.

Today seems like a blur, not because very much happened, but because I decided to wait until 1:30 am to try to reflect upon it. I awakened this morning to the sound of a phone call from my girlfriend who seems to derive some kind of sick humor from knowing that she woke me up. This jumpstarted my day a few hours early, which was good because today I wasn’t scheduled to work and I had no plans. I originally set out to find things to do. I could wash and wax my car, I could send out letters to people, or I could start working on some more dental application material (there’s still one school I haven’t applied to yet, because they require paper applications instead of computerized ones). However, these little plans quickly subsided to my insatiable desire to work on my website. Remember a few days ago when I wrote about how embarrassed I was at the sloppy code I’ve been writing? It’s been bothering me. I spent some time today going through and cleaning things up, tweaking things here and there, and adding features when I could.” It’s also worth noting that I improved my contact Scott page which now includes a little form that allows you to mail me directly from the website. How cool is that? I haven’t finished my “your mail has been sent” page though, so people who use it are left wondering if their message got through or not (I find this amusing)

I’ve completed my old stuff page, and I must say it’s really unique. It turned out really well, and I’m still not technically finished with it yet. I have a few Mp3’s I want to upload as well as some PSD’s and two AVI’s. I can do that later though. I laughed at a lot of the photos as I put them up, I must say that I was a real geek for a while there. However, one thing I grew to miss was the way my room was before I moved away to TN. After the move, my room became a storage room slash school room slash play room for my little sisters. Clean empty floors became cluttered with dressers and bookshelves. I guess it’s not the bookshelves I take issue with. They say that once you move away, you can come back, but never again does it feel the same. I guess “they” were right for once. Well, perhaps only partially. I will blame a lot of my current distaste on the situation. It’s not bad, and I won’t try to change it (especially with only a few days between now and when I drive back up to TN) but it’s the concept of having a place to stay. In Tennessee, at my university, I had my dorm room. It’s 8′x10′ (the dimensions of a jail cell) but at least it’s my own. I can go in there, close the door, and it’s mine. I can leave for the day, and come back at night knowing that no one messed around with my stuff. After I left this house and relinquished my room, it was lost forever. It’s no longer my room, I just stay in it. Somewhere beneath the open coloring books or spilled box of crayons lies a floor that I used to think of as mine. My floor is in Tennessee now. I’ll be returning to it in a few days I guess [sigh]

Tonight some old friends of mine called me and asked if I wanted to go out with them to watch a movie. I agreed, and reluctantly watched Who Killed the Electric Car? I went into it with an open mind, but those of you who know me personally know that I get irritated when people try to tell me what to think. Tell me facts, but if you start to push an agenda you start to lose validity. If a point were true, it wouldn’t require convincing. The whole thing was really hokey for this reason. If you see the preview, you’ve seen the movie. Just like the preview suggests, “They’re making too much money” seems to be the main argument. Automotive, petroleum, and mechanical repair companies make a lot of money on gas cars, so obviously they’re trying to keep it that way. It’s called capitalism. If the general population REALLY cared, we’d stop buying gas and start demanding other forms of fuel. Instead, most people just go out and buy whatever they like, and they’re more than willing to pay for it! They might gripe about $3.50 gas, but they pay it anyway. Like I always say to people who complain about a product or service being so expensive, “In a free market, things are worth what people will pay for them; if the public is willing to pay for something, it doesn’t matter how much they complain about its high cost. As long as people continue to buy something at its current cost, no one should have the power to step in and tell the seller to change their price.” This obviously assumes a capitalistic system like that in America, where if there really WERE any money to be made in such a thing as electric cars, and company could start up a business making such a product, and if it really were a useful product, that company would prosper. I’m sorry mister documentary crew, the only thing that’s killing the electric car is the car that everyone loves to drive, and no one really cares about paying for. In time, maybe when gas reaches 20 or 30 dollars a gallon (which it’s estimated to reach before 2010) things will start changing, but until then let the chips fall where they may.

Whoa, I felt myself going on a rant there. Anyway, yeah, I went and saw that movie with Jon, Chris, Aubrey, John, and Kelly. It was strange being there with people I’d known from a long time ago. I was really interested in what other people had to say. Actually, on this note, I was strangely intrigued. I wanted people to stop talking all at the same time, and talk slower, so I could soak it all in. I don’t know why I felt so compelled to try to understand everything. It was strange, I can’t explain it. Near the beginning of the evening Chris mentioned that another guy on my old track team (Tim) found the article on Wikipedia about VenomCrack and I had to chuckle a little bit to myself on that one. I never really told people about that stuff until recently, I wonder how they found it, and even more so how they knew it was me. Okay, maybe that “owned_by_scott” part is a little incriminating, but there are a lot of Scott’s in the world aren’t there?

