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Penny wise …pound foolish

Yep..you heard me right..penny wise pound foolish……It ‘s actually a quote that has been around  for while …I have no idea who came up with it, but i see it played out in my life on a daily basis..It is basically the inclination to worry a lot about the little things that don’t really matter , which then takes your attention off of the big fish…..get my drift.

Classic example–I got a car last spring and at the time my goal was to get the cheapest possible thing on four wheels that could move from point A to B…How modest I was ..I did find what I then considered to be a good deal -  a ’98 Nissan for $2k.  It had a lot of baggage though…seems like the previous owner gave Neil Armstrong and the Apollo boys a run for their money, …dude almost made it to the moon because the mileage on the car was 200, 000 miles (321,868.6 km) [center to center earth - moon distance: 384, 403km]…But my point is that since I got this car, I’ve spent at least $1k on maintenance, and the potential of spending even more just presented itself (…gosh those nasty oil / transmission leaks)..

If I had coughed out a little extra money back then and  got a better  car , I might just be singing a different tune right now…I guess when you find yourself under tight budget constraints, some of the decision you make seem logical until they come back later to haunt you

Stand up comedy

Hey guys, I know I haven’t really been blogging a lot these days…totally apologise to my fans (……you wish). Anyways I have been watching some stand up comedy stuff on youtube and such and though I’d share my top picks..I watched a lot of Dave Chapelle stuff from back in the day…he wasn’t too bad but by no means great. So here’s the list

1. Pablo Francisco (i totally love his previewman parody)

2. Russell Peters (has a lot of indian humor, but he rocks )
3. Chris Rock

To explore : George Gomez, and all the other comedy folks out there who consider themselves good

Amazing Grace

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!

Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promis’d good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.

John New­ton, Ol­ney Hymns (Lon­don: W. Ol­i­ver, 1779)

Curve Ball

One constant thing you’ll notice is that life is full of suprises,..some of them good and others bad. Yeah, sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you stop to ask yourself, Why me? What have I done wrong? But hey, MLK said; what you do in moments of adversity and turmoil determines your true character. Sometimes it might be too hard to bear, and you may not  have a shoulder to cry on.  Other times you try to pretend nothing is wrong and lock things up inside so tight that your muscles hurt. But there comes a time when you have to let go and  you realize that you cannot change the past, but you can live in the present and future in a way to reflect your losses but also champion the fact that there can be a better tommorrow.

New Year Resolution

I have come to the realization that the year is almost gone and at this point most people start to compound lists upon lists of things they would like to achieve in the comming year. How about I make a bunch of new year resolutions?, cliche..Chances are most people will stick to the master plan for a month or two then drop off eventually..Little wonder why Golds Gym and all those fitness places make tons of money from people who had hoped to stay in shape all year.

Okay, I admit it , I’m guilty too..I remember in my youth days my folks would make us write a list of very specific goals we wanted to achieve the next year, I remember always starting my list with “I want to come first in my class next term (finish at the top of my class at the end of the term)”. Boy, have I grown out of those days.

I really wouldn’t say that I have seen everything life has to offer, but from the little of this life that I experienced and seen, I know that very specific goals and needs won’t do it anymore. So for the next year I want to live my life in a such a way that I’ll show my creator that I really appreciate the priviledge he has given me to remain on this planet. I want to experience joy and also spread and share this joy with friends and family. I want to labour each day like there was no tommorrow, and appreciate each passing day like it was my last. Call me selfish, but I would like to be really successful, so I would strive to reinvent myself in the professional sense and otherwise and surround myself with people that can help me acheive those dreams.

At the end of the year I would like to look back and say; Papa thank you for everything with the greatest conviction in my heart, and most importantly I just don’t want to live through this life, I want to really live…

