Saturday. Football. Grocery shopping. Watching the morons scamper around like rats in a maze looking for X-mas gifts. Homework. All in all a typical holiday season Saturday.

My mom decided to bring in a stray polydactyl (sp?) cat she's named Polly. I'm not sure how the other cats will take to her, but we'll see. She is a cute and very loving cat. I can't believe her owners just dumped her. It's sad really.

Thanksgiving Day

Ah, Thanksgiving. Actually this was probably the first TDay with the family in years that did not end up in fighting, bickering, or other nonsense. But then again, my grandmother and her husband did not come to my Aunt's new house. I know my Aunt was greatly disappointed considering she and my Uncle-in-law spent a lot of time and effort inviting and organizing a meal for over twenty-five people. Aside from that things went well. I met a lot of new in-laws which actually seemed to be normal people not out to try and show off how superior they are to everyone else. All in all, a quite refreshing holiday. If all family gatherings were like this I think I'd enjoy them a lot more.

On a side note, I think Bush's surprise visit to the troops in Iraq was nice. The cynical put it down to him trying to to gain political points, but in this case (unlike the Carrier incident) I think he did not do it to gain political advantage or popularity. He didn't stay around and chat or eat or schmooze too much, all things that counter the political manipulation angle. Besides it was kind of amusing that the most watched politician on the planet could disappear off the radar screens long enough to pull something like this off.

Ah. Thanksgiving Break begins. Of course most of my classmates at ERAU took the whole week off. Todays Fluids class was amusing as only six of twenty three students even showed up, plus two from the other classes section. Anyway, at least its a small break that I can use to finish off the homework for the rest of the semester and start studying for finals.

The End is Near

Wow. I was finishing up some Fluid Mechanics homework tonight and it suddenly hit me that the semester is almost over and finals are just around the corner.

Eek!

It just seems strange, like the first day of classes was just yesterday when in fact it was three months ago. So much has happened and yet it doesn't seem like enough. I guess it's because I missed a lot of the campus activities in the early part of the semester like the pool party, end of summer BBQ, rushes (ok, I'm glad I missed this), and a lot of the intramural sports and activities. But I did get to participate in Octoberwest, the Prescott Airfair, various guest speakers and what not later on.

Wow. Time sure flies.

Well today utterly sucked.

I know I failed my Dynamics exam after finding out it was an open book exam and I did not have mine. Supposedly the prof announced this in class, but I checked my notes and there was no mention of this. I assume he announced this during one of the days I was absent dur to being sick. I also was not the only one who didn't know either, so I know it wasn't just me. In any event, this just about guarantees I will not pass the class with anything better than a D unless the prof decides to curve the grades.

So I'm completely ticked off about the whole thing. I mean I honestly wanted to just rip into the prof right then and there at the end of the exam. Instead I'll just tear him up in the student end of year reviews the school does. It probably won't change anything since it seems he's the most hated (and I do mean hated professor on campus) and considered one of the worst teachers to get, and yet he's still there. I don't normally say a prof is terrible, but this one truly is a bad professor from my view point and I've had a number of questionable teachers in college and university over these last few years.

Despite this, I'm not going to blame my failure on him, but instead on myself. After all I know he's a bad prof so I should work harder to overcome his deficiencies. So with that said, I'll just work and study harder, and say screw the prof.

Farscape Returns!!!!!!

Farscape is back! Farscape is back! Farscape is back!

Can I get a Hell Yeah?!!!

Wooohooo!!!!!!!

OK. I'm calm again. You non-Scapers reading this thing are going to think I've gone completely bonkers, but my fellow Scapers understand. Through hardwork, dedication, and utter devotion the Farscape fans have gotten our show back. Sure it's only a miniseries, but the ultimate goal was to see Farscape completed properly, not the bogus and insulting cliff hanger foisted upon the fans by the Sci Fi Channel.

Congratulations Scapers!

My thanks to all the organizers of the Save farscape Campaign and the dedicated fans who devoted time and money, who wrote, mailed, emailed, signed, petitioned, and otherwise campaigned their hearts out for this moment. I, for one, thank you all. This a great moment not only in farscape fandom, but all fandom.

Scape on!!!!

Now we patiently wait for Farscape to air in 2004.

Well today was okay. Nothing really special happened at school. My Fluids prof pushed back our homework until next week. This is good for me as it allows me to concentrate on Thursday's Dynamics exam, which I really need a good grade on.

Guess that's it for today.

Well, I'm feeling a little better today. Classes went okay, though the Physics exam was slightly harder than I expected it would be. I think I still got at least a 75/100, probably an 80-85 like last time. Tomorrow is just Fluids now that AE101 is done. I think I'll go early anyway so I can chat with my advisor over next semester's schedule.

I also updated my AOL to 9.0. It seems a lot better than 5.0 that I was using. I didn't update earlier mainly because of all the trouble encountered during upgrades from 4.0 to 5.0. I guess we'll see how it works out. It may not really matter once I get moved up to Prescott.

Which reminds me I need to call around tomorrow to some of the apartment places. See what's available to rent.

