Tech Fest 2007
Uploaded by peachy92.

Yesterday, I attended the TechFest here in town, sponsored by The Creative Coast. I was there to present a poster on the research project I help on, Integrating Information Retrieval into Undergraduate Curricula. While other people were presenting posters on HaptEK16 and using RFID chips to help the blind "see," my poster was mainly about searching the Internet and other databases. It just made me feel stupid being around those types of projects. Well, some good did come out of the presentation. I gave out 2 résumés, the local school board was interested in our presentation and adapting some of the features for primary and secondary education, and a start-up company spoke to Dr. Zhu about e-commerce projects. Ivan, the guy that present the HaptEK16 poster and a classmate of mine, told me I shouldn't feel too bad. All that matters is that I show the ability to learn. I did get a free t-shirt out of the event.

I did want to kill one of the guys that was presenting with me. He mumbles. I can't understand him half the time. He waited until the last minute to transfer the files to our backup system for the displaying our presentation. He had over a week. That really pissed me off. I hate people that don't get ready nor help. He didn't help me with getting the poster ready, either. And he's one of those guys that would poo-poo anything I said. I said something about it's important to know the history of computing to advance computing. He would say there's no reason. He thought understanding ham radio was a waste of time. And from all the time I've spent with him, he clearly lacks some tact in the social skills department. At the Tech Fest, I will say the presentation by the school board's technical people and our new guy in the project whipping out his ham radio operator's licence showed I'm not wrong in my knowing the past helps the future beliefs. However, I doubt Mumbles got the point.

In addition to the Tech Fest making me feel dumb, I have been trying to get an ASP.Net project off the ground, with no luck. I'm also installing Apache, PHP, and MySQL to my laptop. I'm having trouble with the MySQL at the moment. It's just making me all feel dumb. I know I'll get it working, even if I need to get some help. It just frustrating I can't get it to work the first time. Well, I have to learn somehow. At the moment, I'm working on cleaning up my laptop. I need to get ride of many files on it. That means backing up files on to the external hard drive and cleaning up the hard drive as well.

After the Tech Fest and dinner, I went back to campus to drop Mumbles off. I hung around to drop off the stuff I took to the Tech Fest and attended the school's Friday night production of Three Cornered Moon. Hai had a starring role and I've been meaning to get to one of his productions. And after the production, Melissa was serving dinner for the cast and crew, so I hung around to help. The play was good. It's one I think my siblings so see, but I doubt they'd understand it. Tonight, I am going to the Savannah Arts Academy to see Guys and Dolls. This is required for my theater class. I just need to see the play and write up a paper on it, and I will be finished with my theater class.

[♪ Listening to: "Apprends-Moi" - Céline Dion and Jean-Jacques Goldman]

Thursday Threesome:

Onesome: The-- marketing of goods and services. ...and the things they do to try to get us to buy their products! Are there any advertisments or commercials that really stand out to you right now? I love the Slowskys' "YOU PUSH IT REAL GOOD!" ad by Comcast. Just the attitude expresed by BIll is priceless!

Twosome: Cola-- cola, cola: which cola do you drink? ...or do you? ...or the UnCola? (Do you remember that ad campaign?) That was 7Up! I drink water, only. I did drink Coke and I still have the occational Coke. My last Coke, that I can recall, a HUGE Coke at the rained out Atlanta Braves game. The Coke was a better bargain over bottled water.

Threesome: Wars?-- Are there any good advertising wars going on in your area? Burgers, newspapers, ISPs? Not at the moment.

[♪ Listening to: "Cry Just A Little" - Céline Dion]

This video of Céline Dion is from the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest. The song is "Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi" and it was Switzerland's entry into the contest. It was the winning song that year. I have been listening to it a lot the past few days. I think I like it because there's a certain confidence in the song that I don't have and wish I did. I read up on the Eurovision contast. It seems like something I would have grown up watching. I read somewhere they wanted to import and format this for the United States

After watching Bobby's and Renee's presentations today for Senior Project, I feel so stupid. My website sucks. I can't get the ASP.net application I've started to work. I just feel dumb. I hate feeling stupid. Renee said I should do my application in PHP using MySQL instead of ASP.net. I might try that. I'll need to install Apache, PHP, and MySQL onto my computer. I'm also burning a copy of Ubuntu to install on my desktop. I figured it wouldn't hurt to have that. I've tried it before when I installed it on my brother's computer a few months ago. I liked what I saw. I need to at least feel familar with some things about it.

After today, I just felt like a jack of all trades, master of nothing. Then again maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm a jack of all trades for a certain purpose. There's got to be a reason.

[♪ Listening to: "Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi " - Céline Dion]

ACM Meeting #4
Uploaded by peachy92.

Today hosted the final ACM meeting of the semester and school year. We had "elections". Actually, everyone ran unopposed. This is our new board. Cee is chair. Mike, in the middle is the vice-chair. Joey is the secretary. I'm going to head the Technology Development Committee. That means I'm a board member, too. My goal is to get the site up and working over the summer. We've got a site developed. We just need to get it up and have some content on it. The fall will see us trying to get some dynamic parts added to it.

In addition to the elections, we had a Computer Science alumnus visit us and talk about her job at Gulfstream. She also brought us some mouse pads and left a card about seeking a job there.

My next week or so is going to be busy. I need to study for my Ethics test that will be on Wednesday. I got a 92 on my paper. I just need a good grade on the test and the final paper, and I might get out of the class with an A. In addition to the Ethics stuff, I have to throw together some Senior Project stuff. I also have a production of "Guys and Dolls" to see on Friday and write a 2-page paper on that. I need to finish one more thing for Graphics Design, as well.

So, school comes first. After this semester ends, I'll have a fairly "easy" summer. I'll still have school work to do, but I'll have more free time.

[♪ Listening to: "Incognito" - Céline Dion]