Journal 1999-11

Current entries

1999-11-30, Tue (Day 88, temperature at 08:08: 20.4°C [increased the thermostat, room and quad to 72°F {22.2°C}], difference: +0.8°C): After waking up to another iceberg room, I turned the thermostats up to the maximum of 72°F (22.2°C). This afternoon, I walked into the Crum woods again.

I went to McCabe again to work on the physics problem set. I went to bed slightly after 21:00.

1999-11-29, Mon (Day 87, temperature at 07:39: 19.6°C, difference: +1.2°C): At breakfast I was talking with Susan about various sleep schedules. Today was the last Nautilus class and everyone was putting emphasis on that. Lunch was typical.

I went to the last physics lab, which was about temperature and absolute zero. I went back to Mertz and I read my e-mail and started to doze in my chair. When that was too uncomfortable, I laid in my bed on the comforter. My roommate Luke was already sleeping since 14:00 so there was no problem falling asleep. I woke up at 17:30 and went to dinner.

After dinner I went to McCabe to work on the physics problem set due Wednesday. I didn’t rush through the problems since I wanted to get more of them right. I went back to Mertz and completed the Phoenix application.

1999-11-28, Sun (Day 86, temperature at 12:49 [slept until 11:30]: 18.4°C, difference: -0.8°C): I got out of bed right when Sharples started serving brunch like I did on Friday as well. Yesterday, there was a sign-in sheet in the dining hall; today the card scanners were back and full service seems to have resumed.

A nice benefit with Mac OS 9 is the increased speed I get with the RC5-64 client. While under OS 8.6 I would get a key cracking rate of about 1060K keys/sec. With OS 9 I get 1080K keys/sec and after I did some pruning of the System Folder I now get 1087K keys/sec. After seeing that I had 12 applications running through Tex-Edit Plus’ Word Services feature when I wasn’t doing anything extra, I turned off Web Sharing, EPSON launcher (I can still print), Find By Content scheduling, the control strip, and file sharing & program linking over TCP/IP. Now I have seven applications running under normal conditions which is almost half as before.

It was cold and windy yesterday and the thermostat temperature stayed at around 67°F (19.4°C) for most of the day. The wall cabinet was on for most of yesterday. I woke up to a cold room and a reading of 65°F (18.3°C). The temperature still reads 66°F (18.9°C) after about an hour and a half and the quad temperature remains at 69°F (20.6°C).

I worked on CS for most of the day. More people starting coming back after 15:00. Once I got my CS done at 21:30, I played SimCity 2000 until after 01:00.

1999-11-27, Sat (Day 85, temperature at 10:38 [slept until 09:30]: 19.2°C, difference: -2.0°C): I spent the early afternoon doing the wash and vacuuming the room and quad. I also cleaned the counter, windowsill, and windows of the quad and now it looks really nice. I started having problems with restarting the iMac again and I eventually traced it to the Zip drive. Apparently the USB drivers load even with extensions off. Once I got that working, I did the standard Saturday e-mail check, site stats check, and backup. I also needed to trim my hard drive usage to slightly over a gig from a gig and a half. All of this took longer than expected so I got to bed at about the same time I did the past few nights — around 01:00.

1999-11-26, Fri (Day 84, temperature at 12:14 [slept until 10:30]: 21.2°C, difference: +0.1°C): I woke up at 10:30 today since I purposely didn’t set my alarm. I went to brunch, which is from 10:30 to 11:30 today. There was no card scanning; you just walk in. There are more people on campus than I thought, although it was really empty yesterday. I had brunch with Brendan who explained “Screw your Roommate” in greater detail.

I found out from MacInTouch that Mac OS 9 was disappearing from store shelves since Apple was being sued for the name. The name is used by another company that sells something along the lines of Mac OS IX. Meanwhile, I was upgrading various software components on my computer to be compliant with OS 9. I ran a checker utility that would determine if any PPC applications were incompatible with the new file system that can support larger and more open files. No problems were found, but when I was using Netscape, it froze and the application wouldn’t restart even after deleting the Cache ƒ, Global History, and Netscape Preferences, all of which were modified today. The Finder was claiming that Netscape had quit because it was incompatible with the improved Mac OS file system and that I needed to upgrade. I reinstalled Netscape Communicator 4.7 and it started working again.