Well, that’ll give ya’ a little bit of Scottness to hold you over until the next blog entry. Google still hasn’t re-indexed my website since I converted it back into a weblog (I guess after months of inactivity it knows not to keep checking it every day). I wonder how long it will take? Once my pages get re-listed on the massive search engine, my stats will pick up, my rank will pick up, my comments will pick up, and I’ll start getting cute little checks in the mail every few weeks! Until then, I’m happy just sittin’ back and waiting for something interesting to happen. A toast to you, my favorite blogreader; keep up the good work!

Ghaw, I’m so clumsy sometimes. Last night around 12:30am Angelina called my cell phone. I was sleeping at the time (surprising, I know) but I decided to talk to her outside (I can’t talk on the phone in my room without waking up my family). I leaped off of the floor (yes, I still sleep on the floor) and sneaked outside to call her back. Apparently, however, in my half-asleep state of consciousness I neglected to notice that I had stepped my bare left food into an ant pile. Approximately two minutes into the conversation, I realized that my toes felt as if they were being scolded by boiling water. I reached down to touch my foot and realized what had happened as I began to wipe off a few ants that were still munching on the exposed flesh. A few minutes later the stinging was so bad, I hung up and ran inside. My foot looked like it had been shot with a shotgun; red spots covered the surface of my foot and lower half of my leg. Twenty minutes (and five or six teaspoons of Benadryl later) the sensation subsided, and I was able to return to my website.

My current project is truly fascinating, and involves some content that has the potential to be very embarrassing. Whenever I have a computer, I create a folder in the root directory and label it “stuff”. Every time I prepare for a format, I back up the “stuff folder” to a CD (or DVD, as in the most recent cases) and toss the disc in a box, then I create a new (empty) “stuff folder” on the new computer. Over the years, I’ve collected a small pile of “stuff disks” containing loads of data from pictures to word documents to mp3’s and avi’s. It’s very difficult to create one master backup of this data, because each backup disk has a large percentage of shared (overlapping) data with the preceding and following backup disks.

My project for today and my plan for tomorrow is to create a webpage in which I share a lot of these files. I thought it would be a great project (if nothing else for the purpose of creating a central backup of interesting files) to work on and put on my website, for a majority of the files are photos.

I’ll be posting a quasi-chronological collection of images spanning me, my room, my computers, and my life over a period of about 5 year. I can watch my computer collection grow from a single computer to sixteen computers then back to one.

It’s interesting to put so many different memories so close together, and I think that sharing these pictures (and other files) would be a pretty fun thing to do. I’ve spent a few hours today going through all of my backup CDs and picking out the images, mp3’s, PDF’s, and PSD’s (for old layouts) that people might be interested in. Some of the stuff I found made me laugh, for a majority of my pictures are of projects I worked on that are quite retarded (naturally) and I had long forgotten about their existence.

So, with a lack of profound words it’s time to me to cut my writing short for this evening and continue my work on this project. No, this isn’t an excuse to not blog. I am blogging, see? This counts! Jeez. All right, you win, I confess: This entry is a little less than I had expected. However you have to give me credit, at least I’m writing (as I promised) and once you see what it is I’m working on, I assure you that you’ll also agree it was worth the wait.

PostScript: Oh yeah! There is one thing I wanted to write about today.  I went to work at 11am and left at 6pm (I had a short day shift today).  If you didn’t read the previous post, I have a summer job as a server at a Mexican restaurant (now go read the previous post!).  Anyway, things were going pretty normal until I came to this one table.  It was a small two person table near the center of the restaurant (table #511) where a man (mid 30’s I’d guess) and a woman (mid 20’s; slightly older than me) had just moved from the bar (carrying their drinks) sat down together.  I let them stay there for a few minutes eating and drinking, when I noticed that the man’s beer was almost gone.  “Would you like another Corona sir?”, I asked (as I do to everyone I see almost out of beer. It’s a quick question, usually they say yes (many people want but feel bad asking for another beer), and it increases the bill so my tip is higher).  “I don’t know”, he replied slowly, “you wanna flip for it?”  “What do you mean?”, I questioned.  “We’ll flip a coin, if it’s heads I buy a beer, if it’s tails you buy me a beer.”  I laughed a little bit. “That doesn’t sound like a great deal to me.” I stated… but then I paused, with a clever idea. 

“How about this sir…” I began, noticing that he and his girlfriend were listening to me intently with great curiosity as to what I was to say, “How about we flip a coin, and if it’s heads I’ll buy you a beer for free, but if it’s tails you have to buy a beer for twice the price.”  He paused for a few seconds (just enough time for the girlfriend to start laughing) and said “you’re on!”.

