Prelude to a new car.

Fixing my dads Honda Prelude (red, early 90s) is too expensive to be worth doing, so he's decided to sell it for parts. If anybody knows someone who is interested in buying either the whole thing, or pieces of it, let me know. I think this Saturday I am going up to New Jersey with him to pick up one of the cars my grandmother owns but isn't using, so he'll have a (relatively) new car soon enough.

I'm an asshole...

Stop acting surprised, you've been telling me the same thing for years. I broke up with Tracey today. It just didn't feel right, and I didn't want to drag things out any longer (honestly, she could do better anyway.) I realized that the only real thing holding me back from doing it was not wanting to hurt her, which is a horrible reason to stay in a relationship. I wanted to just drive up to her place and do it, but mitigating circumstances prohibited that and she wound up driving down. I did not want her to have to drive for a half hour just to get dumped, which made me feel like even more of an ass. I'm not asking for sympathy for feeling like an ass; I just thought you all should know that I finally agree with you.

South Carolina... a southern state with South in its name.

Thursday evening I went home and picked up my brother, then started heading south. We hit the tail end of rush hour but since we were driving like 600 miles it didn't wind up making a huge impact on our trip. The drive down to S.C. wasn't that bad, once you get past the fact that you're driving longer than the typical work day. We mostly listened to music and watched with childlike amazement as the odometer hit 100 miles, 200 miles, 300... you get the picture. We got to the house at around 2AM, which wasn't that bad when you consider that we had planned on leaving later and driving through 'til morning. The house we were staying at was nice. It was right on the tidal basin and they had kayaks. It was maybe a 10 minute walk to the beach, but the waves stank so there wasn't much incentive to go there anyway. Unlike Duck, N.C., however, there was also nothing to do in town. Actually, there really wasn't a town. I spent most of my time kayaking around the tidal basin, reading The Traveler, sleeping, and eating. A couple times I managed to kayak down to the inlet where the tidal basin meets the ocean. That was a fairly long trip to do on a kayak, and getting into the ocean wasn't easy. It reminded me of a canoe trip I took in Maine the summer after 9th grade. One day we had to canoe across a lake against a strong headwind that was kicking up waves. Kayaking against medium sized waves wasn't impossible, but it did throw me around a little. Did I mention that there were dolphins? They'd tail me when I was kayaking some of the time, but never get too close. Also, there was a shark a couple feet from me at one point. Probably a sand shark or something, not huge but probably big enough to hurt me if it really wanted to. Good thing I had those dolphins to protect me. One night I played poker with Jeremy, my dad, and this guy Cliff who along with his wife is a friend of my parents. Jeremy went out, but I couldn't take all the chips before my dad and Cliff decided it was getting late. Still, I could have taken them out. I wonder if this was one of those situations my dad always worried about. It was obvious growing up that I wasn't going to beat him at sports any time soon. For some reason I keep getting full houses when I play. Probably luck, or cheating, or some third thing.

Sunday morning I kayaked down to the ocean one last time and pulled the kayak onto the shore. Well, it wasn't exactly the shore, or a sandbar. On the northern side of the inlet, at low tide, the ocean floor became half exposed for maybe 100 meters out from the normal shoreline. Since the ocean floor isn't smooth, but is choppy like rough water or an english muffin, all the nooks and crannies were filled with water, and the ridges jutted above the water. Combine that with a low sun, and it's a pretty amazing sight. I wandered around there for a while, then walked out into the water. For another 200 meters or so the water wasn't even ankle deep. I started to think that maybe people on the shore would think that I was walking on water, like Jesus, and thought it might be cool to be mistaken for the messiah. Then I remembered how that story ends and ran back to the kayak. The trip back to the house was tiring. I was hot, my muscles were starting to get sore, and I kept laying back on the kayak and letting the tide carry me back. Unfortunately the tide couldn't have been moving much faster than a quarter mile an hour or so, so I had to keep paddling. I got back, had breakfast, and then Jeremy and I left to come back north. It's funny. I consider Maryland to be, in most respects, a southern state. Cite the Mason-Dixon line, that mess with the state senate during the civil war, or the fact that Maryland is more than just the DC-Baltimore corridor. Coming up from South Carolina, however, I feel like I'm entering Canada by the time I cross the Potomac.

So anyway, I'm back. I came into work this morning and debugged a RAID array and NFS locking issues, and now I feel like I could use another vacation.