Another weekend comes to a close and I feel like I did not accomplish anything this weekend. Sure, I'm suffering through a cold and all, but I still feel like I should have done more this weekend.

Tomorrow is my Physics exam, which I haven't studied for, but I'm not really worried. I haven't really studied for any of my Physics exams and have gotten high B's.


It looks more and more promising for Farscape's return to the air, if the various con reports are to be taken at face value.

Well, I haven't blogged the last few days primarily to this cold I'm fighting off. It just leaves me feeling completely drained of energy. So here's what happened...

My AE101 class is now ended. Thursday was the last day and my group was the last to present our design. I was surprised the prof didn't rip into us like he had the previous four groups, but then maybe it was because we kept it simple and did not try to make any justifications or exagerations of our plane design. In any case it is over. He won't have our grades ready until after the Thanksgiving break, but I figure I'll get a B for the class.

My Fluids exam went all right. I didn't get as good a grade as I had hoped for, but 72/100 is acceptable. I had hoped for at least an 80/100 but got docked for some pretty silly mistakes.

My Dynamics exam sucked. I got a 66/100. I guess it wasn't too bad for not studying as much as I would have liked, but it still annoys me. I know I can do better. On the postive side, we have an extra exam being added so previous exams will be weighted less heavily into the class grade.

The Return of Farscape?

Well the rumors are flying again across the net (and apparently at the cons and news sites) that a Farscape stand mini-series is in the works. While I hope this is true I'll wait until an official announcement is made.

Another day has come and gone. Not much really happened at school. About the only new thing was our Dynamics prof lost his grader, so now he's thinking of cancelling the remainder of the homework assignments. I personally don't like the idea since it means we won' really know how I'm doing on the homework unless I look at the homework solutions he posts in the library. That smacks of cheating to me. Aside from that he may split our next exam into two exams. This a good thing since it breaks up tons of information into more manageable chunks. At least it does for me.

My AE group's presentation looks like it will be good. Unfortunately our usual missing member missed today's meeting. Somehow I'm not surprised. All I can say is she better be prepared for Thursday. The rest of us are going to be ticked if she isn't and drags our grade down. Greg and Tiffany did an excellent job on the drawings and powerpoint slides.

Pause and consider.

Ok, that's enough of that.

It's funny. I was doing my homework and studying for my upcoming and realized I completely dispise my Dynamics class. I love Aerospace Engineering, but I don't feel like I'm learning anything in the class, just wasting my time on problems that have more to do with tidious math rather than the actual engineering concepts. I guess I'm still ticked at getting 79 percent on a homework that I only set up the problems and did not answer them, while another homework that I set up the equations and solved them only got a 68 percent simply because of minor math errors. Sorry but engineering concepts seem to be more important to me than wasting time on algebraic equations. But I refuse to quit because one prof has his head up his ass.

On the positive side, this is my final week for AE101. The group I'm in makes our presentation on Thursday and then we are done. I hope we do well. I'd really like to get an A for this class, as easy as it seemed to be.

Integrity

I just wanted to say that it's great to see a high school student with integrity. In this case I'm mean a highschool QB named Nate Haasis who once realized his record breaking pass had been rigged by not only his coach but the opposing team's coach came forward and asked the pass be stricken.

Yes, there are many honest and hardworking students out there, but its good to see one willing to stand up and against the pervasive culture corruption, erosion of integrity, and cheating that has taken over the United States. If more acted with the same integrity and honesty as young Mr. Haasis, this country would be in a far better state of affairs.

Well, it's definitely approaching winter here in Arizona. While at ERAU today I noticed there's snow on the Peaks there were not there yesterday. Of course it's been getting rapidly colder each day. Typical Arizona weather.

Of course with the cold weather has come the first wave of colds and flu and the campus. It seems like every other student and professor has come down with something. I've been taking extra vitamin C and trying to avoid the carriers.

As for classes, they are going all right. I got back two of my Physics homeworks, averaged an 90 on them. At least most of the class showed up for Physics unlike my Dynamics class. I'd say only a quarter of the class showed up for that. I guess they wanted to get a jump on the long weekend for the campus due to University Day on Friday. if I'd realized it sooner, I would have made plans to fly out to Florida to go to the Wings and Waves program at the Daytona beach campus.

Four Dead in Arizona Immigrant Smuggling Shooting
- iWon - News I can't be surprised by this happening given that the coyotes have been killing each other with increasing ferocity and disregard for innocent lives over the past six months. Maybe this incident will kick start the Feds and Mexican Federales into actually cracking down on these murderers, thieves, and smugglers. There can not be a free and open border between the United States and Mexico until the border is under control. All these peddlers do is harm both sides.

You know, it's kind of weird. Today flew by. It seems like just an hour ago I was headed off to ERAU for classes and now I'm sitting here at 11:00 pm making a log entry. It seems like nothing got done today. Sure I handed in the ES204 and PS160 assignments and worked on my Fluids assignment. It still just doesn't feel like I did anything.

Maybe it's because we're in the final stretch for classes.