So, feeling a little bit nervous at how quickly he responded, I reached into my right pocket (still carrying an empty tray under my left arm) and pulled out a quarter.  I flipped it and looked at it.  It was heads!  I’d lost.  “Well sir, looks like you just got yourself another Corona on me!”  He laughed a little bit and started clapping (probably had too many beers already) and his girlfriend rolled her eyes (she wanted to see him lose!).  By this point I tried to play it up really big, because I knew that we were in happy hour (so a Corona is about $2.13) and the more of a deal I made out of it, the bigger tip I’d get anyway.  To make a long story short, it worked.  The tab was only a few dollars, but I got a ten dollar tip!  Make that 8 dollars, since two of it went toward the beer.  The funny thing was that after I printed the check, they made me flip the coin again to decide whether the man or his girlfriend would pay.  The man won (again) and the girlfriend was obviously irritated.  The guy went outside for a smoke, and I stayed and talked to the girl for a few minutes.  She seemed like she wanted to talk to me – anything to get away from him (I could tell that she was really irritated by him).  I found out that they were talking about engagement, but that he just quit his job and is leaving tomorrow to go on a vacation (without her) and she doesn’t know where he plans to get his money from.  She’s in college perusing medicine (dermatology (!)) and after I encouraged her to study hard and assured her that I thought she’d do well in the field, I wished her a great afternoon and began to leave.  As I walked away, I heard her mumble behind me “I don’t care what that coin said, that little @$#% is paying for lunch.”

I vowed to stop blogging exactly one year ago. The memories of the days between then and now have smeared into one another. Where has my year gone? I have no record of it. That’s the funny thing about time; when you don’t document it, you lose the ability to live through it again – forever. As a teenager, my weblog served many different roles. It was a friend for me to speak to and feel like I was being heard, not just listened to. It was something that I was able to rely on when I felt that everything else in my life was changing. It was a crutch for me to lean on when I needed support. It was a way for me to annotate my thoughts, allowing me to truly understand them. I was often the only one reading my words, but it did not matter; I always felt better after I wrote. If I were sad, I would write about what was bothering me, and I would feel better. If I were happy, I would write about what was wonderful, and I would feel even happier. When trying to make big decisions, I would read over days’ of writing and be able to visualize the big picture in a way I never could have otherwise. In all ways, I feel that this running weblog of haphazardly connected thoughts expressed in grammatically incorrect monologues contributed to my personality in my teens, directed the future of my life in the decisions I made toward my education, my career, and my relationships, and has truly shaped who I am today. I have since given up my life building circuits and writing code. I walked away from everything I had known. Today, I stand here before you truly able to say that it was worth it, and that I don’t miss any of these things… except for my blog. I, [sigh], I can’t let myself stop blogging.

So, with that being said, I’ll do my best to continue writing almost as if I hadn’t stopped at all. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately preparing this website for a blog again. I must admit, it was a daunting task to try to get web hosting, change server DNS settings, set up PHP and MySQL, install and configure WordPress, and import all of my old writings. Because of character set differences (which I still don’t fully understand) I was left having to write a script in Python to convert special characters from one format to another so that SQL code could be run. (My choice in languages was most likely influenced by the memories of writing VenomCrack long ago) This whole process is something that would have taken me an hour at the most when I used computers regularly a year ago. However, I haven’t touched a PC in over a year, much less dabbled in server side web programming or scripting. I literally spent 90% of the last two days reading documentation. Yet, despite the difficulties of a deteriorating mind, it appears that I have (mostly) gotten things up and running much like they once were. One thing though, don’t look at my code! Well, okay maybe if you want a laugh. (click “view” and select “source”) I’d have been so embarrassed of my code last year. Now, I’m proud I got it up and running at all. It’s a W3C nightmare but I don’t care. It works for what I need it for!

My last year has been wonderful, spectacular, and truly amazing! So many things have happened, so many things have changed, I don’t know where to begin. The thought of progressing chromatically through the months sounds daunting, and I don’t think I have the energy or the time to do such a thing. So, rather than spend all of my time spieling the events that have happened over the past three hundred and seventy-something days, I plan on dropping them here and there over the next few months. When I left the blogging scene (quite abruptly, I might add) I had a lot of regular readers who were left dangling. I wonder if they will once again be able to read my writings in the same way, or will they forever feel betrayed? Oh well, screw them, I can get new dedicated blog readers! Okay, maybe not as cool as the awesome people I’ve met through my writings [sends an imaginary high five to Frankie, Jeff, Tom, Kanya, Ustin, Matt, Jessica, and Rei]. Anyway, I was saying that my time this last year has been phenomenal!