Automotive not so motive

Today has been a day of cars. I went to get the oil changed in the Prizm, and on the way back from my parents house the Prelude starts to overheat. I pull off and see the radiator spewing a brownish liquid all over the engine. This liquid reminds me of what comes out of crabs when you crack them open, and that reminds me of the fact that I hadn't eaten anything all day. This liquid is then evaporating when it hits the engine block, making a nice smell and causing the car to look like it's going to explode. I take it to a service station, only to be told that they can't service my car. I guess typical cars don't have radiators these days, because I had to take it to a special service station. I take it there and wait for a couple hours, only for them to tell me that it will be a thousand dollars to fix because they have to overhaul the whole thing. I give my dad, who's in South Carolina at the time, a call asking him what he wants to do with it (it is his car, and he can be picky about things.) He says to take it to the Amoco station on New Hampshire Avenue because he knows them and they don't seem to be cheats. Now, rather than wait around for hours for a tow truck to show, I drive back to the place in Laurel to wait for a tow truck there. It's not a long drive, and whenever the car seems to get a little too warm, I pull over and stop the engine and wait for it to cool down again, as to avoid further engine damage. So that's what I'm doing now. I'm waiting for a tow truck, at which point I'll go back to the station I was at earlier to have my oil changed, with a new car and a new set of troubles, Including not having a ride from the station until my sister or brother get off work. It may be late before you hear back from me, though hopefully not.

Why does everybody think it's personal?

My friends say it pisses them off when I argue a point. Arguing pisses me off too, but I think for a much different reason. When I argue I feel like 99% of my effort isn't going into explaining what's wrong with someone else's premise, but into explaining my point. I think most of what I say isn't understood, or is understood poorly, and the arguments I get into are because people either don't listen, or assume I mean something that I never actually said. That I can handle; it doesn't annoy me. What starts to annoy me is when people get the idea that I think they're idiots because they don't agree with me, that I argue because I think I'm better than them. They seem to take it personally that I hold different opinions, and that I'll try to explain what I mean when people say I'm wrong. Things I say are twisted around into personal attacks. What really pisses me off is that well into the argument people start to get mad at me for arguing, as though I were the only one talking up to that point, and always change the argument from whatever it was to "you're a jerk for arguing about this." It's never "we're idiots for arguing about this." It's always all on me.

I'm going to say this once. If I thought you were stupid, I wouldn't argue with you. I probably wouldn't talk to you either. If I thought I were so much better than you I probably wouldn't care when you didn't understand me; I would generally take it as a given that you couldn't. If you hate arguing so much then don't get started; don't contradict what I say if you don't agree. It doesn't mean you're wrong and I'm right if you let what I say stand. But if you reply to what I say and expect that to be the end of it, if you always want the first thing you say to be the last word, then you're as much at fault as I am when we argue, so stop blaming me.

no title, only kalkalash

I really don't know why I'm writing this, since most people who read my blog already know all this. Anyway, here goes.

Friday, at work, I presented what I've been working on for the past year or so. My boss wasn't happy with the capabilities of the framework I was developing under (not my fault) and I'm unhappy with the documentation on the framework. Either way, it wasn't a success, and when I go back to work I'm going to work hard to make this all right; my fault or not. The problem was that we weren't sure what this thing would do, and it took me a long time to figure it out and implement it using the tools provided by JPL (I went to CA for this thing.) I'm actually looking forward to this, since it means I'll be getting to do some fun programming. I almost regret taking this week off, but I need a break.

Friday night I went down to Ben and Annas to hang out. Nick (bens brother), Tim, and Parker were all there too. Anna and I went shopping for booze and food first, then ben and nick got back and we got food. Then Tim and Parker came, and we hung out in Ben and Annas appartment. Saturday was slow, from what I remember. I cleaned a lot, played a little piano (which I haven't done in a while). Then Crystal came over for her birthday with a few friends. Slow but enjoyable night. Today I went to the pool with Kevin, then went to see Wedding Crashers again, with Tim and Parker. Came home, cleaned up some, and now I'm writing this post.

Next weekend I'm going down to South Carolina with my brother, maybe sister, and probably this kid Chris whom I've known for about as long as I can remember. His parents and my parents are already down at the beach, and they've known eachother since college. They have a daughter Allison, who'se between me and my sister in age, but we're not sure she's coming, so we're not if my sister is coming either. We all used to go to the outer banks (N.C.) for 2 weeks every summer, but haven't in a few years. I like the beach.

This week I don't have much planned. I have to get my oil changed, and I'd like to read some more and play more piano. We'll see what happens.

Sorry this post sucks. I'll do better next time. promise.