Return to the Land of the Living

I made it through another term.  Barely.  I’ve been done now for nearly a week, and I’ve been graciously making use of my brief opportunity to avoid contact with society to, well... avoid contact with society.  It’s been a while since I posted anything here, and I intend to bring everyone up to speed, but first, in the style of NPR’s Planet Money, I have a an indicator to share first.  For anyone who hasn’t heard the show, they always begin by sharing the “Planet Money Indicator” of the day, in which they first read off some arbitrary number, then tell you what it means.  The guy who presents the indicators has a reputation for always choosing indicators of bad things, as they usually have to do with unemployment or foreclosures or such, but if you’ve listened to financial news in the past 10 years that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.  Alas, I digress.   

Today’s Random Sequential Indicator is 0.4.   

That’s the GPA hit I took when I received the first B of my postbac education.  Yes, I got an Asian F in Calculus II this term.  Now, I know one B isn’t the end of the world, but if I said I haven’t lost any sleep over it, I’d be lying.  I’ve never felt more cheated out of a grade in my life, my 4.0 is dead, and I have absolutely no recourse.  Not once were course evaluations offered or even mentioned, and if I bring my concerns forward now, AFTER I recieved my grade, I would  just sound like a whiney student upset with his grade.  And I assure you that though that description matches, I have good reasons to be upset.

I know this must sound ridiculous: A postbac student who has already met the requirements to receive graduate funding complaining about a single B in a subject which is supposed to be difficult, in a course that was taught at a community college.  So I’ll stop—right after I say this: I can count the number of questions I got wrong on all of the tests, homework, and exams combined on one hand.  Tell me, does it sound like I understand 80% (a B’s worth) of the material?

I have good news as well.  First, a brief review:  I was feeling really nervous about ECE 221 (Circuit Analysis) at the beginning of the term.  I had never done anything like it before, and I hadn’t completed either of the prerequisite courses.  Story of my life, I know.  So I studied my ass off, and got 100% on the first midterm.  The material was new but not difficult.  Around week 7 or 8, I went into the second midterm with 100% on my tests, over 100% on my homework, and 100% in my lab section, and received a 72%.  That really shocked me, and so I studied my ass off for the final but only pulled a 78% on it.  Had you asked me a few weeks ago which class I thought I would get a B in, I would have said 221 for sure.  My calculations put me with an 85%, which is the sturdiest of B’s, really, but thanks to the miracle of everyone else failing too, I scraped by with an A-, which given the circumstances, I am completely satisfied with.

Finally, ECE 371 (Microprocessor Design) was certainly the highlight of the term in terms of both my final grade and my overall enjoyment of the content and assignments. Despite being tricky at times, it was very interesting and rewarding, and I enjoyed it a lot.  Also, the professor teaching that course is my advisor, so it was absolutely unacceptable for me to get anything short of an A.  I did very well in 371 from the start (including getting a 95% on a test that took place a week earlier than I was anticipating, due to faulty notes) so while I knew I would probably be getting an A, it was a real relief to see that it had actually happened.

All things considered, I ended the term with a 3.6, so I doubt my cumulative GPA is much below 3.9.  That’s it for my academic debriefing, more posts to come soon…

Greetings from Week 6

Or “Why I am not on Twitter: This is my idea of a brief update”

So, in no particular order, here’s what’s going on in my life:

Crunch

Has this ever happened to you? You’re listening to the radio, and a commercial comes on—you change it, only to realize that every other station decided to play commercials right then as well...  Of course not.  Who listens to the radio anymore?  But regardless, that’s a good way of describing how midterms are going.  Just when I thought I was starting to get a handle on things, it turns out I have three midterms, two projects, and two graded assignments due.  So that sucks.

Movember

For the first time in quite some time, I have absolutely no professional obligations, and since I have never participated fully before, I am officially partaking in No Shave November, which Urban Dictionary defines as:

The month of November in which you don't shave any hair of your body but instead you grow more bestial, brutish, and manly.  It only becomes acceptable to shave again on December 1st.

"Before" -- Taken on November 1st

I have plans to take a picture every day, but we’ll see how successful that is.  Regardless, I should have a wicked awesome beard in about a month.

Predictions

My initial predictions regarding how interesting and/or difficult my courses would be are, as usual, painfully inaccurate.  Calculus is killing me, no thanks to the horrid teaching.   The material isn’t hard, but the professor makes it hard. Circuit analysis is boring but quite easy.  My microprocessors class is still a bit up in the air: It’s certainly my favorite class, but my grades on the homework leave a bit to be desired.  Basically my worst, hardest, most frustrating class (Calc II) is the one with the easiest content.  Go figure.