Unsung Hero

So I was at the local freebird’s burrito joint chewing down on my 10 inch lenght , 6 inch diameter monster burrito. I was really hungry that day and I wanted to get maximum utility out of my $6.50..Chowing down on that monster just made my day. So as I was tasking my mandibles to their capacity, I overheard the guy next to me talking to the student manager of freebirds  about operations research and increasing efficiency by utilizing infinite probability distribution. This guy sitting next to me looked just like a classic hippy (slurred speech, southern accent , dirty and shabby beard)…oh yeah the classic hippy….but I heard these big words emanating from his mouth, so I listened further and he was still trying to explain how freebirds management could use the results of gaussian approximation to effectively model demand and supply through that branch…I was like oh my God …this is no fluke . this guy is for real….so I took it upon myself to engage this guy in a conversation. I casually asked him if he knew anything about the Poincare conjecture , this problem was setup by Poincare in the early 1900′s and it had puzzled mathematicians for decades.  I remember it was solved in 2003 by a Russian math guru. I still recall this because my calculus professor at the time walked into class looking so excited because the conjecture had been solved..Anyways , my newly found friend started explaining the basics of the conjecture and proudly claimed that he had solved it working independently in 2005 using only 95 equations…I didn’t know whether to be suprised or awe-struck or amazed …I was like this guy must be a genius…He kept throwing around big words like mathematical simplices, curvilinear interpolation, newton approximation…After talking for a while he explained that he retired in the 80′s and just had math as a hobby right now and funny enough, his background was in chemistry. He also explained bernoulli’s equation and some other random concepts. Some of them I had heard off while the rest I hadn’t…In all I ended up spending about 35 minutes with this dude…He is obviously good at his stuff, maybe he just lost it somewhere along the way…The whole encounter was just like from a movie script …kind of reminds me of the movie Good Will Hunting….pheww..

immortal beloved pt.2

I got a messge from my “belle”, so obviously I must have left a positive impresson;
They say first impressions last the longest;
I am so excited, but maybe for the wrong reasons;
Could it be that we share a lot in common;
Or is fate playing tricks on me;
I sincerely hope not, cos I couldn’t bear it;

Project for a month

I think i work better if i have a project spread over a reasonable amount of time. I want to start more short term projects with very realizable result in just a month.I have had these wild ideas about starting my own company but it’s like i’ve had a problem comming up with a killer plan or some idea that would be sustainable for a while at least. Is it that I lack the entreprenual zeal and prowess required to execute or I just need to find someone who has the skills I lack so we can make a perfect team? So I hope for November I can come up with a project which can realizable in month..Some of the ideas i have juggling around are

1. Start hatching ideas for an embedded design for my senior project
2. Do a crash course in C programming and relearn all the things I’m supposed to know to get ready for the long stretch of job interviews in the spring
3. Do a linux crash course
4. Start work on a Tic Tac Toe game to be implemeted in C or C++(I’ll have to learn it first), and hook it up with a custom touch panel display via an FPGA board…
5. Learn how to solve a rubik’s cube and then Implement solver in software

…still brainstorming……..

I hope to come up with something solid in the next couple of days….hopefully something i can still do with classes and all

Thanks Big dude

Hiya,
I know i haven’t been as dedicated in my faith in the past couple of years….but I’m comming around.. I have needed a couple of questions answered in the past weeks and you came through…I’m in the process of turning things around ….slow and steady.

Mistaken Identity

On a quiet saturday evening , I received a text message, that really caught me off guard. The content of this text message was actually a little disturbing, and I still don’t know who sent it.

From: Unknown
Callback # : Unknown
Date: 10/13/07  8:25pm

Message: N i bet u dnt think u doin me no kind of way. I can’t believe u n yo ways. How can u do ya girl like dis n not carE.

>>wow, that was a mouthful. At first I thought i had a girl friend somewhere I had not called in a while, but of course that wasn’t the case, then i did some soul searching to see if I had hurt anyone unknowingly in the past weeks. Still baffled by the randomness, I almost reached the conclusion I had executed a hit and run without even knowing it. One minute later,  I get another text message , probably from the same person

From: Unknown
Callback # : Unknown
Date: 10/13/07 8:26pm

Message: My bad. Wrong number

 big relief,.. next time check that number twice before you hit the send button

Immortal Beloved

Some have said , she dosen’t even exist, but i beg to differ;
I think I was blessed yesterday ,and i had a dream come true;
I approached slyly and introduced myself, and she responded in kind;
Oh me  oh my, immortal beloved…you put me at loss for words;
Your beauty radiates brighter than the glow of a thousand suns;
You smile redefines morining glory;
Your poise and tact indicate you are a woman of character;
If only you knew how I felt about you;
I shall probably not see you for a while;
But be rest assured that my heart goes with  you where ever you are;
Till we meet again, my immortal beloved;

bibliography tool

I just came across a really neat bibliography tool. It ‘s online and it’s free. You can create and edit your bibliography. You can also share it with friends for group papers and such…Of course there’s endnote but that costs money http://www.easybib.com/ 

enjoy….

