Another one bites the dust... is this getting old to you, too?

Yet another Rose-Hulman student has died, this time in a motorcycle accident.

Read more on Rose-Hulman's website or the article in the Terre Haute Tribune Star.

Has anyone been keeping track of how many kids we've lost now, in the past 12 months alone? I don't even want to go back and count them...



AFN...
C

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Class schedule, USMC, and workout

Fall 08-09 Schedule
Easy thing first... here is my schedule for this coming quarter.

(click to view full size)

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Sold my TVs.. bought another one.. birthday stuff

So for those who didn't know... yes, I bought a pair of Samsung TVs that I found on Craigslist.com, but I never intended on keeping them. They didn't meet my criteria (>37" diagonal w/ 1080p resolution), but they were just such a great deal I couldn't pass them up. Anyway, those are both sold and so tonight I made another purchase....

I bought a Sharp LC-37D62U 37 inch Aquos for $779 + $49 shipping = $828 total. You can read some more about this model on CNET at http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/sharp-lc-37d62u/4505-6482_7-32334936.html.

So yeah, thats it. Just thought I'd share.


Oh, so side note...
Sara was here for my birthday this weekend! She drove up on Saturday and only stayed the one night, but she, Marcus, Ben, and I went out to Texas Roadhouse, then we hit up Sonka's Irish Pub and then we went to Charlie's Bar..? I don't really know what the official names are. Then we came back here and played euchre for another couple hours. Then we watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Well, Ben and I watched it. Marcus had already seen it (and had consumed enough while we were playing euchre) so he just went to sleep on the nap couch. And Sara just kinda laid there with her eyes closed, but still laughed at some of the funny parts, so I'm not really sure how much of it she actually saw. Anyway it was good times, good times :) Thanks to Marcus and Ben for taking me out, and special thanks to Sara for making it all the way back from Oklahoma to join in on the fun! :)

And then after Sara left for Fort Wayne (she'll be home for a few days before she heads back west to start school) and then a couple hours later Marcus left for Indy, Ben and I were soooo boorreedd. It was bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s, bananas. I bought the shirt.woot! half because it was cool and half because I was just so bored. Here's the design:

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Sony update

The following was my reply to my brother's email asking how I'm liking my job. After I wrote it, I thought some other people might be interested in reading it, too. So here it is. I'm going to play some bball in my new shoes now, so I'm not going to proofread it. haha.

Peace out...
//C


Well, I'm really enjoying it. In addition to the project I mentioned in my blog about the first week, I had another assignment to write a script in a language I hadn't heard of before (Korn shell "ksh"). Anyway, I spent some of last week and then a lot of Monday and Tuesday doing research on how to do things in this language. And I had to use the Korn shell script (which was actually being called from a Bourne-again Shell "bash") to run some more stuff in yet another language. It was quite interesting to learn about how to do all that stuff! Anyway, today at 1655 I got it all working! It was very rewarding to start in on something I had no experience with and figure out how to get it done.

Tomorrow I have to put in a "test promote request" to get it implemented on the next level up the tree. The tree is, we developers write our programs, scripts, whatever, etc in the DEV environment. Once we get them ready, we put in a request to have them promoted to the TEST / STAGE environments. (TEST and STAGE are basically the same thing, but I won't get into the details about the differences between them.) Then if there are any problems in TEST, we take it back to DEV to resolve them. Then once its good, send it back to TEST, and if it works there, then the developer makes a request to promote it to PROD (production). And if it gets approved, then it goes to an Admin who will follow the directions you laid out to put the stuff into production.

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new shoes

I got a new pair of b-ballin shoes tonight at Finish Line at the mall.

click to enlarge

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First Week at Sony DADC (completed)

First Week of Sony DADC


General Notes:

I have been carpooling with Sean Marriner, a junior CPE (ComPuter Engineer) at Rose who is one of four people staying at the Triangle Fraternity house for the summer. We trade off days driving.

I hope to start riding my bike maybe by my third week, as I want to spend some more time investigating the locker room and locker arrangements as well as bike parking and entrance stuff. Once this begins, I will probably drive the car at least once a week to make sure I have some clean clothes and stuff to leave in my locker, since I plan to arise early, bike to work, then take a shower there.

I have my own cubicle right beside Sean's and directly across from Wayne, who was the man I spoke with at the Winter Career Fair and who is directly responsible for my interest in the company. See Figure 1 for the cubicle layout in my little area.

Figure 1: IS Department Layout

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First Week at Sony DADC (coming soon)

Sorry.. I know I promised this to my family this weekend, but it didn't quite happen. It is under way and should be completed by tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest. The time I was going to spend writing the entry itself ended up being spent drafting a nice layout of my department. So I've started it, but its just not done yet. Sorry guys!

Be sure to follow the WWDC Keynote wherein Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to announce the release of iPhone 2.0; it can be followed from several sites including: MacRumorsLive.com, Engadget.com, and MacScoop.com. The event begins at 10:00 PST (1300 Eastern Time).

