I'm one of those objective, soul-less technicians who believes love is a choice. I believe that a couple can choose to like and love one another, to develop their relationship, and to create the energy and passion that's needed to keep a relationship exciting. There are no soulmates created by fate and destiny who are mystically drawn together.
Which doesn't explain why I dreamed of my soulmate last night.
I'm not one of those weird, stalking ex-boyfriends who obsesses every hour over lost love. I move on with my life. But every once in a while I still dream of Brenda, and I dreamt very vividly of her last night -- I recall conversation, the color of her hair and eyes and clothing and trees and the flags in the dream. Mostly, though, I remember the feelings. Even then it's not what you might think; in the dream, Brenda and I worked together on an organizing committee. That's it. We were just together talking about where the flags should go and where different groups should go in an Independence Day Parade.
Together. What an amazing thrill that was.
I have two regrets in my life. My first regret was abandoning Brenda.
Brenda was the nerdy teacher's kid who always wore a dress to school. I thought she was strange. Our friendship started in middle school, then my family moved next door to her. Not along after, we became inseparable best friends, spending almost all of our free time with one another. Still, we were "just friends," with each of us dating other people. We went our separate ways in college -- me to Texas, she to Seattle.
Wow, did I ever miss Brenda. We phoned and wrote each other often. A couple of years into college, we finally declared our undying love toward one another. Not long after, she begged me to move to Seattle. She really needed me to be there. We'd share an apartment together, finish school and live happily ever after.
When a woman tells you that she needs you, that's an important signal. That's when the stupid, objective part of my brain kicked in. Let me finish school first, I told her, then happily ever after will happen.
I think back now and realize I horribly failed an important test. It wasn't long afterwards that James appeared in Brenda's life, and the Dear John happened. It was on Valentines Day on 1988. I cried like a baby, then I laid in bed for a week while blasting Guns N Roses music. I didn't bathe; I didn't show up for class; I didn't do anything. After that week I was either drunk or in a depressed funk for the next month or two. I was a mess.
Brenda and James are both school teachers now in the same elementary school in the Pacific Northwest. She has two darling children that are about the same age as my kids and we still exchange Christmas cards. She runs marathons so she's still as thin as she was in high school. I don't pine after her -- we've both moved on -- but I've noticed James has a bit of a belly now. I think I'll outlive James and then Brenda and I will be one of those couples you read about who get married when they're 70 years old after a lifetime apart.
In the meantime, I'll continue to dream of parade organizing committees.
Current Location:On the train Current Mood: melancholy Current Music: Paradise City
And unlike the IBM BlueGene system mentioned in the article, out stuff will run Windows! {evil laugh}
Well, we think it will. I'm not sure how Windows would act in a 2 petaflop system.... The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) is using CentOS for the system we're building.
David Nice is attempting to become the first rider to complete the Great Divide Race on a fixed-gear bicycle. If it wasn’t already obvious, it becomes clear [he] marches to his own beat when he divulges that because he rides on a leather Brooks saddle he doesn’t feel the need to wear a chamois. For 2,500 miles. On a fixed gear. Ouch!
The BusCycle is an old 15 passenger Dodge Van that has been stripped and converted to run on human power. The original chassis and transmission are used -- you can actually shift this thing into reverse. The cyclist seats are all old desk chairs. Gearing and chains and pedals are also all found items.
The BusCycle is garaged at the home of Martin Krieg in Palo Alto, California. He's a big supporter of the National Bicycle Greenway, a vision for a nationwide network of bicycle expressways across the USA. Leave a comment
My family and I had a great time watching whales in Monterey Bay last weekend. In addition to watching the whales, there was plenty of greenery to be seen on the trip too. If you go whale watching be sure to take some motion sickness pills before you board the boat. My wife and children and I did and we enjoyed the trip. Others who didn't take the prophylactic didn't enjoy it so much.
