Nerdtacular

Well first thing's first, I obviously changed up the theme. I went to a different template which I thought had some nice light colors, and I also got the font a little larger, making it just a step easier to read. This is good for me, because apparently my vision isn't very great. I'm getting by though, at any rate.

In other news, not much going on computer wise. Really running low on inspirations these days. I think I may restart my project at making a larger administrative system for Arch Linux via scripts. If you check out the scripts section on my website (on the right hand side) you'll see I've begun the project. The pacman manager is by far the most matured code I have as of now, and it can probably do better than it is. So, I may get that back into gear sometime, but we'll see, right? Hopefully that'll get going.

Lastly, I've decided to take the liberty of starting to teach myself Calculus. I'm in a Statistics class right now, and after a class like Precalculus, I just can't handle Statistics. It doesn't pull my interest nearly like other maths do. It's leaving my brain unoccupied and unsaturated, which is disappointed. So, I've decided to continue on with Calculus on my own time. I don't know exactly how far I'll get into it. I may do a large amount, or I may do barely any at all. I figure I'll do some small chunks in my free time and just learn some new stuff. The concept in itself is just amazing. Being able to measure things with even better and better approximations approaching negative infinity to infinity. Being able to pinpoint exact measurements at any given time at all. It's just an amazing thing to see. I've gotten a little down so far. I've taught myself limits (or basics of it, at least) thanks to this website: http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~kouba/ProblemsList.html which is sorta neat if you're into the math thing anyway. I wish I remembered all the Trigonometry rules I learned so I could do these more easily, but I can always go look them back up again. Pretty neat fun...

At any rate, that's been my nerdtacular weekend. Didn't see Carolyn, hung out with friends for a little bit, and that's been all. Tomorrow will be probably just homework for the most part. Overall: I lead a very boring existance sometimes. That's all for now, and good night!

Don't be surprised when you find me dreamin' too

I'm sure everyone has been a little uncertain at some point in there lifetimes. I know I have been, that's for sure. Though I've been rather confident and not too discouraged these days, I've still had one thing I've been a little uncertain for, and that's the future.

I guess when I worry about it though, I don't mean decades from now, I mean within the next few years. I've seen things around me that have been a little discouraging. I saw my friends parents break up after 20 years of marriage, heard statistics of a very large majority of marriages failing, watched people be heartbroken from other people after some time, and so on. I've been in a relationship for almost 5 months now (Sunday at around 8 am will have been it exactly). Personally, I feel rather acomplished by doing this, but in the grand scheme of things it's apparently not all that long, at all. Especially after seeing people after two years just fall apart what seems to be suddenly, or even 20 years of marriage just end. I've also seen relationships where passion is simply dried to nothing, and there's no drive for anything. And what should I say about college? That's enough to make things go awry instantly.

Interestingly enough, I was given a nice response to these thoughts and questions.

It's not that passion is fading at all. In fact, not nearly close. It seems to have been getting greater and greater almost every time we spend time together. Stronger and stronger, or so it seems to me, and I feel better about it all the time. I can say I've seen some bad things, but I've also seen some great things. I've seen people stay together for over 50 years of time, and it seems they hold a strong relationship to the last days of there lives. My biggest hope, though, was being told about her brother. He started dating a girl in high school, and did for six years or so, and have been married for another three. It showed me of regardless of things to come, things can work if you truly want them to. I obviously can't be sure of what the future will bring, but I can be sure that if I want to see things go a certain way, there's a way to make it happen.

That's about all I have to say for now. Still looking at college things... jesus. Alright, I'm off for now.

Whew

Well, I'm a little tired right now. Not much to do today, but that's alright. It is a Monday and I am home, being President's Day and all, so that's sort of nice. I was going to hang out with Carolyn early today, but she's off doing other things, so I'll have to wait my turn. Stupid other things.

So, this winter... something else. Just awful, just awful. Seriously, winter is just not happening these days. Really, not cool at all. I don't know what to do or think of it. I guess I kind of want spring at this point. I've been in a real good mood to ride my bike, but the weather has been so odd it makes it rather hard to even try. That and fencing is still in my way haha. Not really, but it'd be nice if we all had lots of free time I figure. Soon enough, though. It is already late Feburary, so these things don't last too much longer.

Other than this, I have not much to say really. I'm kind of running low on inspiration to do things. I have these periods where I tend to not have much to write about, or ideas for doing computer things or whatever. I think honestly it's the rather dry winter season, and the want to ride my bike. These things provide a decent balance in my life, so I don't apply too much energy into one thing. Hopefully, I'll get back into gear and start doing things again which are remotely interesting.