Also, if you didn't get to see my pictures of the flooding on campus yet, be sure to check out my album here as well as my roommate's album here.

AFN...
//C

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Final grades

Spring quarter grades for the 2007-2008 academic year (my junior year).

(click to enlarge)

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Almost done (finals schedule)

Two full weeks of class left (9th and 10th weeks). Then finals week is 11th week, as always.

My finals schedule (May 19 - May 22)
Monday - 0800 - Olin O 169 - ECE 332 Computer Architecture II
Wednesday - 1800 - Crapo G310 - CSSE 332 Operating Systems*


*optional final (can help or hurt your grade depending on how well you do)



So I could be home as early as Monday evening, or it might not be until Thursday. We'll see how it goes.

And of course, I start work on June 2, so I get that full week off after finals week. My intern orientation is this Wednesday at 0900 at the Sony DADC complex. (Still need that lady to email me back about WHERE exactly I should go, though! She is very slow in replying to emails. Grr..)


Other random tidbit - last week on Wednesday I was working at the Help Desk, like normal this quarter. And it was myself and another rookie on shift, and we both made a mistake: instead of telling the person on the phone that we didn't know the answer, we gave our best guesses. Well Barb, the boss lady, quickly corrected us that we are never to give our guesses: if we don't know, say we'll have to look into it and then go do some research and find out the correct answer. Then the next day, Thursday morning, I work a shift with one of the student co-leads. And the subject came up of how Barb had had to correct us the day before, and then she took the time to say, Caleb I do need to do some performance reviews to let you new workers know how you're doing, but I just want you to know that you're the cream of the crop of the new bunch this year; you're doing a great job, so I don't want you to get down about messing up a little now and then.

Boy, thats nice to hear, isn't it? One never really expects a boss to say something like that, whether its just form you not being that good or from the fact that bosses don't often give that kind of encouragement. But yeah, that sure is nice to hear.

Anyway, I'm in class...

peace:out
//C

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Approved and Not approved

I got an email this week that simply said, we regret to inform you that your senior thesis has not been approved.


But!

I wrote another script, packaged it as an app, and submitted it to Apple, and it DID get approved :)
Check out http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/math_science/startstopfoldinghome.html (Mac-only program).


Peace
:out

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This is getting ridiculous... another student died.

I heard of this yesterday but did not want to post about it until I had some more details.

ANOTHER Rose-Hulman athlete has been killed in an auto accident. This is the third serious auto accident in 7 months involving one of our own, and the second in four days to claim a life.

Story about Brandon Couch, yesterday’s victim: click here

More about the previous accident involving Nick Lee and Adam Effinger: click here

I looked, but I can’t seem to find any info about Drew Christy’s accident from earlier this year. As I recall, he was on his way home from a break when he was involved in an accident. He was in a coma for quite some time afterwards. It is very encouraging to view this website that is keeping a record of his progress. You can really see the faith of his family as they deal with this trial, and it is just amazing to see how they are relying on God for their strength.

Also, this website has been set up for updates on Adam Effinger, the driver in Saturday’s deadly crash.

Please remember the families of all these students in your prayers, as well as those close to them.

And drive safely.
And wear your seatbelts.

-Caleb.

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Info on the student killed in Saturday’s crash

There are a couple articles in the Terre Haute Tribune Star about the accident. This is perhaps the most daunting, as it includes some pictures of the remains of what used to be a car:

click to view full article,
which includes pictures
of the scene

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break, housing, summer scuba, a death, jeopardy

Break was awesome :)

Should be able to post some pics once everybody else uploads theirs. I didn’t actually take a single picture with my camera. Oops!


It has been decided: Ben, Marcus, and I will be living together next year in the Apartments. Ben says he’s pretty sure I can squat in Skinner over the summer, and once the Colts move out of the Apartments, then I can start moving my stuff over to the new room at my leisure. So anyway, the benefit of living with them is that I have guaranteed housing for next year. There’s been some weird junk going on with housing because next year the huge class behind mine, which was the largest freshman class ever, will be vying for spots in the Apartments along with my class, and basically, Tom Miller was very confusing and non-consistent about who gets priority for on-campus housing, be it the seniors or the juniors. So this is a good thing for me to not even have to worry about.



Other things of note:

Scuba over the summer -
It turns out I can check out some equipment from the Rose Scuba Club and hang on to it over the summer. I can get all the stuff I need - reg, BCD, weights, tank, mask, fins, snorkel, wetsuit, hood, boots, gloves,... is there anything else? - and keep it over the summer and all I would have to pay for is to get the tank refilled each time I use it. Where could I dive? Well basically there are like lakes and quarries and stuff I can find. One girl on the scuba trip will be living in Indy over the summer, so we may buddy up to go do some dives. See if that works out or not. One place we thought of is the Bonne Terre mine, near St Louis. The Club actually was going to go there last year but it fell through.