Motion sickness pills are 50 mg diphenhydramine --the ingredient in Benadryl allergy pills. You can pay a buck and a quarter for a package of two at the whale watching place, or you can pay not much more than that for a little bottle of generic diphenhydramine at the drug store. Leave a comment
The {prototype hardware} in the Thumper Lab on the right side as you enter had an incident over the weekend. This morning, the chassis was unplugged and there was a very distinct burning smell. Michael just pulled out the power supplies on it and it looks like one of them came pretty close to catching fire. Can someone on the hardware side have a look at the chassis and power supplies? Michael removed the power supplies from the lab because of the smell.
Did the PSU fan fail?
Since it was unplugged over the weekend and we didn't plug it back in, I don't think we know.
Who is working on this from the following groups: -PSU -Mechanical -Hardware Let's make sure we root cause this ASAP.
It is P1.last_A -03 PSU. The failure occurred in the EMI filter section of the supply near the ground screw for the last set of Y-caps. From what I could see as well as smell it appeared the fault was high ohmic in nature such that fuse didn't clear. I verified by applying AC and fault is smoking.
Verified that the other PSU has failed as well. Input 0 no output, Input 1 3.3Vaux only. Also, the chassis wouldn't power up with a known good PSU.
Are you guys going to need us to evacuate this chassis?
Dan the chassis will have to be evacuated since a good known supply would not function in it. I was told someone on E's team could look at the chassis and determine if it may be repaired or at least what was the root cause. E, can we show you the chassis and see if it may be inspected by your team? Thanks for all your help today Bob with your quick analysis of the faulty PSUs.
A wonderful alignment last Friday on San Francisco Market Street. Zombie Mob met Critical Mass. It's like peanut butter and chocolate. SFist says, "Zombies + Bikes = Fun." Leave a comment
The other night I dreamt of a visit to Cycle Dog's rustic cabin in the woods around Lake Eufala in eastern Oklahoma. My family and I were there to celebrate Thanksgiving.
I stepped outside and looked up in the early morning sky and watched the Space Shuttle come gliding in VERY low over Chateau CycleDog -- as low as an airplane on final approach. The shuttle was inverted like it is when it's in orbit, and landing lights on the cargo doors lit up the approach into... .Lake Eufala!
I yelled for everybody to come out and we watched the Shuttle glide straight into the Lake, but we weren't concerned about a crash. It was as if it's normal for the Shuttle to land in the lake. There was a radioactive glow at the spot where the shuttle splashed down, like the blue glow where the monsters pop out of the ocean in Japanese monster movies. There was some ominous gurglings and poppings and bubblings and more glowing from the lake, and then it stops.
After this, CycleDog steps out on the lake and that's when we discover that YOU CAN WALK ON WATER. Word gets out, and soon every hillbilly with a 4x4 is driving all over the lake having a grand time. This ANGERs the Bug Eyed Monsters living in the lake, however, and they shoot wooden logs out of the water to make the Bad People go away.
While the Hillbillies scram (as they scream tasukete! and suddenly these hillbillies are Japanese sarariman from the 60s), and a triangular UFO bursts from the lake. This UFO is constructed of logs -- like a log cabin flying saucer. Death Rays shoot from the UFO toward every house and car along the lake, and pretty soon Chauteua CycleDog is a target.
I run into the basement, find a box of wooden toothpicks, glue them into the shape of the log cabin flying saucer, set the UFO model on fire and the log cabin flying saucer also bursts into flames from my successful UFO voodoo. And that's when I woke up.
I went to Flickr to search for something to illustrate this article about harnessing the Jet Stream to generate electricity and found a thousand images of contrails all labeled "Jet Stream." I mean, really.
But back to the story: Some researchers propose mountain turbine-driven generators on monstrous kites that fly up in the Jet Stream. Declares one atmospheric scientist: "My calculations show that if we could just tap into 1 percent of the energy in high-altitude winds, it would be enough to power all civilization. The whole planet!"
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cyclelicious's journal
melancholy