Before Netscape broke, I preregistered for next semester. All my classes seem to be fine with having enough seats except for the English 005A course “Technology and the Text.” After I signed up, there were 30 students enrolled in a 25-seat course. A lottery may be likely, according to the registration program. I sent my advisor Nelson an e-mail about this possibility, but I don’t think there will be a problem.

1999-11-25, Thu (Day 83, temperature at 07:59: 21.1°C, difference: -1.3°C, Thanksgiving): I was picked up slightly after 08:00 in the rain to go home for Thanksgiving. My father drove me by the new Ridley High School and Middle School construction sites. The framework for the cafeteria was up at the new high school as well as more of the area of the building including the base floor near the cafeteria that includes the art rooms. At the middle school, the addition at the end of Trainor Street now has cinder blocks from the street level to the height of the auditorium. This addition apparently didn’t need a steel girder frame; I only saw the cinder walls. This new air-conditioned space will house the sixth grade and the district planetarium, which was lost when the Ridley Community Center was demolished early this year.

The computers at home seemed to be in an O.K. state. The LocalTalk box for the LC II was plugged into the wrong port again like when I came back for October break. The CD-ROM drive on the Performa 6205 is still broken. However the Internet is fast, relatively speaking, on the 6205. Later in the day, the hard drive filled up when scanning for viruses since Virex needed decompression space for the archives. I started deleting selected files greater than 1023 K.

In the early afternoon I went with my family to the Thanksgiving feast at Denny’s in Essington. The place was redone to be more like a 1950s style diner with modern amenities such as wall-mounted TVs. After coming home, I finished with the large file deletions and freed up enough space on the 1 GB hard drive that is partitioned into two equal segments. I forgot to run Virex again, which I just realized at around 12:00 the next day. Also the mail that my parents gave to me included something from APC saying to check the battery on your UPS. Of course I read this 20 minutes after I got back to Swat so that will have to wait.

When I returned to Swat after 22:00, I read more posts from the comp.software.year-2000 newsgroup like I did on --11-24, Wed night and one of them said that Bell Atlantic is still in the midst of remediation for Y2K. This is in contrary to their web site, which had a detailed listing of all of this compliant equipment with only a few non-compliant pieces. Penn State seems to be in trouble especially in January due to the large concentration of people in an otherwise rural area, which doesn’t fare well if electrical power is funneled to cities and metropolitan areas.

Before I left to return to Swat I started to feel woozy when I read Penn State’s Y2K web site when they talked about the reopening of classes for spring semester and the possibility that classes may be delayed if it is in the interests of the community. The feeling that I experienced was about the same one that I get when I look at Swarthmore College’s schedule around 2000-05-05.

1999-11-24, Wed (Day 82, temperature at 08:09: 22.4°C, difference: +1.0°C, last day of classes before Thanksgiving break): In Math 6B, we presented and hung up our Taylor polynomial graphs and remainder terms. Physics was a demonstration and lecture about sound waves. There was no Nautilus and Ed 14 today.

I had lunch with Kai and Norense and afterwards we went to the Field House since Norense has a job with the track and field team. We then went to the bookstore so Kai could get a birthday card. The selection was a lot more off center than what I am used to with greeting cards. Kai and I then went to Mertz and the reformat, OS 9, Office 98 installation fiasco began. After erasing the drive, partitioning it into two pieces, and starting up with another CD, the Zip drive wasn’t being recognized correctly. This also had to do with an incompatible Retrospect Express with Mac OS 9.0, the latter of which I ended up installing first and then doing a backup restore. Also, the computer kept crashing and would only start up from a CD on a restart and not at the startup device question mark startup time. Overall, this was the least smooth software installation that I have ever encountered, making the installations during October break seem like nothing. OS 9 also seems to be tackier than OS 8.6.

Most people left the campus early this afternoon.

1999-11-23, Tue (Day 81, temperature at 07:34: 21.4°C, difference: +1.3°C): After lunch, I saw Gene to go over my Math 6B quiz and talk about majoring as well. Eventually I was in Hicks to finish the MATLAB integration with Carr’s assistance.

I worked on an assortment of things in the rest of the afternoon. Sharples dinner had a Caribbean theme tonight with live music. There also were bubble bottles given out.

After dinner, I finally got the Saturday e-mail check done and should be able to install OS 9 and Office 98 tomorrow.