Death in the family -
The Rose family, that is. I just heard word from a friend of mine. This friend was in South Carolina over spring break and we were texting back and forth about our breaks (I even got drunk dialed by her once). She got into town last night just a couple hours, if that, after I did. Anyway, she just told me that one of the guys who was on that trip with her, a guy whom she had actually dated for a while, died today in a car accident. He was riding with another student here, a senior, and the driver wrapped the car around a tree. I have no idea if or to what extent the driver was injured. I don’t know what time it happened (just that it was before 2200 on 4/5/08, which was when my friend was informed of it) or what the conditions were, but I’m sure there will be some all-campus emails about it shortly, or it’ll be in the paper. Or both. Remember those affected by this tragedy in your prayers.

Rose professor two-day champion on Jeopardy -
This seems trivial now, following the news of the death, but I had wanted to share it before, and I’m still going to. Dr. Richard House appeared on Jeopardy on Thursday, when he won by a mere $2 by correctly answering the Final Jeopardy question. I had read that in a couple articles that my Rose-Hulman Google alert turned up, but then when Ben got back to Rose, he said that Dr. House also won the next day and he will be on the show again this Monday.


And now that its after woot o’ clock (0100), the new items were all updated on the sites I check (woot, shirt.woot, and sellout.woot) and I got the shirt. I thought it was pretty cool. That makes two shirts for me now. (Links: Wikipedia: woot shirts | The first woot shirt I got: Anatomy Test | other previous shirt designs)

OK, I want to go to bed now. I have to write a program tomorrow.

Peace
//C

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Hotel change, diet, Komets game

hotel change
Update in an email today...

The dive shop wasn’t able to get us hotel rooms at the Ramada Inn. Instead we are staying at The Suites of Key Largo for the same price. These are two story suites with a bedroom upstairs, which has a queen bed and a full bathroom, and a downstairs living area with a full kitchen, living room, full bathroom, and a queen size pull out sofa. So
it will still be 4 people per room, with 3 in the girls room. The location is just as close and here is the website: http://www.suitesofkeylargo.com.

diet
Also, I didn’t mention it in the last couple blogs, but I also started a "crash diet" (as Sara called it,haha) on Sunday night when it suddenly hit me, oh no, I need to lose a few pounds to get this gut of mine back down to a slightly smaller size before Spring Break! So I started a "fruits, veggies, a few nuts, no bread, no meat, no sugars, and juice or water to drink" diet.

I don’t have a scale in here, and I haven’t had time to go to the SRC, so I don’t have an objective method of objective method of measuring my success, but subjectively, it looks like it’s working so far! I also wanted to do a few pushups to make my arms not look so... bad. But Marcus was like, well, if you cut carbs and protein out of your diet, where is your body gonna get that kind of energy? It’ll start eating your muscles before your fat. I’m not sure how much thats true, so I still did some pushups, but not a whole lot. Tryin to split the difference. Eh, its better than nothing, I figure. Better than burgers every day for lunch at the ARA and no pushups at all, right?

Komets
The Komets, the awesome IHL team from Fort Wayne, have recently tied the IHL record for most consecutive home wins at 22, which had been previously held solely by the 65-66 Muskegon Mohawks. The game that could break the record will be played tomorrow night, obviously at home, and I’m going home for it! Are you kidding me!? Its a record-setter!! This is arguably one of the best teams in franchise history, and they are on the verge of setting a milestone record - and I’ll be on break, and you think i’m NOT gonna go home for this!? You must be mad!
Game time is at 2000. My only class of the day is 7th hour, which goes from 1335 to 1425, so I’ll have some time to finish packing together my things for Florida, then I’ll take off, and as long as I’m on the road by like 1630, I’ll be able to make the game in time, which I expect will prolly be a sellout. Friday evening AND a game for the record books? Yeah.. I expect that.

Anyway... that one class I have tomorrow? Yeah.. thats a test. So I’m gonna go study for that. I don’t feel too bad about it right now. In fact I think my grades thus far this quarter have been pretty good. MARKEDLY better than last quarter, almost certainly better than fall quarter, and likely up there among my best quarters at Rose - of course... I haven’t had a single exam yet this quarter. So we’ll see how it goes once those start pouring on.

But yeah... I’m going now....
Peace:
out.
//C.

5:32 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Florida driving update / itinerary

Just received this email from the Club president:


Upon taking another look at our traveling plans I’m really not comfortable with everyone driving through the night and it’s also against Rose Hulman’s rules for club travel. I think it would be a good idea if we were to stay overnight in a hotel in Georgia on the way there and the way back. I have already looked into a hotel in Macon, Georgia, which is the halfway point in our trip. See the attached document for a detailed itinerary of the travel plans. It will only cost you guys an extra $10 for both nights. The itinerary is accurate, but it may change if I have the open water people go on an advanced dive one of the days.
Let me know if anyone is strongly opposed to this.


The itinerary can be found as a PDF here. (Expect a warning from MySpace when you click that.)
I omitted the turn-by-turn directions. If you are REALLY that curious that you wanna know those, then just maps.google it yourself.

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