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Richard, a kid I go to school with, must hate cars right now. After all, he won't be driving until January at the soonest as of now. Yesterday, he was driving his parents '99 suburban during lunch. We were out in his 'burban, Jay's Mercedes ML320 SUV beast, Eric's Suzuki hatchback, and of course, my ghettomobile. Basically, if one were to drive behind our school, they would find a series of dirt roads that one simply can't pass up the opportunity to go 4-wheeling on. So that's what we did. Richard and Jay (with the SUVs) were having the most fun while Eric and I kept busy pulling the e-brake in the middle of the road. Anyway, after a while, I drove back to school with eric on my tail as Richard disappeared to apparently nowhere. As Jay would later testify to, Richard took a dirt side road which led to a ~12 foot high dirt hill. I guess he took it goin' 20mph or so, and got AIR in his suburban. Yes, that's 4700 pounds of lovin' in the air. All four wheels.
And now, the reason why he hates cars: He bottomed out on the way up. Yeah, we're talking 2 feet long, 10 inches high, a few inches deep, in the driver's side door. In his parent's suburban.
He tried to explain the mysterious hit and run in the burger king parking lot to his parents, but they would not buy it. He eventually fessed up with the truth, which led to his groundation from his family's vehicles until early next year.
And to think, we went back out today with mine and Jay's cars (he has the Mercedes SUV, remember?) back to the same spot. While we only took small hills in the general area, I believe a good time was had by all. Then Eric got the *great* idea of taking our cars up a good sized hill which leads to the back of the school by the canal. We're talking a backroad, one lane, cliff on one side, ACID canal on the other, RIGHT BY THE SCHOOL! We drove by the classroom we were late for class for, and slid down the hill leading to a paved road. Okay, so it was a lot more exciting when we were there, plus you have to have seen our campus to appreciate the coolness of it all.
Oh, did I mention we got all this on tape, but NOT RICHARD JUMPING his suburban? Do you feel the bitterness radiating from your computer monitor? Did I mention that I had already gone to class when he did it?! He didn't even FsCKING TELL ANYONE HE WAS GOING TO DO IT!!! Oh, yeah, feel that anger and frustration pouring from the screen....
For better or for worse I am accepted to be a student at California State University, Chico in the fall of 2004. However, it is not exactly that easy. On the certificate, it says "provisional acceptance". Mine is more provisional than others, I would imagine.
Lets start from the beginning. I knew that I was going to be taking my Algebra II class from last year again going in to this thing, but it goes a little bit deeper than that now. Last year I declined to pass our American Studies class. The class is a pairing of US History and English 3. So now, I have to take a year of english and a semester of either US history or some other sort of history (eg. Government). I plan on taking English 1A through the local JC here (Shasta), and the government class through either BYU or some other online university. And this all happens next spring. So, in addition to the classes I am currently taking, I will be taking an Algebra II class, a college level english class, and a high school level government class through a college. Just to get in to a flippin CSU. Oh, yeah, in addition to the two internships I have. :)
I was talking with my dad about college and my on the spot admissions day that is ominously lurking in the depths of my tomorrow afternoon schedule. Now, I have a pretty $|-|177Y GPA goin' for me right about now, but a 1280 on the SAT to make up for it. I figure I can get in to chico state with a bit (but not much) of luck. I told my dad it was my 'backup school'. He said "NO WAY! David, a backup school is a school you feel confident you can get in to; Shasta College is your backup school". Shasta is our local JC. They don't reject anyone from that shcool. I won't delve into the exact numbers of my grade point average, but is it really that bad that the Chico office of admissions will spit it back in my face like my dad says they have the ability - and right - to do? I mean, I am a nice kid with a lot going for me: a rebounding report card, a great letter of recommendation from my principal, and semi-good test scores. I will say it. I fucked up. I realize that I won't be going to MIT or CalTech or even CalPoly, but am I truly that hopeless that I won't get into Chico State?
The way my parents used to talk about Chico State made me believe I would never even consider going there. I was much too good for Chico!. Now it appears that I might go there. I don't know; I feel as if I am letting my parents (both have multiple college degrees, my dad also went to med school) down in a huge way. That's what they communicate to me sometimes. It makes me wonder about how I will treat my kids. That is if I live long enough to have them.
Well, all in all, tomorrow will be a massive day in the history of my life story. The day I (didn't) get in to California State University at Chico.
So get this. My mother was this -><- close to buying a new wireless access point for our home network. She didn't.
It gets better though: My dad modeled in a fashion show and won - yes, WON - a wireless B router. Plus a PCMCIA nic and a PCI nic. Way cool. So I set that up last night as our DHCP server and whatnot, but it gets even better. I got a school laptop today as a loaner. I have it until at least December, and longer if I want it. We're talking 1.6 portable Ghz of power at my disposal. With an integrated wifi card. Eleven megabits of lovin' flowin through the air - at home and at school.