1999-11-22, Mon (Day 80, temperature at 07:51: 20.1°C, difference: -1.2°C): In the last Nautilus class before the holiday, the double ab machine was not working properly since the base weight refused to return to its original position. Jeremy and I were tired from today’s workout, but Kai was still full of energy.

There was no physics lab today due to the shortened class week, so I slept for an hour in the quad and then completed my CS due tomorrow at around 17:00. I later started clearing out my several day backlog of e-mail. When I got to the AOL mail, this interface web site took a lot of time to go through but was funny due to absurdity. I finally stopped after 01:00 when I really intended to stop at 22:00.

1999-11-21, Sun (Day 79, temperature at 08:28: 21.3°C, difference: +3.1°C): Mertz 2nd north had our hall brunch at 10:30. Kate and Chris L. did most of the cooking of the eggs and pancakes. Since Eva’s Ed 14 class normally falls on Wednesday afternoon which would be the day before Thanksgiving, we had the class today from 13:00 to 16:00 in the EMC in Pearson. Although it seemed very weird at first to have class on a Sunday with nice weather, in the end it was nice and a good change of pace. In that class we watched a video about a stereotypical American high school in the 1960s along with the perfect American community ideal of “1-2 1-2.”

I got back to my room and worked on CS due Tuesday. I made better than average progress but there still were some rough points. At 21:30, Kiyo and I met Jared in the Kohlberg Coffee Bar to discuss the HEV charter.

1999-11-20, Sat (Day 78, temperature at 09:34: 18.2°C, difference: -1.3°C): I slept in an extra two hours since I really wanted to see the 19:30 movie last night instead of the 22:00, so I needed those two hours back somewhere. The left dryer was not working right and at around noon, everyone decided to wash his clothes at once, which created sort of a problem. I spent the early afternoon working on the CS due tonight and listening to Erasure. I spent the later afternoon in McCabe since Ed 14 is tomorrow due to the Thanksgiving break.

After dinner, I soon went to DuPont 161 to watch “The Cutting Edge,” which is about a figure-skating couple. I got back to Mertz and finished up CS and turned it in. I then started listening to the Erasure song “Chains of Love” several times, each time focusing on a different characteristic of the song.

1999-11-19, Fri (Day 77, temperature at 07:54: 19.5°C [more heating adjustments], difference: -1.8°C): The Math 6B test this morning didn’t seem that bad, but since I was very out of frame, I had to explain mostly with words which was appropriate and necessary for this test. In physics we watched a documentary about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State. This suspension bridge was not built very well and started to oscillate over a period of a few months. Eventually the bridge fell down entirely since the wind continued to excite the natural frequency of the structure. There will be no Nautilus class next Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the 29th is the last class meeting if necessary for missed classes earlier in the quarter.

Swarthmore-Rutledge had parent conferences today so I did not need to go. I ate in Sharples for lunch instead.

I put together The Phoenix Online News and Opinions sections in the late afternoon and early evening. I also found out that the doughnut thing hanging in the quad is like a basket for juggling balls. At night I saw “American Pie” in DuPont 161 which was crowded.

1999-11-18, Thu (Day 76, temperature at 07:38: 21.3°C, difference -0.8°C): In my dream, I was in the Ridley High School auditorium (I think now) and Russell was running the sound board. I showed up at 15:10 and the mics weren’t fully tested yet. Two girls get into an argument to our right and their mic clips catch together and they start pulling. This soon leads to a full-scale riot with the mics. Russell says to me, “Aren’t you going to do something about it?” I responded, “I can’t stop this.” Mics are being thrown, people are taking batteries out, throwing them, and hitting people in the head. Things calm down after a bit and I start collecting pennies on the ground starting where the riot originated. I find five near someone and I split them, giving two to the girl there and keeping three. I then go to the left of the sound area and talk to Russell about various pennies I have. One of them was from 1924 or 1926.

Also, I was in either Acme or Pathmark and I was grabbing the sardines I normally buy from a refrigerated pass-through shelf like they sometimes have for milk in the back of a supermarket. Once again like with the pennies, there were five boxes left and I saw there was someone else wanting to get some too, so I grabbed three, the other party took two, and an additional person wanting to buy those sardines was out of luck, so I said “sorry” to him or her.

The network started up today at 00:01. It should be fully operational by 12:00.

The CS assignment was given an extension to Saturday before midnight. The final project was also given out today. It is split into six parts and the task is to write a Scheme interpreter. The first part needs to be working by Tuesday.