Roommate

I have a roommate now!  Beth and I had been talking for a while about finding a roommate, but it didn’t seem even remotely like a real possibility.  We certainly weren’t going to put an ad on craigslist, and we couldn’t think of anyone that we knew who needed a place and we wanted to live with.  Long story short, a good friend of mine (one of my groomsmen, actually) needed a place to stay in Portland with very little notice, and after giving it some thought, we decided to give it a go. 

Jackson

Not much to say here: He’s getting huge, just like we knew he would.  He no longer looks like an freakishly large puppy—now he just looks like a strangely small dog. 

What happened?!

Also, he desperately wants to play with Yoda, and she is most certainly not amused with this new development in behavior.

TWO!!

Really more of a thought than a fully developed idea… I am more than halfway through the term, and then I have only two more before I start my masters!! Holy crap! 

Intel

Again, not much to say here, but I am working on a resume that I will be submitting to Intel very shortly.  They are already looking for summer interns, so keep your fingers crossed for me.  Wait, no, I don’t believe in that crap.   But I do hope it pans out.

That’s about it for now.  I had better get back to coding ARM/XScale assembly language instructions…

Catch-44

Thats a double catch-22, by the way, and yes, I am about to blag about a parking ticket.  I realize how pathetic that is, but I just want another human being to acknowledge the absolute absurdity of this entire ridiculous situation.  Furthermore, I think I am a better writer when I am irritated.  And it suffices to say that presently I am at least a mite embittered over the situation at hand.

It all started a few months ago when I paid money for the service of being able to park on a public street-- and seeing that written out just now actually made me a little more upset.  But I digress.  I payed my fee, displayed the permit on my vehicle, and went out to dinner.  When I returned with a full hour of parking time remaining, I quickly tore into the yellow envelope which had been painstakingly and artfully folded into a fist with the middle finger extended and lovingly nestled beneath my windshield wiper.  Ok, I lied about the folding part, but lets face it, thats essentially what it represents.  Being a somewhat reasonable adult, I gave the ticket the benefit of the doubt, and checked to see if my time had expired.  Nope, more than an hour left.  Just like I thought.

That marked the beginning of the madness.  Because what the hell else would you get a parking ticket for if you paid for your parking?  I did mention I paid, right?  Because I did.  Now isn't the time to get arrogant and self-righteous-- wait, this is a blog! Of course it is.  I always pay the meter.  Every time.  And if that's wrong than let God strike me down from this chair, which I have draped a body pillow over in order to make it more comfortable.  I'll allow a pause to see if anything happens...

Now that that's cleared up, allow me the liberty of informing you what I got a parking ticket for, because its so unrelated to the physical act of parking that a even legal scholar with an emphasis in traffic law wouldn't stand a chance at guessing. I got a parking ticket for not having any license plates.

So to recap: I got a parking ticket for not having plates, which aside from having nothing to do with parking, is simply not true.  Our car has a license plate on the rear.  Thats how it was when we bought it.  When we bought it from a licensed auto dealer.  And its not like this is an uncommon sight, anyway.  There was actually another car parked less than one block away with no front plate and it had no ticket.  It was also a Mercedes SL550, which cost upwards of $105,000 new.  But I am sure that had nothing to do with it.  Nothing at all.  But again, I digress.

My eyes went back to the citation itself, which let me tell you, was a sight to behold.  Despite being printed, which would imply that there was some level of legibility and consistency desired when it was produced, it is a veritable menagerie of bafflement, as everything was jumbled up and printed in random order on top of existing text.  Either that, or the time issued really was "OREGON", and I was in violation of the law "$55.00" The actual citation number, which I assume is moderately important, was completely illegible, as it was printed directly on top of the words "PARKING VIOLATION".  The date wasn't much better.  Really, I have no choice but to include some evidence at this point, since after all, a JPEG is worth 1024 words.

The citation number, as it appears on the ticket. 

The date, as it appears on the ticket.

Uh, what the fuck? Am I expected to solve genius-level captchas in order to understand something as mundane as a parking ticket? Apparently so.  However, the illegibility issue was actually a very welcome development.  I remembered reading an article about getting out of trouble on lifehacker, so I looked it up...

"The city government loves their parking tickets. So many of these things get handed out that you could end up with one even if you didn't break the law. Either way, the first thing you want to check for is a mistake. According to parking expert Eric Feder, if anything on the parking ticket is wrong—from the date to the location to the cited violation—you have an easy out. You can even get out of a ticket if the writing is illegible. If anything is off or wrong on your citation, contest it and you should be able to get it dismissed without much trouble." 

--http://lifehacker.com/5811657/how-to-get-out-of-the-most-common-kinds-of-trouble

Score.  That was exactly what I remembered.  It's funny to me that this article even emphasizes that illegible handwriting can be grounds to excuse a ticket, since I'm sure that's exactly why the city of Portland prints their tickets. But, when they come out looking like a dot-matrix printer just wiped its ass on a used Safeway receipt, you're not really accomplishing much in terms of legibility.  Furthermore, none of the field names corresponded to what was actually printed there.  My license plate number is listed as the date,  and the address is listed as the receipt number.