Sunday. Rest day. Rapidly becoming homework day for me. Nothing else has really happened today. I watched some football and just hung out.

I guess that makes this a pointless blog today.

Another weekend.

Yesterday was Halloween. I stayed home from school feeling ill. I was a little surprised that no trick or treaters come by considering I live across the street from a grade school right now. I guess the parents are now taking all the kids to malls. Too bad really considering the malls are just using the kids to push their commercialization of the holiday and not to make Halloween safe for kids as they publibly claim.

Today I pretty much just lounged about the house and did homework. I did scope out some new apartments up in Prescott that should be pretty good. Hopefully I can get some time to look at them tuesday. Maybe I'll even get to move in by the end of the week if I really lucky. That would be fine as far as I'm concerned. This constant driving from Phoenix to Prescott is getting annoying.

I did have some "fun" dabbing the cats with anti-flea medication. Most of them were okay about it, but a few went ballistic. It didn't help any when my brother decided to clip their claws as well. Unfortunately he got scratched and clawed up by Remus.

That reminds me. For those who are interested in this boring information, my cats names are: Samhein, Hetsepshut (aka Cheetah), Na'toth, Vlad, Romulus, and Remus. Cats we kind of look out for outside are Ace, Captain Nemo (after the fictional character not the cartoon fish), Pauli (a polydactyl pawed cat), SuperVlad (he's a spitting image of Vlad, but bigger), Wendy (aka Wings), William (Wendy's bro), Princess, Stripe, and a new cat and her two kittens that have shown up recently. The scary thing is nearly all the cats are descended from a male Siamese-Persian mix called Omen Bluemoon and a female tiger striped polydactyl named Paddy and a female Siamese-Burmese simply called Mama.

The first and second litters of Omen and Mama were the "Army of Darkness": Samhein, Hetsepshut, Wolf (renamed Ogre by new owners), Pyra, Sirus Khan (aka LeeperKhan), Na'toth, Havoc, Wiley, and Hera (who was renamed by new owners). Non littermate members: Kaos (the alpha), Merlin, and anothers who name escapes me at the moment for some reason.

Now that I've bored you to death...

I dropped by the Kansas Farscape Forum. It's good to see Ben Browder, Gigi Edgley, Anthony Simcoe, and Wayne Pygram keeping busy. I thought it was interesting Ben's doing an indy-type film that usually gets shown at Sundance. It could generate some Hollywood interest in him. Also good to hear Gigi's doing some tele-film work down Aussie way.

News Round Up

Well, here's some more news items that caught my attention in the past few days.

Russia Attacks U.S. Criticism of YUKOS Affair- iWon - News Putin can't really think the rest of the world was going to remain silent while he and his KGB cronies that now run Russia try to kick off their campaign to destroy capitalism and political dissent. It's obvious that Putin's policies (threatening Ukraine, Chechnya, Ingushetia, etc when they oppose Russian influence; supporting terrorist states like Iran, Syria, and (formerly) Iraq; denying religious freedoms to non-Eastern Orthodox religions; quashing independent free press and news agencies; hindering and threatening opposition political parties and their members, and so on.) are aimed at re-establishing a modernistic Soviet Union that allows the old communists such as himself who lost unfettered power in the Soviet collapse to return Russia back to a dictatorship or an oligarchy of his chosing. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. After all Putin rose to power through his participation in the KGB. That alone makes him a questionable individual.

One Mideast State May Be Future of Israel -iWon - News An interesting idea that everyone hates. A single country comprised of Jews and Palestinians living in peace. Impossible? Nope, that's exactly what existed intil Palestine was wiped off the face of the map by Zionists who never consulted the local Jewish population living in Palestine. Besides the Zionists running Israel have no interest in governing their Jewish brethren, but in promoting their racist and bigoted agenda against all non-Jews and non-Hebrews. Too bad the true Jewish people have been pushed aside by the extremists.

'Taikonaut' Gets Cool Hong Kong Welcome
Are the Communist Chinese really surprised that the people Hong Kong could care less about China's space program? All you need is read the final few paragraphs of this report to understand why. Who want to live in a country who treats your brethren as prisoners while proclaiming that people in Hong Kong need to be indoctrinated to be good patriots to the communist governments ideals. Like I've sair before, China's space accomplishments under the communists cannot be really accepted because of their oppressiveness and refusal to sign the United Nations Space Treaty.

Native Fish in Arizona River in Peril As a 3rd generation native of Arizona I find this article frightening, though I am not surprised by the results. Too many people who come to Arizona think the state is some barren wasteland that they can do anything they want to just because the primary enviornment is that of a desert. People come here and destroy Arizona in their attempt to bring their home states flora and fauna with them, dump their toxic chemicals, strip away drinking water for power plants, and then the uninformed environmental wackos come to Arizona and do even more damages with the insane schemes to "fix" the Arizona ecosystem such as blowing up natural dams and blocking forest management programs that prevent soil erosion and forest fires. Hell, it took decades just to get them to reintroduce the native wolf population back into the state. It just pisses me off!