So guess what! I got a new toy.. and you all probably expected me to end up with it eventually. That's right, it's an iPhone. Thanks to my mom finally getting fed up with Sprint and no other carrier having a decent phone or reception in San Jose, I used my tax return to get a new toy. I've been eye-balling them since they came out and now that I finally have one, I'm glad I got it. It's a powerful computer, not just a phone, iPod, Internet browser and calendar. It's an Apache server, SSH access point, calculator, Javascript editor, Nintendo game system, alarm clock, and chess game. It's pretty much my go-to system now. Not to mention I hacked it to make it half of those things.

One of the nice things about my hacks is that I can take screenshots.. so here we go. First off I modified the screen to have custom icons.. and then installed a ton more apps. It's pretty easy to find free apps out there, you just have to be sure not to get incomplete or extremely badly built stuff. The cool thing is that it's making me want to build my own apps. We'll see what happens there.

Check out all my pretty applications!

Crafty Wilds

So I think one of the reasons I haven't posted in here in such a long time is because I was trying to make myself post something I was kinda bored of. What I've really been wanting to post for the last few weeks is all about the crafting I've been doing! That's right folks, I've gone crafting crazzzy. Mainly knitting.. but I've been indulging in a few other crafts. This semester has most definitely been more about relaxing and exploring my creative talents outside of the academic world.

I started knitting in the summer of 2006, thanks to Gail (and Ed). Gail had started knitting with the instruction of one of her friends and passed that knowledge onto me when I came to visit. I pretty much finished my first scarf the weekend I spent with them (my mom wears it proudly now, as seen blurrily here). I was addicted! I think by Christmas 06 I had gotten to the point where I could make a scarf that didn't have some sort of hour glass shape to it, but after Christmas school picked up and I didn't have the time. Then one day in Target I noticed a "Knitting for Dummies" pocket book in the $1 bin and grabbed it. Within a weekend, I was hooked again. Sadly I don't have pics of the few scarves after my first, but I do have pics of the ones I'm working on. I like to gift most, if not all of the stuff I make because honestly, I have too much junk. I'm trying really hard to slim down all my belongings to something more manageable for my move out to Cali. I've been selling/giving away a lot (yay for craigslist).

I guess I'll just show off my projects now... cause I'm soooo in love with showing them off.

This is a binary scarf I knitted for a friend in Rhode Island. I actually ended up folding it in half (length-wise) so that it was doubly thick and not 12 inches wide. I encoded a message into it, but I'm not letting any of you read it.

This is my stack of yarn as of two weeks ago. It's been added to a bit since then, and reduced a little. I had the pleasure of learning how to wind my own balls after Abby discovered she liked yarn. She's managed to great some fantastic knots with 6 skeins so far.. which means I've gotten to wind 6 balls. I think the balls a little better than the way the yarn comes from the store, just because it looks cute & doesn't take up as much space. They're all center-pull, too ;)

Abby's new found love of yarn gave me an idea to make her a toy that she can shred to pieces and not get in trouble for. It took me a few days to finish the ball, but that's mainly because I worked on it only for about an hour at a time. The pattern can be found here. I stuffed it with some plastic bag scraps (I'll get into that later) that I have, a plastic Easter egg with a bell inside, and a bit of cat nip. It took her awhile to get into it, but I caught her carrying it around and wrestling with it a few hours ago. I'm not sure where it is right now to get a better pic of it, she rolled it out of the room a little while ago.

This is actually the second of this kind of scarf. It was the first pattern that I ever just made up, and the first time I had done more than just a solid row of knits or purls. I gifted the original to a friend in Montreal (who loved it, by the way) and I was telling mom about how I almost didn't give it up because I loved it so much. I pointed out the brand of yarn I used to make it and she liked it so much, she asked me to make one for her. I'm making this one a little wider than the last one, but still just as awesome.

This scarf has taken me literally all semester to get done, and I'm still a ways off. It's Besotted scarf that I found the pattern for a modified to be a bit.. cooler. I've only really knitted it in my Tuesday & Thursday clases and I don't really have the urge to work on it anymore right now. Abby's tore into it three times now and this last time she really went to town. It'd probably take me an hour to just get it all back together, so I'm focusing on other projects right now.

I actually started this one sometime last summer, I think, but Abby hid the other needle from me in the middle of the night, so it's gone sitting unloved for almost a year. I finally got a new set of needles in the correct size, so I can finish this puppy anytime. It's gray and blue stripped garter stitch, and super soft. The only reason I haven't finished it yet is because I don't know who I'd give it to. If anyone wants it, shoot me an email.