I met with my SAM for about an hour today to go over parts of the first CS exam. After lunch, I finished putting together the courses for next year, took a nap, and then met with Nelson for advising.

Luke and I went shopping in the Ville to get food and coloring books for the study break tonight at 22:30. Olivia also baked a cake for Susan’s birthday. After returning from shopping, I went to dinner and talked with Norense about CS.

I went to McCabe and finished up math due tomorrow and worked on the physics problem set. I tried working on my CS but I was too tired to think. The study break went well.

1999-11-17, Wed (Day 75, temperature at 08:26: 22.1°C [heater on max {72°F, 22.2°C} last night], difference: +3.4°C): My dreams involved being in the Ridley Middle School for orientation. I saw Kai and Brad. During the playing of the National Anthem, almost everyone sat down right before the song was over. There was a brief pause in the anthem when, standing at the front row, I turned around to the audience and shouted, “This is America. We’re going to lose it.” I’m not sure if I said the second sentence exactly like that, but the meaning was there.

The power went out for about a minute around 14:15. This seems to bring up a pattern as like two weeks ago on 1999-11-02, Tue. The power went out then, something different happened on Thursday, and a test was on Friday.

I went out with Dad at 19:00 to get a heavier coat at Kohl’s and we also stopped in Best Buy so I could get the Erasure CD that has the song “Chains of Love” on it.

I was going to work on my CS but I realized I have an advising meeting coming up and the only good time to schedule it was tomorrow so I needed to spend some time on that.

The all-Mertz study break had lots of pizza, which I ate two slices of to give me energy for CS since I only had a salad for dinner due to lack of time. However when I went to start, I felt tired so I went to bed.

1999-11-16, Tue (Day 74, temperature at 08:12: 18.7°C [the heater finally turns on], difference: -0.3°C): Our E5 lab group stayed up to an hour after the period was over to get the coding to gather data to work to a certain point. After 15:30, I went to the bookstore to buy MS Office 98. I then went back to Mertz and realized that I needed to get Mac OS 9 too, so I went back to the bookstore and got that, back to Mertz, and then McCabe.

Once I was in McCabe doing this week’s Ed 14 readings, things calmed down a bit. I then had dinner and right after then I had the CS exam.

1999-11-15, Mon (Day 73, temperature at 07:55: 19.0°C, difference: -2.0°C): I woke up at 06:11 and noticed that over the past few days, even though it has been cold in my room, I have always been kicking my covers off so that I face towards the door without a sheet over me and I move to the edge of the bed closer to the wall.

My dreams were interesting. One part included me being in this combined house over a garage in the housing area near the Crum Lynne Wawa. I think the college converted this house into a dorm (way off campus), and I was in the garage area since they were having a party there. I went upstairs and then I realized that my left side, second from the back molar came out. Someone showed me to the “bathroom,” but it was really a men’s private bar and refreshment area. I was able to look in a mirror and I wasn’t bleeding but I realized in my dream that that was the molar that was fixed in June and took much effort. In real life, I had the wrong side. My left molar does have a filling, but this tooth wasn’t fixed in June. From all of this, I thought previous work was for naught; instead more work is needed.

Another part of my dream included flying over the Delaware Memorial Bridge into the New Jersey side. Only in my dream the bridge didn’t seem as tall and I saw a train station and a really large park & ride lot, both of which were empty as well as I-295 and the bridge. The pilot or guide said that since a lot of tourists and traffic come by here, that’s why the lot is there. I told about how I-295 really is supposed to be I-95, but when I-95 was being constructed, it made a detour into Philadelphia.

Another part of my dream was similar to the I-95 lowered section in Chester only it was one way (north), much wider and cleaner, and had more wires on the right side of the highway. This was either I-295 somewhere in Jersey or I-95 in Philadelphia near Penn’s Landing. There also were all these red lights, gates, and warnings. I was traveling up the road and various warnings went off and gates came down but I just kept going. I remember looking to my right and I see a cell tower and these people at the top of it disconnect the top receiver portion which descends to the ground. The road was mostly empty except for myself.

After writing that last dream, I didn’t think much of it before, but now I do. Maybe we’re going in the wrong direction. The cell tower aspect could mean some sort of loss of communication between parties.

