Old News

Archived news items from May 1999
Since this is old news, some links may be broken.

Sunday, 30 May 1999 [23:29 CST]

Well, it's been an eventful few days. Project Graduation went well last night, and I managed to go the distance, staying until 5am. I gave a couple of semi-impromptu concerts for my students. Got home and got a big ninety minutes of sleep before getting up again to go to church.

God is very faithful, and answered my humble prayer for strength to get through church. I was actually more energetic than usual. God is good.

Got home and took another three hour nap, and then went to a graduation party for one of my students. Spent a little over an hour there, and then back home.

I was planning to go out with some friends to see Guy Forsythe at Antone's tonight, but my car decided not to play along and gave out heading southbound on 183. I coasted it off the road into a parking lot, where it wouldn't start.

Fortunately, I was near a gas station, and called some friends to pick me up, one of whom is a mechanic. He determined that the engine isn't getting any "spark", which I think means something electrical is broken.

So I'm at home and the car is still in the parking lot. I'm going to get a much-needed night of sleep and then call the repair shop in the morning and see if I can find one which is open. The upside is that even if I can't, I don't really need my car for a couple of days (unlike the previous few days, during which I have needed it desperately; let's hear it for God's merciful timing). Since school's out I don't have to get up there immediately.

Anyway, the moral of the story is be good to your car and take it in when it first starts acting funny and before it breaks down.

Saturday, 29 May 1999 [19:19 CST]

I just woke up. This morning was LHS graduation in the Frank Erwin Center, and I got to watch about one hundred of my former students walk the stage (with about 450 others). I came home and took a three-hour nap, which brings me to now.

Why a nap, you ask? (Since some of you know I don't customarily take them....) I'm going to attend Project Graduation tonight, which starts at 10pm and lasts all night long. I hope to make it through the whole deal, but I knew I'd be wasted tomorrow morning if I didn't grab at least a couple of hours while I can.

So I'm off soon. I did get in to work yesterday, where I finished up my gradebook, though I didn't get a chance to turn it in, since the principal had already gone home for the weekend by the time I was done. Now I get about eight weeks of freedom. This will mean two things for this web page:

1. It will be updated more frequently, since I'll have way more free time.
2. Updates will probably be less interesting, since there won't be much going on in my life.

I know what some of you are thinking, "How can things get any less interesting than they already are now?" Ha-ha-ha. I appreciate that vote of confidence.

Thursday, 27 May 1999 [23:17 CST]

Just a quick update before I hit the sack.

I'm almost done. All grading is done and turned in, and everything else has been taken care of regarding check-out procedure at the school except finishing up the attendance data in my grade book. That'll take me a couple more hours tomorrow and I'm out.

Today we had the AcaDec end-of-year party at the Peck's lake house. It was a beautiful piece of property and very nice. Got to ride a wave runner, get dragged in an innertube off the same, and swim and eat and such. The sunscreen seems to have done it's job as I'm not a crispy critter. Also, I managed to avoid losing a contact this year (which I did at last year's party).

Much fun. Of course, I've got friends all over the place heading to Europe. Makes me want to see England. Anyway.

Tuesday, 25 May 1999 [23:57 CST]

Well, it's almost over for another year. Tomorrow is the last day of school. I have just a little grading remaining and then I have to check out and I'm free for a few weeks.

I've taken perl and java to the vet since I last updated and determined that the cause of their illness was tapeworms. The vet gave them a shot to kill it and some stuff to kill the fleas which transmit the tapeworms. All is now well except that I have to hose the kittens down with fleacide every couple of days, and you can bet they're not happy about that.

Austin Singers concert went very well. It was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to our show in the fall (assuming my schedule can still accomodate).

I have a nice logic puzzle developed by Einstein. I've been working on it for nearly two hours and still haven't neared figuring things out. If I do get it I'll probably post it here to tease everyone.

Gotta get to bed. It's a school night. Maniacal laughter...

Wednesday, 19 May 1999 [21:12 CST]

Man, it's been a busy few days. This is the last full week of school, and senior finals began today. Last night I was up late making up said final.

Tomorrow is the Austin Singers spring concert, which will be at 7:30pm at Tarrytown Methodist Church (2707 Exposition). Monday night was a dress rehearsal and ran pretty late. Then I drove home thirteen miles in the driving rain; we had nearly four inches in just a couple of hours.

I've contacted my brother about winning the prize. Though he is pleased, he has refused the prize money, suggesting instead that I apply it toward having the cats neutered (crediting Bob Barker for the idea). I had been planning on that anyway, since pet overpopulation is a Bad Thing, so I think I'm going to contact the mother of Perl and Java and see if I can get her spayed. I have a feeling she has had a lot of litters. I'll let you know how this turns out.

Also, many of you (mostly my close friends, who did so jokingly) have accused the contest of being fixed, since my brother won. Let me assure you that this is not the case. However, it's possible that he (and others who know me very well) had a higher chance of winning. Here's my brother's own comments on that topic:

> I have to admit I had an unfair advantage. Having lived with you for 18
> years, I think I kinda knew what type of bait you'd bite on: nothing too
> trite, but nothing with a singular meaning. Fantasy is good, but computers
> are much better. Am I right?

It seems he was. I had no idea I was so easily manipulated! ;) Well, off to bed. This is the earliest I've gotten to sleep in days.

Saturday, 15 May 1999 [11:51 CST]

Kitten Contest Winner Selected

I have spent the last several hours poring over the nearly two hundred and fifty submitted names from dozens of entrants, and have selected my favorite pair.

The winning entry comes from my brother Paul, who wrote:

> Personally, I think the cream one should be named "Perl" and the black
> one should be named "Java". Then you get the whole computer thing
> incorporated with the actual colors of the kittens.

Perl is a quick and dirty open-source programming/scripting language developed primarily by Larry Wall, popular among system administrators, web programmers (cgi), and hackers. Java is a much-hyped object-oriented language developed by Sun Microsystems, designed to be platform independent and secure. Java has been greatly-touted by the mainstream press, but has had limited impact.

I decided to buck convention and switch the names, so that they intentionally fit personalities rather than appearances. Thus, the black female will be called Perl (quiet but far-reaching) and the light male Java (noisy and superficially attractive but with limited scope once you get into it).

For the full list of names and to see other names I liked a lot, visit the