Not only am I knitting, I'm also recycling! I fell in love with using plastic bags for crafts, mainly melting layers together into a fabric. My first attempt I ended up melting the plastic for too long and only got one chunk of good material. I sewed it into bags, which I gifted the scarves in. My next project was a needle holder, which I love! It holds all my knitting and crochet stuff and the best part is, because it's plastic I can write on it with dry-erase markers for stitch notes!

I still had my first sheet of plastic that I melted too long and it turned into a hard vinyl-like material, and Tim was always complaining that I never had my money with me, so I turned it into card wallets. The urge struck me randomly last night so I made one and then after using it today, figure out ways to improve it. Tim liked it so much he asked for one, so now I've made three! They're super simple and take only 10 minutes or so (once you already have the plastic material). I used clear packing tape to hold it together, and to create a clear pocket on the front for IDs. There's a tab on the inside that when you pull, lifts up some or all of your cards so it's easier to get them out. I also put a flap on it so that nothing falls out. The best part about these is that I could cut out the plastic just right to get designs on the back.

I have enough material for one more, maybe two. Just let me know if you'd like one. I absolutely love mine. It's great because I never liked wallets because of their ability to gather trash and a ton of change/receipts. This way I know I only have room for my cards and maybe a bill or two, and I don't have to worry about losing one (just about losing them all, lol).

Alright.. I'm exhausted and want to knit some wrist warmers for my hold hands.. so I'm wrapping this up. I'll post pics of the Goomba hat I made later. If you'd like patterns for anything, just let me know and I'll write them up or go digging for them.

Love, Peace, and Green Tea is Yummy,
Tar

Not a real post

I know I said I'd be keeping up with blog posts and I'm trying, really I am. This email is about something else, so much more important right now though. It's about technology and the classroom, and the students of today's educational system. The video is a little long.. but well worth it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o&feature=related

Tar

A Year (Almost) in Review, Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of the reviews from heck. This part was originally going to be about my trip to Orlando and the job interview and all that jazz.. but then I sat down to plan out all the parts of this series and it dawned on me that so much more than that happened.

First, a rather painful experience occurred. In early September I had the joy of being in a bicycle accident. It was literally a head-on-head collision with another biker, around a blind corner. After it happened I thought I was doing pretty good aside from a busted lip and bloody nose, but after walking around for a little while I realized that something was not right. A woman saw me cleaning my war wounds in the bathroom and noticed that I was not with it at all and called the paramedics. I got a ride to the hospital in a shiny ambulance and got to be strapped to a backboard for the next two hours as they checked me out. I ended up with a wicked concussion for the night and a really tender/sore neck and shoulder for the next couple of months, but now I'm doing just fine. I figured I'd be okay when it happened, I was far more concerned about the condition of my laptop and phone than myself when the paramedics were checking me out.

The pictures that go with this story have a funny story of their own. I had spent my morning in the lap, as usual, and it just so happened that Erin, Tim and I had taken some fun pictures before I headed off to class. They started out normal enough. Us posing with a red wagon, Erin and Brian (the world's best lab partner) playing around, Erin attacking me with a hammer, etc. etc. Just so happens that about an hour after the picture of Erin "attacking" me was taken, I got in the accident. The next pictures to appear on Tim's camera were of me, bloody, beaten and bruised. The series after that were of course Erin laughing and smiling at jokes later in the evening. As much as I'd like to blame the beating on Erin, I have to admit that it was in fact a bicycle accident and she was a very good friend during the whole thing, even catching a ride from one of her professors to be with me at the hospital.

So it just dawned on me that this is kind of out of order. I talked about Halloween last post and now I'm talking about my accident in September and my trip to Orlando in early October. That's right folks, this traveling fool was in Orlando for a full week back around October 17th. I was attending the Grace Hopper Conference, a conference for women in computing. I received a full scholarship to the event, including airfare, hotel, transportation and food, so all in all, fantastic trip. The conference was held at the Disney World Conference resort, just down the street from the board walk. I ran into friends from North Carolina and Google there and spent most of my trip catching up and networking. It was a fantastic trip, more so in that I got to head down to Melbourne and visit Nanny and Papaw for a long weekend.