In Math 6B today, Gene used technology to demonstrate graphing of Taylor polynomials. The PowerBook G3 he used had a white Apple logo on the top and when the lights were off, you could see that the logo reflects light, which looked pretty cool. Physics was a grand demonstration day, with motion detectors, pendulums, and the supporting equipment. Mark the professor also got on a massive swinging ball to time simple harmonic motion. From that, we figured out that increasing the mass does not affect the period. A spec from California sat behind me and he asked me a few questions about the course.

Physics lab was tense. Kim and I took our time doing this lab and we were the last ones to leave.

Back at Mertz, Luke and I moved our study break to Thursday at 22:30 since there is going to be an all-Mertz study break on Wednesday at 22:00.

I studied for my CS 22 exam tomorrow. I printed out lots of class notes since this is an open book and open note exam. However the last batch of notes didn’t show up at Beardsley when I went to collect them, so I’ll check tomorrow. I started to go to bed after 22:00.

1999-11-14, Sun (Day 72, temperature at 10:23 [see yesterday]: 21.0°C, difference: 0.0°C [first time with no change, Sun is a carbon copy of Sat?]): I got up at a few minutes before 10:00 (seems to be my latest wakeup time without an alarm) and started the routine in front of the computer exactly at 10:00.

I registered The Trucksess Site @ Swat with various search engines, including Yahoo! before and just after brunch. I then worked on math and physics lab prep for tomorrow. That prep took a long time because I got knocked out of frame and couldn’t exit it until I realized what I was doing. Apparently something else is supposed to happen tomorrow and the network might be up again too. Overall though, I was able to get more work done yesterday than today.

I went to dinner a little early since I had to go to the Education Materials Center (EMC) in Pearson at 19:00 to do a computer lab activity. Mertz karaoke also started at 19:00 and went to 21:00.

The computer lab in the EMC was set up with eight stations. Six of them used the Power Macs along the wall and the remaining two were a vintage Apple IIe and IBM desktop. The games and informational programs varied widely in quality, interface, and usefulness. Of the six games that Andrew and I played, Decisions, Decisions on the IBM was the most confusing game and Odell Down Under was the best blend of fun and encyclopedia information.

I got back to Mertz and copied the E5 circuit diagram into my lab notebook and then went to bed. The lack of temperature change from yesterday to today doesn’t reveal the differences between these two days.

1999-11-13, Sat (Day 71, temperature at 08:05: 21.0°C, difference: +1.4°C): For some reason I was sleeping with my glasses on when I woke up early at 06:40. I took them off for the remaining 20 minutes of my sleep. I think I dreamed that I got stuck in another building again only this time it was Mertz 2nd south.

The amount of quarters needed to do the wash and dry continues to increase. The load that is for the sheets, robe, and towel had an extra towel from the Ware Pool this week and possibly due to that addition, that load needed an extra high heat dry. The other two loads needed two high heat drys like usual. Therefore for costs at $0.75 for washing, $0.50 for drying, three loads, and two cycles to dry, the weekly cost is now $5.25 or 21 quarters. The cost at the beginning of the semester was only $3.75, or 15 quarters, but now I have to refill my changer when I do the wash so that I have enough quarters.

I went to McCabe to rewrite my Ed 14 paper. Dinner was next.

Back in the room, the floor looked like it needed to be vacuumed, so Kate the RA got the vacuum out of Rodney’s room for me. I thoroughly vacuumed Mertz 260 and then the quad, which was really starting to get messy. After I vacuumed I kept sneezing since I didn’t want to adjust the window since it has been cracked open a certain amount for quite some time.

After the cleaning, I went to see “Arcadia” with Ben and Sara F. We sat in the upper balcony which gives an interesting view. The play was about two groups of people living in different time frames and their lives closely resemble each other as the story progresses. Like any play that I see only once, I had no clue, but it seemed good.

“Stripes” was next. I came in about a half-hour into the movie since “Arcadia” ran to about 22:30, but the movie was still in the beginning part. This movie is about a platoon in the U.S. Army that is a ragtag bunch and the Drill Sergeant is unable to finish their training. This movie compared with the rest that I have seen this semester was actually quite good.

I got back from the movie and started doing the Saturday e-mail check, LinkExchange check, and weekly backup. However, I needed to add the search feature to my page, so that took some extra time. The Counter.com site was also checked here too, and the backup needed to be a full version, which meant the Retrospect StorageSets were rebuilt from scratch. The hard drive now has a solid gig and contains more than 13,000 files. Backing it up completely took under an hour, but I didn’t finish until around 02:50 Sunday morning. I didn’t get to bed until 03:17. Logically, I turned off my 07:00 alarm so I could get up when I felt rested or it got too late or both.