So, I was feeling pretty good at this point, because I basically have the most fucked up parking violation ever, and it was issued for breaking a non-parking law that I didn't actually break. There was no way in hell I'm was going to pay this thing.  I flipped the envelope over and sure enough there were three options on the back, which are summarized below:

1. PAY TICKET: Submit the full payment, thus pleading guilty and waiving your right to a court hearing. 
2. POST BAIL WITH EXPLANATION: Submit the full payment along with a written explanation as to why you contest.  Your explanation is waver of your right to a court hearing, and you consent to any judgement rendered.  The court may refund some or all of the bail, but will not consider any explanation without bail.
3. REQUEST COURT HEARING: Submit bail, along with request for hearing.  Request will not be considered without bail.

Wait-- that's not the summarized, thats the full text!  Sorry about that.  Here is the summary:

1. Pay.
2. Pay.
3. Pay.

Oh, Portland Circuit Court, you sneaky, sneaky bastard-- every option involves posting the full bail amount!  And, according to the ticket, any payment is considered a guilty plea!  Here's that catch-22 I was taking about:  To plead not guilty, pay the fee.  But if you pay the fee, you automatically plead guilty.

But being the naive person I am, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and thought, "That's crazy-- I am reading into this too far.  They probably just want the check to hold onto in case I don't show up in court.  Surely they wouldn't accept it as a guilty plea and cash it before the ruling even happens."  So, like a pig to the slaughter, I mailed in my hearing request, along with a check.  

The hearing request was interesting to write to say the least.   All the information they asked for was illegible, so ultimately I just photocopied the ticket and included a copy, since I haven't won any international cryptography awards yet.  It couldn't have been more than two days later and the funds were whisked from my bank account.  That was over a month ago, and as of yet, I've received no notification of my court date, or any other contact from them at all.  All I know is they took my money without question and didn't even give me a fucking receipt.  And I was pretty clear that I was requesting a court hearing...

But spite is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, and I am nothing if not spiteful.  If they are that willing to take my money before even considering my case, I might as well delay the court case well into the next decade.  It's not like I have anything to lose at this point.  Also, I will be requesting an ASL interpreter for Beth at the last possible second when I finally do show up.  On their site, it says they want 48 hours notice for any translation or interpretation, but guess what: they are legally obligated to provide an interpreter if we ask for one, regardless of notice.  Basically, I will be doing everything in my power to make this the most expensive parking ticket to prosecute that the City of Portland has on record, and I will have a blast doing it.   Hey, who knows... I might even get my fifty bucks back!

A brief encounter with “free time”

I really thought once CS 163 was over, things would be far easier academically.  This would have been true, had I not fallen behind in Calculus trying to keep up with 163.  The way things worked out, I ended up being slammed right up until the final.  My studying paid off though, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I got an A in calculus as opposed to the B I was counting on.  So in the end, I got a 4.0 this summer! 

It’s really starting to seem like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel that is my post-bac.  So I guess really, I can see the entrance the next tunnel that is my masters.  But so far everything is going great, and every 4.0 I get is just one more reason for them to let me into the master’s program.  Case in point, last received word from my advisor that if I keep getting grades like that, he will waive the GRE requirement if for some reason I need to take it. 

Right now I am scheduled to take ECE 371 – Microprocessors, ECE 221 – Circuit Analysis, and MA 252 – Calc II.  I’m really excited about 371 and 221, but Calc II is proving already to be a chore, as I cannot take it at PCC due to schedule conflicts.  Surely you must remember how much I love paying triple for an inferior education via PSU’s horrendous math department.  Right now, all the classes are full, so I have been begging the professors to let me in, as not taking 252 next term would pretty much fuck everything up for me.  I’ll get in somehow though.  More on that as it develops. 

My time off is absolutely flying, and its hard to believe I am already nearly a third of the way through it.  The first week hardly felt like time off, as I was finishing all the little tasks and projects that had accumulated over the last 6 months.  Now I am finally relaxing, playing with the dog, and keeping my mind sharp with minecraft, which I believe was created with the sole purpose of disrupting the careers of engineers worldwide.   (Check that link out.  Especially the fully functional 16-bit computer built from scratch using wires and AND/OR gates INSIDE MINECRAFT!!)

Speaking of relaxing and playing with the dog, here’s a video that I threw together this morning.  I was actually listening to that song while I was playing with Jackson, and I thought “man, this is really just a prefect song for this situation.”  So then I made this.  Enjoy!

(Click the video while playing to watch in higher quality on YouTube)