I don't have many pictures (none, actually) from the conference itself, but I do have pictures from Bridge Day (they took us to Disney for a behind the scenes technical tour) and from the Disney Boardwalk. They have a Lego store at the walk and I was way too into that.. I had to stop myself from buying absurd amounts of Legos several times. They also had a Disney store that had a giant Stitch over the entrance way that would spit water randomly at people passing in front of the shop. The Pooh store completely grabbed my attention a couple of times, as did the toy store with the build your Mr. Potato Head wall. I was good, though, and only bought one thing my whole trip there and that was a lollipop for Caitlin. Oh, and a pressed penny cause Caitlin collects them.

Alright.. I was going to extend this post to talk about my school work last semester (which was insanely awesome but stressful) and my wisdom teeth/Thanksgiving break, but I'm thinking Part 2 is already too long. I have a lot of pictures that I want to share with you all but it's really hard to cram them all in with relevant text without just making the entire post about random pictures. If you're curious about my pictures (or Tommy's for that matter), check out my online photo albums at http://picasaweb.google.com/tar3820. I like to think that they're pretty well organized. Tommy is listed as one of my Favorites and you can get to his albums through mine. Feel free to download any pictures that you want, there's a link on the right hand menu.

Some people have been forwarding my emails to various other family members, which is fine. If you know someone that wants to know when I send out updates, just shoot me an email with their email address and I'll add them to the list.

Love, Peace and Wildlife on Campus,
Tar

A Year (Almost) in Review, Part 1

This is the third time I've tried to sit down and start these posts. I keep struggling with the way to start.. the pictures to include.. the stories to tell.. remembering the stories I want to tell. I finally decided that I just needed to sit down and nail out the first part of my catch-up posts and do it no matter what. Don't worry about classes, don't worry about knitting, don't worry about anything but writing out what I think I owe you all. An account of what I've been up to.

That's me on September 16th, 2007. I had just gotten back into the swing of classes and work and my friends and I decided to kick off a new school year like we have since we've all known each other. Celebrate Tirrel's birthday. Tirrel is the youngest of the group, but funnily enough, is the first to have a birthday amoungst us. The celebration was mild but fun. Dinner at a local thai place and cake back at Robert's house.

I don't remember much else about that dinner aside from Robert trying on my glasses, me sitting on top of the AC vent, Rachel and Tirrel doing interesting things with their chopsticks, and talking on the phone to Cesar. I remember more about the cake and the unique (and very original if you ask me) candles that we put on the cake. It was the first get together of the year and one of the saddest. Robert and Bria had just broken up and Bria was moving out. Beth had moved to Denver and gotten married. We had all just started realizing that we were all starting to go our separate ways, some of us faster than others.

I've always been a bit more distance than the others, traveling to conferences, seeing family and friends, or moving someplace for the summer to work. Cesar and I were still close at the being of the fall semester and I flew out a few times to see him and other friends in California. I was working my usual 6-7 jobs and trying to keep up with a full class schedule, as well as my friends. My car was reaching it's last leg and I felt like every weekend I was either pulling into or out of DIA's long-term parking lot. Finally the time came where I had to decide to put a lot of money into the Saturn, or just put it into a new car.

I had done some research in years prior and had always kept my eyes open for makes and models that interested me, so when the time came to get a car I know exactly what I wanted. A Subaru Impreza, wagon. After a week of dealing with dealerships, brothers and banks, I had my new baby. 5 speed manual, Urban Grey colour, 6 cd stereo w/ surround sound and upgraded bass, climate control AC, advanced dimming rear view mirror, trunk cover & mud mat, all weather mats, bumper protector, fog lights, roof racks, 68 miles to it's name. I learned how to drive stick the first week I had it. I can't even remember how many hours I spent driving around the neighborhood that first night trying to learn how to start from a dead stop or on a hill. I stalled it at a major intersection the first 3 hours I had it and had to have someone drive it out of traffic for me. It was the first thing that I've ever done on my own that scared me. It was my first major lesson in becoming myself, I like to think.

Branching out into new crafts and projects seems to be a theme for this past year, and what better crafts to learn than making sweets? Halloween was a sugar loaded time of year, Caitlin and I making a Haunted Gingerbread house, sugar cookies and a chocolate cake that would put anyone into sugar shock. Cait and I had received the gingerbread house kit as a gift from my mother and the sugar cookies had been an attempt to use up all of the candy and baking goods I had brought into Chris and Vinna's house. The cookies didn't do a very good job, even with the neighborhood children's help devouring them, and so the cake was made in an effort to whip out all of the leftover candy and at the same time, see how much chocolate I could get into every bite.