1999-11-12, Fri (Day 70, temperature at 07:38: 19.6°C, difference: -2.5°C): Today was a routine and pedestrian Friday. There were some differences, but as a whole it was class, SRS, Phoenix, a fast dinner, movie, and then bed. I did go through the files greater than 1023 K on my hard drive after 20:00 but before 22:00 since I installed the keyed version of Photoshop today for The Phoenix and that added about 100 MB to the drive. The movie “Easy Rider” was a classic 1960s movie in 1969 with characteristic scene change music, crazy camera pans, and flashing transitions. The movie ended rather abruptly and randomly.

The HEV charter proposal has reached a completed version with the combination of Kiyo’s and my versions.

1999-11-11, Thu (Day 69, temperature at 07:45: 22.1°C, difference: +1.2°C): When I was much younger, I remember watching a TV show about dream interpretation. The one part that I remember the most is that if you are running away from something and can’t find the exit in your dream, in the conscious realm you are trying to escape a problem, difficult situation, or simply trying to avoid something. For some reason in my dream I took a shower in Willets and needed to go back to Mertz to get my clothes (I did have my towel and robe on). I couldn’t seem to find the exit since everything was this confusing white and medium-dark wood (close to what Kohlberg looks like). Someone told me to look for the ‘Exit’ signs. Once I did that I was able to get out.

However, I had to go back in a short time later. Once again I couldn’t find the way out and this time the ‘Exit’ signs were missing. I did eventually get out and it seemed like I was now at Drexel University in West Philadelphia. I saw this really tall dorm, but I think it was the new dorm that Swarthmore College is going to build near Sharples. It was about eight stories tall, which makes sense because the lot size near Sharples is not very big and instead of building out, they went up. I also had a dream that this bee was in some red frozen liquid (like an ICEE). I started thawing the drink out in my family’s kitchen sink and the bee sprung from hibernation and flew around the room. Everyone thought this was really neat.

I started working on the E5 MATLAB midterm in the early afternoon, but I remembered the Ed 14 curriculum meeting one minute before it was scheduled so I went to that. After the meeting, I finished the midterm and then continued and completed Math 6B before dinner. After dinner, I went to McCabe and worked on my physics. Since I finished early, I did odds and ends in my dorm before I went to bed.

1999-11-10, Wed (Day 68, temperature at 08:38: 20.9°C, difference: +2.4°C): A movement was launched towards the shutdown of the network on the grounds that it isn’t Y2K compliant and it is better to leave now than later. Everyone was off by 18:00 and individual networks can still function. Also many people have been saying something is going to happen tomorrow (I thought the network was going to crash, but now it’s not even on).

The remainder of the day seemed like an ordeal. Kind of proving that there is a year 2000, I did grab a printed course guide from the Registrar’s office after Ed 14. I started working on the E5 MATLAB midterm due tomorrow at 17:00 but soon ran into problems.

1999-11-09, Tue (Day 67, temperature at 07:36: 18.5°C, difference: -0.5°C): I dreamed around 04:00 that I walked to the MacDade Mall and went to the Mellon Bank. For some reason or another, they gave me I think $1000 plus a thousand strips of white paper that each were worth $2500. In total this would be worth $2,501,000. Another pile of strips for another customer were also on the table. From this I think I should go to the Ville and buy a lottery ticket.

The E5 lab was in Hicks mural room today instead of Kohlberg and will base from there for the rest of the semester. The rocket groups presented circuit design schematics and layouts.

After lab, I went into the Ville to go play the Pennsylvania Lottery. I came up with the numbers 1, 9, 10, 18, and 25 from the Mellon Bank dream. The number 1 came from $1000, 9 from the day of the month that I had the dream, 10 from 1000 strips of paper, and 25 for $2500. The quick pick was 2, 8, 11, 36, 39. The numbers drawn were 2, 13, 22, 25, 34. The only number that came out from my pick was 25. The quick pick matched the number 2. In Big 4, 4567 came out (not in order).

Getting this ticket however was difficult at first. When I went into Michael’s pharmacy the first time, the machine was open and down. I went for CS help after that and almost went to the Springfield Mall around sunset to find a machine there, but instead went back to Michael’s and tried again. This time it worked.

