Saturday, December 29, 2007

Car vs. Concrete

Concrete wins, in case you were wondering. I had heard of this result from other sources, but the day after Christmas I took it upon myself to try it out with my own car, pirouetting elegantly across the road and into a concrete median. In retrospect, I could have picked a better time than the night before my 11-hour drive back to Virginia. On the other hand, maybe subconsciously I was trying to get stranded in Tennessee... Unfortunately, my subconscious isn't that smart; there was a spare car at the house (a Toyota Echo that gets 40 mpg!), so I was able to get back to work.

Now that I am back in Norfolk, the "armpit of the Navy," I'm counting down the remaining days. It's astonishing to think that this year I'll become an MIT student! There's so much to prepare for, having been out of high school for four years... I know a lot of people feel this way, but I think I'll be way behind the rest of my class. I do have some useful skills though; my superpower is sleep deprivation. Right now it's 1:00am and I have to be up at 4:30am to get ready for work, and what am I doing? I'm blogging.

I'm also checking Facebook, since someone thought it would be a good idea to ban Facebook at work. =( I've been too busy to check it at home, because I'm helping my friend Chris get his house ready to sell. This involves new tile, new carpet, new trim, new doors, new lighting, new wiring, new appliances, new paint, new cabinets, new counter-tops, and a few other things, so it has been an interesting project. Everything should be finished by this weekend, and we can finally relax (I will relax; Chris will work on his car, because he likes to work on things).

One of my goals for the year is to get more involved in the open source community. I started by switching to OpenOffice, and I'm in the process of switching to Linux. I'm happy to say that I now own a Linux laptop (made by Dell) and I love it! I'm still learning (understatement?), but my normal daily computing tasks have given me no troubles thus far.

In the next entry, I'll be unveiling my secret plan to hack the number of hours in a day. Suspense!

11 comments:

Greg said...

It's not too secret.
I'm already aware of
your plans muwhahaha!
Also, you stole my
blog title

It's ok I still like you.

FreeLance said...

yes, the secret theory !

Kate said...

Hawkins! You're awesome. I am sad to hear about your little run in with the median, though. You escaped unscathed, I'm hoping.

Hawkins said...

@Greg - Hahaha, the fact that I stole your blog title from your brainwaves (I hadn't read that entry yet) and that you already know my secret plans... That does not surprise me. lol! I miss you.

@Kate - I escaped without physical harm, but my ego has whiplash; this was my first wreck. =\

Anonymous said...

28-hour day?

I'm sorry about your car? =(

Paul said...

Sorry to hear about your car! But at least your sleep schedule will serve you well at MIT next year. :)

By the way, what Linux distro are you using?

Hawkins said...

@Piper - Good guess, but no. The 28-hr day is nice in theory, but in practice it would be pretty difficult to pull off.

@Paul - I'm using Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn).

Kate said...

I think the ego needs whiplash every once in a while. Keep it in check, you know.

(Unless we're talking about Ayn Rand's idea of the ego, which is, of course, an entirely separate discussion.)

Bummer about your car, but I'm glad you're safe.

Stephen said...

I want you to know that Jesus loves Norfolk.

and even though you made that stupid comment I still love you :P

Mom said...

I agree about the ego whhiplashing, 40 lashes with a wet noodle every now and again serves well. Leave the concrete out of it! Love, Mom

Mom said...

I guess you are too busy "doing it" to "write about it"! Just looking for a word...Love, Mom