Nobel men and woman

Every year when the Swedish kingmakers decide who gets pat on the back and about $1.5 million , you find a lot people in disarrray and contemplation.They basically give you a phone call to announce it and you get to use/keep all that cash and bragging rights for life as a distinguished nobel laureate. You are considered a beacon of and grandmaster in your field.

This years’ awards went to a distinguished set of people.  English novelist , Doris Lessing  (b. 1919) took away the prize in literature for “that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny” . The prize in medicine was shared by Mario R. Capecchi, Sir Martin J. Evans, Oliver Smithies

 

“for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells”. Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg took away the prize in physics “for the discoveryof Giant Magnetoresistance”, which has helped in development of gigabyte density disk drives. At least something  practical. All those ipods and mp3 devices with huge

drives depend on this technology.It’s interesting how the European have had a hold on the physics prize. From the days of Schrodinger, Bohr, Dirac, etc. It’s like it’s the Europeans vs the Americans, at least all those billions the US spends on R&D is paying off. Gerhard Ertl won the prize in Chemistry “for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces”

The peace prize went to Al”Mr. Global Warming”Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”. Al Gore since he lost the closely contested 2000 US Presidential elections has become a poster boy for global warming. His documentary An Inconvinient Truth hauled in two Oscar s and numerous other awards.

It would have been really interesting if Gore was in the race for the democratic nomination. With a nobel prize and two oscars in his war chest, he would probably shoot up in the polls. Classic example of how a group of people would meddle with a nations’ internal politics,..kind of reminds me of the movie Manchurian Candidate. The winner of the econimics prize is yet to be announced. I salute ye noble men and woman for making the world a better place..

Marion, you let me down….really

I remember vividly almost seven years ago, just before the summer Olympics started in Sydney, Australia , there was a lot of hype about all the super-star athletes taking part in the games. To me , it was a memeorable fariy tale. I had just finished my high school earlier in June 2000, so I had a lot of free time on my hands because I wasn’t going to start college till the next January. Though I was preparing for the GSCE exam , I had a lot of free time which I devoted solely to watching the heats for most of the events of the Olympiad.

I must say I was really inspired, the Olympic games was the true emboidment of the human spirit. Our urge to rise above all obstacles. Watching all those fine athletes compete and hammer it was just priceless. The best of them were the likes of record breaking Michael Johnson, Hale Gabrelsalesia, Cathy Freeman, Michael Phelps and Marion Jones.

Out of tar heel territory came the young budding sprinter with a tenacity and drive to become the best. Marion, you really inspired me. Your haul of 3 gold and 2 bronze medals was unprecedented. I loved watching you run. The way you would leave the rest of the field behind like they weren’t even there. You were my true Olympic Champion. You wanted sometihing and you worked hard for it and you got it, or so I thought.

Marion Jones admitted to having used performance enhancng drugs prior to tthe games in 2000. From the look of things she did it knowingly. At first I just though it was just the media trying to pound her for information that wasn’t there. Her string of relationships from C.J. Hunter to Tim Montgomery who were linked to the BALCO scandals was just like a trail of dirt..

I was your one true fan and i ‘m really disappointed. Well I must applaud you for your strength, comming foward after all this while and cleaning things up. Everyone makes mistakes, no one is perfect by any means. Your ability to come foward tells greatly of your character. Why you fought the media off  all these years will remian unknown to us, but I wish you luck as you try to rebuild things…..

24 + 1

Sometimes, i really feel that there needs to be 25 hours in a day. It’s just one hour ..who’s really going to notice if we change things around a little bit? I’m at that point in the semester where all the different dots have started comming together, and you wonder why everything isn’t as random anymore..Anyways..i’m still up for the 25 hour day..I wonder who i need to talk to effect that kind of change

If you don’t try then you’ll never know

In the past couple of days, i have experienced a wierd jolt of inspiration, I almost feel like I have everything in control. I’ve been a lot more productive and thats actually good. I should probably go dig up that long to do list and start knocking off the things on the list. In the same vein, i just came across this really good youtube video, and i have ended up listening to it probably more than i should in the past couple of days. It has a really deep but simple message….enjoy

So I’m back

Howdy,

Dear, avid internet reader thanks a bunch for visiting my blog…I don’t really have a lot on it right now, but i plan to blog as much as i can in the comming weeks, months and years,…keeping you updated with interesting things I experience, places I visit, people I meet and random thoughts and musings . I promise to be as honest as i can . If you’re not bored already then that’s a very good sign.

thanks for stopping by.

Hello world!

Hello World!,  glad to finally meet you