Everyone that had a piece of cake had to have at least one large glass of milk to get it down, most people two. I titled it "Zombie's Sugar Rush" because of the holiday, and the fact it would turn anyone into a zombie after the sugar rush died down. It was a triple layer, triple fudge cake with milk chocolate frosting and chips melted between the layers, fudge frosting coating the sides. Candy corns covered the fudge and butter cream icing was on the face of it. It was a cake to go down in history.

I think now would be a good time to end this part of the story. Next post: Orlando! Job Interview! Living in the lab! Stress! Stay tuned for the next post!

Love, peace, and happy sugar rush,
Tar

Here We Go Again

So I'm going to try and keep up with blogging again but I'm not promising anything to anyone. Looking back on the last real blog post I submitted, I realize a lot has happened. The most noticeable thing is that I've returned to Colorado, obviously. Don't start to think that I'll be staying here for much longer, though. California and Silicon Valley call to me.

Um.. so we're just going to do this on a timeline basis and we'll see if I can't get you all caught up..

My last few weeks in California were spent tying up projects, tightening friendships, and trying to delay the inevitable. Mom and Tim came out to visit (she's got pictures), Tom came out for the Google company picnic and to hang out with Cesar and I, and I avoided work. When Tom came out we took a day trip to San Fransico. For pictures of the whole weekend, visit his Picasa site here. We also played games at Google, hung out with my Google buddy Chris, and drove around the valley. Tim's got some more pics that I'll link to eventually, he just doesn't have them up yet.

I returned to Colorado on August 5th and then spent the next four days unpacking, getting my traditional after-work-cold, and sleeping in. Then on August 10th I flew to Charlotte for a conference. There I presented a poster (pretty poster link), gave a presentation, and talked it up with the people I worked with last summer. My poster received first place in the research division and I got a few ideas on what I'm going to do for my grant this year. Also, mom flew out and watched me present, as well as just hung out with me. The trip was overall great, though the weather in North Carolina could have been so much nicer..

August 15th found me back in Colorado, yet again, and getting ready for the big freshman orientation and move-in here on campus. The 16th was the big day and I spent all of it helping herd freshman into their correct rooms, as well as finding their classes and whatever else they need. Also, we found out that mosquitos prefer the taste of my blood over everyone else at the front office. Oh joy. Abby's happy to be back, I think. She had some trouble at first getting used to Megan and Sophie again, but she's getting there. I learned this summer that when I do move out, I'm going to have to get Abby someone to play with while I'm out of the house. She's a very needy kitty.. but only when you're not paying attention to her. Or when she's sleeping..

After freshman move-in I took the weekend off to relax and sleep, then spent the next Monday with Caitlin purchasing books and new bike parts. Caitlin had a great summer, apparently, and we've already fallen back into our old ways. Our first batch of baking went over well with the lab today, as you can see from the picture of Tim to the left there. Classes started on the 21st for me and I'm already living in the lab. Part of me's glad to be back in the trend and the other part of me just wants to graduate. The good news is that unless I can't hold off until then, I will be graduating in August of 2008. Not sure on dates yet, but I'll let you all know. Class breakdown is as follows:

• CS314: Object-Oriented Design. Basically a class on testing and how to design your code. I pretty much learned this all at Google so it's just another snooze fest for me.


• CS414: The more advanced version of the course above. Don't ask why I'm taking the basic and advanced at the same time.. I'm not happy about it either. Worst part is it doesn't seem to be anymore than what I did at Google either.


• CS430: Database Systems. Yeah.. I've taken a course like this already and I've taught a course like this already.. but of course I need to take this one to get the credit I need.. (Bet you can't guess which course I'm writing this blog post in..)


• CS440: Artifical Intelligence. This is the one course I'm actually interested in this semester, as well as am enjoying. The work load is a little high but it's all good. The professor is great and the material actually new and interesting.

I guess the upside of these courses is that I'm busy enough with easy homework assignments to not get too bored. That and they're all on Tuesday and Thursday.. hello four day weekends..

This class is over, so I'm going to go ride through the rain to my next adventure in computing.. oh joy.. why can't the classes be over and I can just go back to doing homework?..

Oh yeah..

Completely forgot that I had to post about this.. but real fast, Tom and Crystal's wedding photos are now available online and for print purchasing. Head on over to http://tomandcrystalswedding.com to have a look!

Also, I love my job. That's why I'm sending this while sitting on my bike, standing outside the espresso bar, waiting for my shuttle.

Love, Peace, and More Free T-Shirts!
Tar