Now you’ll have to forgive me about last week. You see, I was so excited by the new snowfall, I couldn’t force myself to sit in front of the glowing beast on a modem. We got like 8 inches, and there is still snow and ice on some of the streets! Last week, I barely made it out to church it was so blizzardly.

Well, the break has been both uneventful in some ways, and very eventful in others. I have not done a lot of stuff, relative to the hectic school days, but the calm has given me a chance to do some major reading and reflection. I have come to some important conclusions about life, happiness, and motivation. Have I found the secret formula I’ve been looking for? We won’t know until deep into next quarter most likely, but I’m optimistic. One manifestation of the change is my cutting myself off totally from the world of MP3s (except backups of my own, legal, albums). This is bound to cause a stir, most likely in a negative way, but I believe its best in the long run. I want to shift my focus to things that matter, and this will help. I have felt a moral obligation as well.

Hmm, what has happened? I’ve read a lot - C.S. Lewis, Stephen Covey, and others… I talked to my pastors, and that was good. I’ve done a lot of waiting - for my hair to grow back in that is, it seems to be punishing me for using clippers by growing much more slowly than usual. I went to see the morally corrupt movie again, where we needed 15 people, or the guy would have to give us our money back and close up (it was a $2 budget theater). We were the 3rd and 4th, and we only had 11 when he got out a stack of ones and started around the counter. Tension mounted, all 11 of us hoped and clenched our fists, I was ready to make a flying tackle, but a carload of 4 people showed just in time! At this point, I felt a bit guilty considering the movie’s content, so I said aloud “Let’s go Steve, we can see something else.” This got a couple of threatening glances and some cynical, “move toward the door and die” laughter, so I changed my mind.

The cold streak has not been especially fun after my acclimation to California weather, especially as I am driving a car without a working heater. On the way back from Paige’s house a week ago or so, we got into the car to find my Sobe drink frozen solid, and the mercury at -10 F. The drive was an hour of misery, punctuated by fear. I accidently left my brights on passing a semi on the interstate, and he flashed me several more times than I thought was necessary. Right as Steve asked “You think we’ve got something wrong with our …” BOOM! The car shook as if we had been shot, or a tire had blown. I immediately hit the brakes and stopped, as the semi flew by. We got out and inspected, but could find nothing wrong. So, all we accomplished was losing the precious little body heat we has saved up in the car.

I just got an email from someone I have no recollection of, threatening further action after they logged a huge port scan coming from my machine, probing thousands of ports on one of theirs (38.something, psi.com?).. I’m not the least bit concerned, but I do wonder what my computer was doing snooping around without my permission, and what administrator and security@stanford.edu are going to do about it, since they got a cc of the email. Looks like fun.stanford.edu needs some discipline. I know I’ve been a good boy, because I got everything on my Christmas list, which was the title of this Chronicle.

Last night, unfortunately Steve was sick and working, so Mike and I visited him at the deserted tennis club where he works. I started a bit of a tennis ball fight with Mike, which was fairly even until I found the practice tennis ball launcher, which made short work of my adversary. Well, next week I will again be back in Stanford, and newly committed to a organized and productive lifestyle. Just like last quarter.. and the one before that.. and…

Quote of the week:

Sometimes you gotta eat it to prevent the moon.

This is Bradley, signing out from Christmas break paradise.
(Note: all the quotes are taken from something I or someone I talk to actually said…)

I have found it very true that the less I have to do, the less I feel motivated to do… This was one of the explanations proposed by people I talked to as to how I could struggle with only 10 units this last quarter, and it seems pretty reasonable now.

I had dreaded finals last week, so I felt especially compelled to study for once… And I’m surprised to say that some studying was done. I looked over a few Spanish verbs, and reviewed lisp and basic risc code gen a bit. But this was done in the last waking hours of the last day before each respective test. How was more time spent? Well, Monday, the day before my spanish final, a signifigant chunk of time was allocated to honing my squirrel and bird hunting skills - using magazine pages rolled into a sharp cone, projected through a thin PVC pipe serving as a blowgun. This may sound barbaric, but no squirrels or birds were harmed in the making of this anecdote. These paper darts could be pretty powerful and accurate, as Josh discovered, puncturing his windows shade, and even more convincingly, Alex punching a hole in a second floor Toyon metal screen. Unfortunately, we did not get to see one creature jump into the air, shocked that a rolled up picture of Bob Dole had just flown into it’s unwary tuckus. We did get to see the slomo escape attempt of a seagull - “Doh, many strange objects are flying towards me, better run, no FLY away!”, and the seagull flaps hard, slowly cruising right past Josh. But we failed to even hit this monstrosity.

Unsatisfied with the amount of time I had wasted so far, as the others returned to their work, I decided to pursue two things - some Christmas lights my mom wanted, that she couldn’t find in Grand Junction, and an aluminum arrow. The latter was to relive a very fun event in my childhood, that of shooting popcorn kernels large distances at high velocities, for nothing but mischief. I started out, quickly realizing I had no idea where to go for such things. I stopped at Andronico’s (supermarket), and looked in the sporting goods section of the phone book outside . They all seemed to cater to typeical Californian pasttimes: rollerblading, yoga, etc. etc… So, I figured I would have a better chance where they sold a more common weapon; I looked up Guns. As I was browsing through this section, a young man came up to use the phone next to me, saw my finger tracing out the address under a large ad for “Pete’s Guns and Ammo”, and quickly turned away, looking worried. Unfortunately, all the gun suppliers were far from the sheltered confines of Palo Alto, so I resolved to check the one “sports” store I knew of, really a glorified toy store in central Palo Alto. The clerk there asked if he could help me… “I’m looking for hunting arrows.” “Well, we have plastic toy arrows…” “No, I really need the aluminum kind, that you shoot deer with, do you know where I could get those?” He wasn’t sure, but said I might try “Big 5″, but unfortunately there weren’t any around here. I thanked him and left, he looked glad to see me go. I finally went down to Safeway for a while, just to browse and look for the lights my mom wanted, and anything approximating a hollow aluminum tube. Finding neither, I decided to give up and head home. As I exited the store, my gaze fell across the street, where, framed by some trees, was a large “BIG 5″ sign! I rushed over, and found an arrow, purchased that, and raced home, getting a few strange looks since the arrow protruded quite a bit out of my backpack. The actual use of the arrow was somewhat of an anticlimax, as it was difficult to reproduce my memories of the formidable weapon…

