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Yet another long lag between updates. All well.
I still have no idea what I'm doing for Spring Break, and it's but a week away. Living in Florida all year kind of changes the "Lets go to Florida!" idea that most northern college students get. Not to mention it does still get cold (ie below 70) here during March, but I guess it's warm enough for the northern students to still wear swimsuits. Last year I went to New Orleans which was a lot of fun, and quite fortunate in the timing.
If you ever want to read a newspaper article online without doing the annoying 'free registration', then just go to BugMeNot and use someone else's fake info. One could argue it'd take almost as long to go to a new website and find a login name as it would to just fill out something with fake info, but that's why someone made a Firefox extension for it. Just right click on the login field, and a name and password are supplied for you.
And speaking of Firefox, a winners of a contest to build the best Firefox extentension was just announced. The updated ForcastFox looks pretty nice.
So this weekend I'm going to have a takehome midterm that will supposedly take me the entire weekend to do. It's a programming assignment which normally isn't a big deal, except it's programming in Prolog, which is a crazy convoluted language unlike any of the standard procedural languages like C or Java. It does have it's advantageous, but the program flow is so different than the 'normal' languages that it takes a long time just to figure out how to debug it, much less figure out how to get it to do what you want. It's almost as bad as Lisp.
I finally know what my summer plans are: interning for Freescale Semiconductor (a semiconductor spinoff from Motorola) in Austin, TX. I've been trying all year to find something in Austin for this summer, and yesterday I got an offer on an interesting project which involves doing performance testing. Well being they're paying me quite well, it's a bit more involved than that, but that's what it comes down to. I've heard nothing but great things about Austin from just about everyone I've asked, so I really wanted to try living there for a while to see how I liked it before making a committment to a full time job there. It'll be nice going back to Texas too, I haven't been there in almost 4 years now. This will be the last chance I have to do an internship since I graduate in December, so here's to hoping this one is as much fun as the last two.
I did manage to figure out a plan for Spring Break, this time a full 5 days beforehand, instead of only 4 like last time. Me and Candice ended up going to Atlanta for the weekend. I'd been there once before, and this time got to see even more stuff, such as the CNN headquarters which was really cool, all of the MLK museum and birthhome (it's still so hard for me to comprehend that it was only until 40 years ago that segregation was legal), the DeKalb Farmers Market, the Varsity (world's largest drive-in, and quite possibly the world's most greasiest food), and a whole day at Six Flags Georgia. Six Flags was disappointing since two of the big roller coasters were down for "painting", which I fail to see why they couldn't have painted them in the last 3 months that they were closed, instead of waiting until the park was actually open. At least the crowds were light and they had a lot of other rollercoasters, including a stand up, inverted, and flying (where you ride lying face down in a Superman like position). All in all a very fun trip though. How can you not love a city that is planning to expand the interstate right through the middle of it to 23 lanes?
Apparently ripping up your credit card applications isn't enough to prevent companies from giving anyone who wants to tape it back together a card in your name. Just a tad bit scary eh? However there are ways to get off the mailing lists. Quite convinitely if you decide you want to permantely opt out, you have to actually mail in a form. For some odd reason that requirement doens't exist if you want to opt in. Who would have guessed?
What would the iPod packaging look like if Microsoft made it? It's funny because its true.
Not only are the Gators on their way to Indianaplois for the Final Four, but so am I. I managed to get through the phone lines, and get student tickets to Indy for the Final Four. It's $170 a ticket (which I consider a 'life-experience' fee) and a 13+ hour drive, but isn't cheering on the team you've been yelling your lungs out for the last 5 years what college is all about? Me and 3 other friends are leaving Friday to get up there, and hopefully won't be coming back down to Gainesville until Tuesday evening. This almost makes up for losing in the first weekend all the other years I've been a student here, and vindicates my decision to stay at UF for grad school another year! GO GATORS!!!
If I couldn't have figured out my Spring Break plans, I suppose I could have always spent it in Walmart like this guy. It does have everything you'd ever need after all.
I've also been looking for a new car the last few weeks. I most likely won't be buying it until mid-Fall, but I may need to get it earlier if my parents car breaks down over the summer. Currently my wheels include the city bus and a bicycle. My parents never gave me a car, and I was cut off once I graduated high school so having a car wasn't really an option until now that I've managed to save up some money from internships and will have a full time job in January. I've managed to go through 5 years of college without a car, thanks to having patience with the bus system and not being afraid to actually walk places. That and a girlfriend and lots of awesome friends with cars. But as much as I'd love to live off public transportation to get to and from work once I graduate, I'd still need a car for weekend trips and things. Hence why I need to buy one before I graduate. The top runner right now is an Acura TSX, followed by the new '07 Toyota Camry Hybrid, and the ever popular Honda Accord. Once I get it I'll definitely be posting a ton of pictures, being it's my very first vehicle ever.
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