At any rate, I'm currently running Gnome. I switched over to Xorg R7, which is the entirely modularized version of Xorg. Oddly enough, XFCE4 has given me a great deal of trouble because of it. It works, but rather slowly. A lot of other applications break because of it also. I don't know if this is because of the Arch Linux package builds not being compiled against Xorg R7 yet or what, but we'll see.

Did I mention I was a Linux user yet? Well, I am. I think I may make another blog related to technology things later on, but for the time being this'll do just fine. At any rate, I'll end this entry with another picture. Not quite like the last one, but at least it's something to look at.
















And now, I'm going to look around at a few colleges. It's something I don't want to do. but it's something I really need to get working on more. Have a nice day, folks.

We Were Talking About The Space In Between...

Haha so, recently I've been listening to some neat sitar music. It's a very cool instrument. A real nice sound, and a real different way of playing the western music I'm used to hearing. So far, I haven't gotten too far into my exploring, but I'm listening to some Ravi Shankar who is absolutely amazing and also some Beatles tunes that include it. It's all very very interesting. I never imagined somebody creating an 18 stringed instrument, much less figuring out how to play it well. So you also know, the title of this entry is a lyric in the Beatle's song called 'Within You Without You.' Trippie, to say the least.

This weekend has been very enjoyable. Went up to Stowe Vermont for some skiing. It's by far, the best skiing I've had this season. That's not saying very much, as it's been a rather awful season. At any rate, it was a real fun weekend. Didn't do anything too technical or difficult, but I got to hang out and kinda meet some new people, so I can disregard the non-technical part. I threw in a few good runs in the woods anyway so it worked out well. Speaking of runs in the woods though, I'm glad I did that. It finally made me push myself a little more this season. Usually I find my skiing groove pretty early in the season and appreciate it, but with the way it's been so far, I haven't been able to do that. I haven't felt entirely stable all season, which is pretty annoying. Obviously, I've managed, but I haven't found my real nitch yet until this weekend. After about two hours in the woods, I really felt like I was getting shit back into place skiing wise. Quite a nice moment, I'd say. Hopefully I'll be able to keep that groove going for the rest of the season, however long that is.

In all honesty, I'm kind of looking forward to spring. This winter has been lousy, so I'm ready for a good bike ride. Yeah... now that'll be nice.

Anyways, not much else to say. It's Valentines Day, and I got far too many things from Carolyn, and I managed to get her nothing. I'm a pretty lousy boy if you'd ask me. That's okay though, I've got something planned for some time soon, and her birthday present will be better so it'll be okay.

I'm going to end this with a picture from Stowe this weekend. Peace and love, my fellow readers.

Weekend Away To Stowe

I don't know who exactly is reading this, much less if any of you are avid skiiers, but I for one am. Being so, I am heading to Stowe this weekend with the ski club. I figure it should be pretty neat. Apparently they've gotten about 10" or so over the past few days, and around 15"h for the week. Not an incredibly phenomenal amount, but it's by far way better than what we've had recently.

At any rate, one of these trips usually occurs once a year in my school in New Jersey. Usually it ends up being to Killington, Vermont, but because of costs this year the trip made a change and is headed toward Stowe instead. I imagine it being a more interesting mountain, and not nearly as huge, which makes it much more special to me honestly. A big mountain can be cool, but it really takes away from the value of the whole skiing experience. And no folks, I don't use the term experience loosely.


I will write when I return on Monday.

This Blog Becomes More Appealing Everyday...

Seriously though, I'm really becoming disappointed in how Modblog operates these days. Lack-of responses from the server, no more image server, no comments from admins of it. Just doesn't make sense for me to use it anymore it seems like.

At any rate, it's a little odd being here. I'm only used to writing in one place as of now, and I haven't really gotten involved in a or the community as of yet. I'm dropping off some comments and reading a few other blogs of course to try and settle in. At any rate, if this remains not too often read, that's not a major crisis by any means, it would just be neat to see what the people are like here.

So no much to say today, really. I felt like I needed to write something more here, but there's not too much to say. I guess I can tell you a little more about myself, if that's of any interest.