I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would change so much over this last year. At home with my family, I probably seem like the same person. I’m quiet, yet opinionated, and I don’t get mad, but I’m quick to get defensive. It’s everything else, when I’m away from my house, that has changed so dramatically. As I wrote before I stopped blogging last year, I transferred colleges to go to a university in Tennessee. I am about ready to start my fourth year as a pre-dental student, going for a bachelor’s degree in biology (with a minor in chemistry). I’m about 3 years down, and have at least 5 to go. It’ll be a long road ahead of me, but I’m finally feeling really good about my career. Last week I took my DAT (Dental Aptitude Test) which gives you a score (much like an SAT score) that dental schools use to determine who gets accepted into dental school. I got a 20, which places me in the 93 percentile of dental school applicants. It doesn’t grantee me a slot into any dental school I want, but it at least gets me in the pickings. College life up in Tennessee is wonderful. Well, I don’t really have much of a life (I spent more time studying last semester than I did sleeping and eating combined) but I’m surviving academically (I have yet to get a grade below a B) and I’m loosening up in public situations. Those of you who have followed my writings from the beginning probably remember me writing (quite often) about how desperately I wanted to be able not to fit in, but rather to be comfortable around people. Maybe if I’d have stopped spending so much of my time psychoanalyzing myself and actually got out a little bit more, I’d have improved! Anyway, I’m doing a lot better now. I have a small circle of friends at my new university, and I even have a girlfriend now!

ERROR: invalid combination of strings Oops, sorry about that. The foreign text “I have a girlfriend” must have crashed my website! [rolls eyes] Well, I guess you’ve determined that my ridiculously dry humor is one of the things that hasn’t improved in the last year. Anyway, yeah, I have an amazing girlfriend and I had to mention her while I’m here talking about all the things that have changed. She’s a nursing student at the university I transferred to. We’ve been walking together for about ten months now (see my rant in The Blogging Protagonist Strikes Again!) and I asked her to be my girlfriend in February of 2006 (about six months ago). No, she doesn’t go to anime conventions, have more than one computer, or know any assembly languages. She’s not as geeky as I am (or, was, to be technical). She’s really smart, very personable, and we have the same sense of humor (which is probably a bad thing for those around us). Some of our pictures are on facebook (which is a service I use regularly) so if you’re interested, look me up! Anyway, she’s an awesome girlfrield and my best friend as well; I’m thankful to have met someone so wonderful.

My new university was far more difficult than I had anticipated. The first semester of last year I spent the first few weeks much like I did when I went to my old college. I studied an hour or so every day, did a little homework when I had time, and saved time to do things like watch anime series “Wolf’s Rain. Then I had my first string of exams, which I failed miserably (70’s ranges, which really hurts when the official university grading scale for an A is 95-100). I was both shocked and horrified; I stopped everything and did nothing but study. I had one week of relaxation in the beginning, but that was all I could afford. I did well through the rest of the year, maintaining a decent GPA (I transferred in with a 3.8, but it started falling to the 3.6 range after a year at my new (harder) school). The classes I took there the first semester (Jr year) were Psychopathology, Organic Chemistry I, Microbiology, Old Testament, Fitness for Health, and Organic Laboratory. The second semester (Jr year) I took Organic Chemistry II, Organic/Inorganic Synthesis Laboratory, Ecology, Ecology Laboratory, Racquetball, and Genetics. Next semester (Sr year) I’m planning on taking Ecotoxicology, Immunology, Introduction to Research, New Testament, and Biochemistry. It’s a killer load, but I’m ready to devote myself to it. (thanks to Jeff for catching a typo)

You’ll NEVER believe what I’m doing for a summer job! My dedicated blogreaders (who obviously have less of a life than I do) remember my stories from my old job working at an engineering company writing code in C# and other .NET programming languages (as well as a little python and php on the side). Anyway, my point is that I grew up immersed in computers. I started college majoring in computer engineering, and worked in the computer field. So, now that I had the first summer (of my life it seems) where I didn’t need to take any summer classes, I decided to get a job. But, being that I “gave up” computers, I really didn’t like the idea of working a tech job (although my family wanted me to work at geek squad (lol)). So, I decided to work with my sister at a Mexican restaurant in the Florida mall! (She’d been working there about 6 months prior to my arrival) I’m a freaking waiter! How crazy-random is that? The coder of an AIM screen name cracker program gone bad is now a server at a restaurant in the mall. I still can’t believe it myself. It’s so unlike me. I go to work in a guayabera and serve ridiculously overpriced enchiladas and have to ask every table if they’d like a tres lechez for dessert.

Speaking of which, I go on early tomorrow morning. There are a lot of things I’m planning to do tonight before I go to bed (I’m not even sure if this blog entry will post correctly or not, much less allow the uploading of images) so I’d best get going. It was great to be back again, I truly enjoyed writing, and I know without a doubt in my mind that I’ll be back here to write tomorrow. I look forward to seeing some of my old friends around here again, as well as meeting some new ones. So, until tomorrow, take it easy, play it cool, and don’t forget to wash your hands with an antibacterial hand soap after handling raw poultry or beef.