I did the Ed 14 readings in McCabe before the lotto drawing at 18:59 and after dinner, so I didn’t have much time to enjoy what I was reading. As a break after the lotto drawing, I added some Y2K related pages to my web site. I then pounded away at the CS.

1999-11-08, Mon (Day 66, temperature at 07:31: 19.0°C, difference: -0.8°C, Y2K index exceeds 50.00%): The RC5-64 program reports a key cracking rate for each block it completes. Usually the highest sustained speed is around 1,060,000 keys/sec. Within the past few days however, the rate has been less; overnight it was around 1,041,000 keys/sec. I remember from my junior year of high school when I was in physics class and the power went out during the day. I was running the RC5-64 program on my Performa 6205 and the log files were less transient than they are now. Before the power went out, the keyrate dipped a little bit, rose back to normal, then dipped a lot and then the power went out. Therefore, key rate seems to depend on how much power is flowing through the lines. Two days ago, the rate was lower than normal but soon returned to a higher value from 04:00 to 07:00, which is a time when little electricity is used.

The physics exams were not completely graded so we didn’t get them back today. Nautilus class seems to follow a cycle where there are only three to four people in the beginning, nearly twelve at the midpoint of the class, and then two or three at the end. The physics lab workshop was a lot more enriching than the previous workshop since there was a lot less confusion and we also stayed in the classroom. Most people were able to leave before 15:00.

I went to the Ware Pool (which was open this time) and got my towel, glasses case, and lock. I checked to see when was the last day I could turn the lock in and it is 2000-05-15. Around and after dinner until 22:00, I worked on the CS due tomorrow.

1999-11-07, Sun (Day 65, temperature at 08:08: 19.8°C, difference: -0.5°C): I dreamed that I was looking at this chart that explained Maryland’s five area codes (they have four now, two areas, with an overlay over each area). If teenagers did not use the dialing instructions given in the chart, points would be added to their driving record. Also there was an article about the activation of the 888 toll free numbers which happened some time ago.

I spent almost the entire day working on CS. There were a lot of problems with the network today and as a result I fell asleep in the first half of the afternoon. It also was very windy and cold today and I resisted all urges to shut the window. As a result the temperature hovered around the 19°C mark for most of day (it dropped as the day went on) and then rose to around 20°C in the evening. I ended up going to bed at around 22:30.

1999-11-06, Sat (Day 64, temperature at 07:38: 20.3°C, difference: +1.5°C): I finished the Living section for the Phoenix slightly after noon today and afterwards added the journal file from 1999-10-23, Sat to 1999-11-04, Thu. Later in the afternoon I worked on my CS assignment. The rugby team acted a little wild at Sharples dinner tonight. At night, I watched the movie “Three Amigos” which wasn’t that bad, but the last really good movie that I have seen was “Rushmore” on 1999-10-01, Fri.

1999-11-05, Fri (Day 63, temperature at 07:46: 18.8°C, difference: -1.7°C): I dreamed about not doing the wash on Saturday because I got up too late.

The physics test today seemed to have went OK. At Swarthmore-Rutledge School, upstairs from Ms. Hoffman’s room, the desk groups in Ms. Buecheler’s 4th grade class made habitats for these African frogs.

I got back to Mertz going into the weekly Friday rush. Brendan e-mailed me a primer for putting images together for The Phoenix Online. I worked on news and opinions while in between the sections I had nachos for the fastest dinner that I can recall. I saw the movie “Wild Wild West” at 22:00 which wasn’t as bad as I thought. This movie had Will Smith in it and was incredibly anachronistic to the point of being silly. These time aberrations were needed for the plot of the movie to make sense. The trick to keeping the movie presentation from messing up, as Betsy told me last week during “Carrie,” is that when a white dot is in the upper right corner of the movie image, the projectionist has about four seconds to switch reels or the movie stops.

1999-11-04, Thu (Day 62, temperature at 07:53: 20.5°C, difference: -2.7°C): At breakfast, I met Esther, who lives in Mertz second south. I worked on my math problem set due for tomorrow in the early afternoon.

I went to the fireside chat with Larry Schall and Maurice Eldridge at 20:00 in Kohlberg coffee bar which was about the Ville improvements and parking. The reason brought up by Larry as why Ville improvements are needed was the decline of inner suburbs around rust belt cities. Philadelphia is one of them and is in decline. The Daily Times did an article about this trend and called the inner Delaware County suburbs Phila-Delco. This region essentially consisted of eastern Delaware County bordered by Prospect Park and boroughs northward.