I have a girlfriend myself. My first one, in fact. It's a real nice feeling to have. I love the time spent more than I could have imagined. It's a great feeling, but it comes with some scary factors. I've never really been trusted upon so much to be I guess the figure of comfort and understanding so much. I guess it's that I didn't imagine I'd be in this situation yet, but it can be intimidating at times. And yeah, there are also the bad times too. I've been very lucky with my relationship, as I've managed to avoid any real fights. It's nice to know that we don't fight over petty issues, but other problems tend to arise. We both manage to find ourselves busy doing something. I guess technically she does more than I do, but it also seems as if everytime she manages to earn herself a free slot of time, I've managed to fill that slot with something to do. This is probably the more stressing predicament we face, and it tends to build up after a while, and we have to confront it again. Of course, she's very sympathetic and supportive all at once, so it makes it a little easier, but we still have to struggle with it. It makes for a challenge, but we've done our best, and I would say pretty well against it, for over four months now, so I don't think it will stop us anytime soon.

There's always the fight about who decides where to eat, and that falls into about second place, so that goes to give you the idea of our relationship. Silly to say the least, but very dynamic and warm to me In the end.

I guess another big part of my life at this point is school. I don't like to consider it such a big part, but when it comes down to it, I wake up at 6:30 or so every day for it, spend six hours of the day in it, and additional time on it afterward, so it would be denial to say it isn't. I can't say I despise school anymore. It gets me annoyed somedays of course, but over the past three years I've managed to grow to enjoy it a little more. I suppose it's because engaging yourself in specific topics and more challenging ones tends to catch ones interest a little more than it did in say, Middle School. Man, there was just no clear-cut vision to that place. At any rate, I'm a real math and science fan myself. I'm in a statistics class right now, which so far has been eh, but I can tell it'll get somewhat better coming up. I had precalculus last semester which was a blast for me, along with chemistry which was the same feeling. I plan on my senior year being a pretty decent one class wise and life wise... at least I can only hope.

Anyways, I don't know what else to really write about in particular. If you want to learn a few additional things about me, you can always check the profile. I filled that out a little bit. Maybe I'll do a survey or something to fill in the gaps or something. They don't always seem to get the point across of who you are as a person, but they give you some neat little details I suppose. Anyways, have a nice night all.

-dswain

Hello, World.

Well, this is my first entry here. So far I'm pretty happy. It seems very clean and fairly straightforward of a blogging system. It's a nice thing to see. I guess for a first entry, I should give everyone an idea about myself.

My name is Doug Swain. I'm 17 right now and live in New Jersey. I want you to know that you're free to come and ass rape me whenever you get the opportunity, and that you're more than likely going to be awfully disappointed if you do try. In another sense, I'm not entirely afraid to give away some information about myself. You can't spend your life in fear of every possibility I figure. Anyway, I'm also male if that impacts your choice.

Life in New Jersey is alright for myself. It's not my most favorite place in the winter (to say the least) but I do enjoy it around spring and summer times for biking and such. I live in a small, I guess what is technically considered "rural" areas of Northwestern New Jersey, but it never felt that rural to me honestly. I've been to real rural, and, well, this seems fairly suburban if I'd say so myself. All and all, it's a fairly nice place, so I won't complain too much. I plan on going out and seeing other places in the near future, but for now this'll be just fine.

Speaking of seasons and quality of living during them, the two main sports I do are skiing and biking. I'm not real competitive at all, so these things are great for me. It's a good exercise, and it's something I can spend time getting deep into and appreciating as opposed to trying to become the best. The most competitve thing I really do would be Marching Band in the fall, but the real competitive people I know in Marching Band say that it's not at all. Goes to show what I know about those issues, right?

I also enjoy computing a lot... to also say the very least. I've been tooling around with them since about 5th grade (11th grade right now, so that's a good six or so years under my belt). I try my best to keep my understanding of computing (and all things if I can help it) open minded, but recently I've been spending most of my time working on Linux things. Bash scripts and such occupy my time, and just overall trying to conquore one issue at a time. It's been about three years for me last month of using Linux, and right now I only run Linux. Anyways, that's a little sad to talk about too much on a personal blog, so I'll end it with that.

All and all, that gives you I suppose a good start about understanding who I am and where I'm coming from. Speaking of which, the past two years of my blogging have been over at Modblog. It's been the only system I've ever used, but recently it's really been disappointing so I decided it was time to open up and diversify myself a little more. I figure I can manage two blogs if I want. If one becomes more appealing over the other, maybe I'll fully transition, or maybe just run both. At this point, I honestly don't know. Though, I have to admit, this system really follows a Modblog style of things more than I anticipated, and thensome also. Pretty impressive. Anyways, I'll be sure to be working on the blog layout, links, and other things as time goes on. For now, I just wanted to get things started. Anyways, more to come later on (if you can take anymore of it). Signing off,

-dswain