I just turned in my application for csumentor.edu to get in to Chico. Who knows if I will or not, but I am going to this on the spot admissions thing that will let me know if I get in or not THAT DAY. No pressure or anything. I mean, it is next wednesday. So it's not like this is deciding the next four years of my life. Pivotal moment on the application I just turned in less than an hour before the due date. I don't even know if all the info is correct. Oh well. I'm just nervous.
I went to San Francisco this weekend, which happened to be the same time the Blue Angels were there showing off. It all came about in a dumb way, actually. My mother is in Chicago for some odd reason, and my dad had to go to SF to get credits at a confrence or something like that. Anyway, they (naturally) don't trust me home alone for more than a day at a time, so they decided to drag me down to the city. It was actually more like a fun trip for me. I mean, I drove down with Stassia in a separate car from my dad, parked in Concord, took BART in to the city, and met my dad there. We spent the rest of the day together (it was 5 ish already), but then on Sunday, I never even saw him. Took BART into the city again, and spent the day at pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf where Stassia and I watched the Blue Angels from our vantage point at the end of a dock. It was spectacular: watching them fly upside-down over the bay seemingly inches from your nose then go straight up for a few thousand feet and whatnot. Plus they fly (or so I read) 36 inches wingtip to wingtip, without oxygen when they do their massive formations. The above picture is about what we saw to the left from where we were standing, with Alcatraz directly in front of us.
And then the bush man. But let's not go there.
Or the guy juggling fire on an 8-foot unicycle.
But let's not go there :)
After I got new tires yesterday, I went to chill at stassia's work. After talking to her dad about life, college, and the such, I took dinner (taco-bell) home to my mom. On the way there, she called my cell. She told me "Richard is here, and you aren't". I told Richard that he could come over anytime he wanted to hang out or whatever because he is a cool guy, but he actually took me up on it, and showed up. We went for a drive to whiskeytown lake with fireworks in hand and matches not far behind :)
That was fun. But if you want fun, I get to go to san fransico this weekend for a day and a half. That will be fun. I get to drive down and go to the city, spend Saturday night there, stay with my aunt in concord, and go to 'frisco all day Sunday. Minus the parents. This should be fun. Good weather forecasted, plus it's airshow weekend in the city. Good times, good times.
So I can pull stuff like this, but when I try to go on a simple dirt road, not even speeding, I do this. Can somebody tell me what is going on with me?!?!
Yesterday my teacher gave me complete and unrestricted access privileges to our school website. Yup. www.anths.org is mine! I have a meeting in a few minutes with Kelly Engel who is a consultant for these types of projects. Basically I am going to be redesigning and recoding the entire school website in PHP/MySQL. It is a big project, but I am looking forward to it. Plus it gets me the ability to log on as webmaster to the AUHSD domain. Today after the meeting I am going to write a well-worded essay to the principal of my school to ask for a laptop. yeah, our school has laptops, and I want to get one. I think that designing the school website is a pretty good excuse to be able to get one (after all, we DO have 70 of 'em).
Anyway, bell just rang (even though we don't have bells, eh swaggles?) so I'm off to my meeting. Wish me luck.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
I hate this intersection!!!
Yeah, that's where I got my ticket.
Jack. What a funny kid. I'm still laughing. At him. Not with him.
So here's the deal: Jack got a ticket yesterday. I got my first on Friday, so it's sort of ironic timing, but his was for speeding. He was going 90 in a 65 zone. Which is pretty fast; not a whole lot faster than I drive, but it's fast. The cop thought it was fast, and so did Jack's mom when she found out. She told him that he would no longer have car privileges. She didn't give a time period, but just that he couldn't drive. Now Jack is a mild tempered kid most of the time, but when he gets really mad, he tends to hit things. He punched the wall when he found out. He broke his hand.
And I am still laughing at him.
I made a little flash animation for the company that is hosting my site as a thank you. I figured, they are giving me all this and I don't even have a link to them, so I now have a link! I don't know if I like it or not yet, and I may just put a little thing at the bottom of the page that says "hosted by ionsystems" instead of such a flashy ... flash. Whatever, they probably won't even notice its existence. They are a really good deal though. 150 megs, PHP, MySQL, ASP, Cpanel, unlimited email addresses, 24/7 FTP, and a gig of transfer for only $5 a month. You can pay quarterly as well for only $12. If you want to go all out, get a gig of space and 10 gigs of transfer for something like $15 a month. Anywho, check them out.
Feedback is appreciated on the animation. If you don't know what I am talking about, look to the left under the blogger button.