The spanish final went well, I probably did about average. The part where Julio read a list of stuff in spanish drew a lot of those quick little exhales that indicate frustration - do those have a name?

Well, this installment is going too long, so I think I’ll summarize now. Eat lunch, waste time, eat dinner, waste time, chat with Leah over ICQ (note I don’t include this as wasting time), go to Terrace, chat with Anne over my doorway, look at CS a bit, go to bed, take a shower, eat a bit, wake up, take CS test (wasn’t bad!), eat lunch, revel in being done, chat with Anne & Co. in their room - from 1 til midnight, waste time, drift off in chair, scramble to pack, hunt for my suitcases, finally getting Alex to unlock them from the storage room, be told my ride is invalid to the airport, have that reversed, go home via two planes (only saying maybe 10 words the entire trip - and I could have said none I see now!), eat Wendy’s, see my friend Steve, cut all my hair off with Matt’s clippers, and waste a lot more time. Although I have endeavored the last couple days to read a lot, and I have - I want more of an apologetic background, since questions regarding this baffle me. One more interesting thing will have to wait for later, as it is right now a secret. Working from a modem isn’t that bad, when text is all you have to manipulate!

Quote(s) of the week:

“No. No. Yes. Thanks. … No. Snapple. Thanks. … Orange Juice. Thanks.”

This is Bradley, signing out, and hanging up!

I’m not good at doing the little things… The ones that build up to the big things. I can put off organizing a paper pile until the pile is so large and complex, it may have some sort of consciousness on its own. Errands have a 50/50 chance of ever getting done, which explains my too-long hair. I have finals this week! Evidently my gut instinct believes Q-Bert is the best way to prepare. I hope it’s right.

I thought I was doing ok this quarter. I thought “Hey, none of my grades look in danger of being bad…” Today I realized that having 10 units really does make a difference. I should be having no problems getting work done, but the ease of 10 units has caused me to revert to high school habits (doing work the day its due, messing around 95% of waking hours) without the benefits (no stress, and friends who do even less). I now have the worst work ethic of anyone I know. Which wouldn’t be that bad if I weren’t at a college that happens to kind of attract hard workers.

My graded interview with Julio, my crazy (no, really) spanish teacher was a fiasco, at least on my side of the conversation. To set the scene: because I have marginal Spanish skills (but not the worst!), I was a bit nervous. Ok, I was sweating, my face was flushed, I shook, and my voice wavered and cracked. I don’t know why this all happened, but it meant the stories of my childhood related to Julio came out like a recovering heroin addict’s tales of bad trips. After a short interview, he wrote B+, giving me a reassuring, “Don’t die on me” look. So maybe my break down gave me a small sympathy help. “Now go to the bathroom, wash your face, and relax the rest of the day, k Brad?”

How did Java go? I keep a daily (well, sporadic) journal as well for more private thoughts.. Here is the entry from after Thursday, (it was due at midnight)

Friday, December 4, 1998 5:26:24 am
I have been in Praj’s “dentist” chair, turned to face the monitor, for about the last 40 hours… But java is done, only my negative 4th late day….
5:27:37 am

Score: Java - 1, Brad - 0.

I think my ears are finally recovered from the Goo Goo dolls concert I went to. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were bleeding as I left the conert hall though.

Friday I went to Harvest’s Christmas party. (I’m going to make an about stuff page, so I don’t have to identify all the names of people and organizations I use - just give me a couple years). Well, it was formal, and we were supposed to bring white elephant gifts. Of course I left late, realizing on the way to being picked up I forgot a white elephant. I cruise in front of the bookstore on my mountain bike, in my suit, and jump off, returning a minute later with some white chocolate truffles (I only had 2 dollars). White truffles are the closest thing I can think of to white elephants. We end up waiting a bit for others, so I proceed to do a stellar wrapping job: I found a newspaper within the free dispensers, and some tape on a discarded UPS package nearby. The party was fun, and the “elephant” event hooked me up - there was a cool 4 foot Reptar inflatable toy as one of the gifts. I had #17, a gift could only be stolen 3 times, and boom! Catherine stole it for the 2nd time as #16. I had it quickly in my loving arms, and proceeded to blow it up during the rest of the exchange. Everyone was jealous of my Reptar. What was more interesting was realizing as we were driving back to Stanford that I had my bike… So, a few scattered Stanford inhabitants saw an unusual picture that night: guy, bleached hair, three-piece suit, riding along on a mountain bike gripping a forward facing 4 foot Reptar. Too bad no cameras were present…

On a serious note, I believe I want to fly into space and therefore am considering joining the Air Force (after college of course). Discipline and space travel would do wonders for me, I think.

And now, for the quote of the week:

Me: “Roly-poly’s don’t have secret stingers!”

I got to use that one twice, only once with a roly-poly on my hand! (The other time was at a Chinese restaurant… self-explanatory I think.)

This is Bradley, signing out. (next week! Chronicles, from CO, modem style.)