The chat ended at about 21:30. I did some physics studying until 22:00 for the exam tomorrow. I also started the registration for DragThing.

1999-11-03, Wed (Day 61, temperature at 08:39: 23.2°C, difference: -0.6°C): The engin server didn’t come back online until sometime after the early morning hours. In Math 6B, Professor Klotz detected “a dangerous level of passivity” of the class, further showing this cascading problem that seems to be going on recently.

Then I got to physics. Things were going fine until I was informed that the network was not Y2K compliant and wouldn’t be able to be fixed in time. At first I was a little shocked, but I found this out to be true when looking back at the troubles that were in October since the three month look ahead kept giving problems such as crashes. Looking ahead into February seems to be more of the same but worse. Once that shit hit the fan, everything just started to deteriorate with the lecture on both sides.

Nautilus bothered me. After I dropped my tray off at lunch and started to leave Sharples, I almost went out the door to go back to my dorm instead of going upstairs to go to Ed 14. That confusion allowed me to talk to my roommate, Luke, about Physics 8 lab on the way to class. With the exception of a soda spilling right next to me in the beginning of Education, that class went well.

For the remainder of the day, I worked on my computer science graphics assignment due tomorrow. At about 21:30, which was one hour before the study break was going to start, I walked into the Crum woods. I walked the same path as I did on 1999-08-09, only this time it was much more difficult to see. I didn’t use a flashlight and only a portion of the path was partially illuminated from nearby buildings.

When I got to the area of the route where there was a small meadow, I stopped at looked at the sky, which has many stars when artificial light is not obscuring them. I also looked at the many airplanes flying around.

I returned back to Mertz right before the study break started which was thrown by Mandy and Julie. There was card playing, jacks, hopscotch, food, and more.

1999-11-02, Tue (Day 60, temperature at 07:36: 23.8°C, difference: +0.5°C, Election Day, fog, rain): Well, the temperature didn’t drop dramatically from Sunday to Monday as originally predicted on 1999-10-27, Wed. The drop will happen between today and tomorrow. I had a dream that I was with a group of Swatties driving into Chester only the city reminded me of Ocean City, Maryland with the sparseness of houses on the outskirts of the city. When we got to the city, it was drizzling and inside, there was confusion about which volunteer list people were signed up for. On one list I was on, I was on twice. I also dreamed that at home there was an exposed electrical outlet. I was fixing it, and I mentioned about how it is important that these outlets are covered up. Kohlberg, which is essentially a new building, and the Mertz men’s second north bathroom (my hall) both have exposed electrical outlets.

Today in E5, Alfred the robot was brought in and showed off its face and speech recognition capabilities. Carr is out of town so there is no lab this week — just a MATLAB midterm. The lecture ended a half hour early so our rocket group went down the hall to work on EDWin.

I tried getting my CS assignment to work but could not. At 14:30 I called home to get picked up to vote, but I wasn’t picked up until 16:00. I got back after Jim’s office hours and he wasn’t there, so it would now be difficult to speak to him in person about the assignment before it is due on Thursday.

The campus had a power outage at around 15:25 for three minutes due to the heavy rain and wind. The lights flickered for the earlier part of the night.

I went to McCabe at night to do this week’s Ed 14 readings. When I got back to my dorm at around 22:00, I fell asleep in the quad for almost an hour. I did housekeeping on my computer until 23:30.

1999-11-01, Mon (Day 59, temperature at 08:04: 23.3°C, difference: +0.9°C): Today seemed to be the opposite of yesterday in amount of work done. The morning started off 20 minutes behind and showed up as two minutes behind between physics and Nautilus which was a problem since Kai now waits for me at Dana like before with aquatics.

Lunch was kind of goofy when Ellie and Kai decided to throw a paper airplane at Matt who was sitting a table row down from us and apparently didn’t notice us. The airplane didn’t fly very well but it did cause some laughs. Physics lab went well; Kim and I were able to get the results to be close to what we were expecting for the rotational inertia experiment.

After dinner, I took a one hour nap from 18:00 to 19:00 but after then I never really was able to get back to work successfully. As a result, I got stumped on the third part of the most recent MATLAB assignment.

Journal 1999-10