spectastic

this is why I never hang out with my family. I'm sure there exists the cover photo family that have awesome dinners and traditions during Thanksgiving, wild Christmas parties, and in this case, rejoicing all around for the new graduate. But I also realize that there are many families (more than some realize) that are just totally dysfunctional. at some point, I just stopped giving a shit; I didn't walk during graduation, because I didn't want to pay for the overpriced gown, and I didn't value my parents' relationship with me enough to do it for them either. so you're not alone. and take it in stride. you have a nice spouse and paris was awesome.

can I have your old phone?

there's an easy fix. get on your bikes and ride!

how to passive aggressively deal with dipshit roommate leaving month long dirty dishes in the sink, and lying through his teeth about it not being his.

i love riding motorcycles. so fun to have the wind in your face. It's almost as liberating as riding a bicycle. also easier to wrench, cheaper insurance, easy to find parking, cool AF. safety is usually not an issue if you have taken the safety course, and try to stay out of busy, highly congested areas during rush hour.

but flight is sooooo much cooler.

I was waiting at a stop light on my bicycle commute home at night, and witnessed a head on collision. It happened in 2 seconds, and took place in my 10 o'clock peripheral, so I didn't catch how it happened, but rather only saw the aftermath. The suv took the hit head on, and pretty much stayed there. the smaller car got hit on the side, and spun a good 10-15 meters. everyone got out of their cars without injury, which was good. The bad, someone was being an idiot, and trying to run a red light... at full speed, and both cars are totaled. as a cyclist, I've heard maybe 3-4 stories now within the last few seeks of cyclists getting hit by cars. I've also had some near misses with people driving while stupid. The traffic situation here is getting hairy..

I did look into the amazon stuff. It's great for the casual stuff that I mentioned. however, I ended up picking an android because my phone is android. the google app store is much more varied than the amazon app store, which makes it good for traveling later on, so it ends up being a trade off between price+simplicity (Amazon) and performance+quality+versatility (Nexus). and holy cow, this thing blows me away. say "ok google" and it googles! i'm like joaquin phoenix in "her." I'm not a gadget freak and this voice command thing has been around for a while, but got to hand it to them, this is pretty sweet. any my big ass galaxy now feels like a midget.

I think the super memory would be nicely complemented by a better processor. I believe that hyperthymesia is a condition typically associated with savants. There's also a theory out there that suggests that the reason why we forget stuff is because our mind is disposing of unimportant info to make room for the important stuff. So it's like clearing the cache to make life a little easier.. so to speak. But I'm no brain surgeon

Snagged a Nexus 9 off of Craigslist. Pretty cool. I can definitely read papers with this. Looks like a winner

thanks for the suggestion. my search led me to nexus 7, which seems to be one of the more popular tablets. The only thing is that the nexus 7 is about an inch bigger than my phone. The next size up nexus 9 is 2x the cost. sucks I don't mind reading books on a 7" tablet. I don't know about research papers though. I believe kindle uses a 7" screen right? do you read papers on it?

I'm looking for a compact little tablet for reading papers, ebooks, listening to audiobooks, and watching videos. my smartphone is a little small. I'm thinking a 10" screen would be nice. any suggestions for something <$200?

good info. and no judgement taken. I just think it's totally plausible to narrow down the tenant pool to graduate students, as opposed to say.. freshmen (don't mean to generalize, just common sense), and open the doors to young professionals as well. In addition, hopefully grad school doesn't render us total hermits to society in that we actually have time to get out, meet people, and develop relationships, because I think the ideal scenario is to have someone you know live there. There's mutual trust, and greater probability for a long term tenant that's also low maintenance. 25 hours/week? call me sally. I suppose it never hurts to learn more. I mean.. 125k savings? that's not chump change.

the problem with living on a sublease is that you don't get to pick your roommates. there's 4 of us, and one of them is a serious dumbfuck. never cleans dishes (there was this one time when the sink was full for a month, filled with his shit, until I put it all in a bin, and left it outside, it was disgusting; another time, one of the other poor roommates cleaned the mess up for him and followed up with a sign "I'm not your maid..."), always sets the AC super low, does nothing but play video games late into the night (the walls are really thin btw), and most recently, has a dog that he does not really care for. The dog spends all day, by herself, in his room. the dog acquired fleas, which it has passed onto my cat. the dog has shitted on the living room carpet, which I've cleaned up twice. Today was the third time. I knocked on his door at 2 am, as he was playing video games, as usual, except he came answering the door with a towel around him, and made him clean it up. I'm not in the mood to berate someone, because that's seldom helpful, but this guy appears to be a lost fucking cause... it's like his mom wiped his ass up until he moved out of the house at 18, and doesn't possess the sense or responsibility to function as a normal citizen. I'm inclined to report this to animal protection services, because the dog doesn't deserve this either.

are you in texas?

looks like my plan to tour on the motorcycle is pooped. engine still needs to be swapped. got one sourced in california, but it'll take a week to get here. probably going to take me a whole weekend of work.. maybe it'll be money well spent if I can convince a mechanic I know to help me out for a tip... I want to go explore hill country sooo baaadddd. ya don even know

he/she is going to be disappointed in a decade, when renewables explode in growth

it appears that most people hold the notion that when they graduate, they are obligated to sell the property. I don't understand this. If you can find a deal, especially a condo that's relatively low maintenance, and the mortgage is lower than the average rent in the area, then you have the opportunity to generate cash flow on that property, and have another revenue stream. I think the risk can be minimized with proper due diligence on market trends, fees/interest/taxes and the property itself. But other than that, what am I missing? Also, how are you guys finding places for sale? real estate agents? local listings? word of mouth? craigslist? how much time do you invest in this type of stuff?

yes woo! apparently, you only need to do 3 cat A races in order to qualify for nationals. wouldn't that be a privilege, to race against the best in the nation, future pros, and olympians. the team had one guy in the race, put in 2x more hours this this and better than me all around, but was pretty much pack filler. one of the local prodigies racing for a&m got 3rd in the crit, I think.

what about FSAE? that sounds very interesting, but also sounds like a huge time sink... looks like solar car, but for the big boys

reading sucks. I wish there's a way I can download knowledge into my brain. Think about it, if people could do that, humanity would make more advancements in a couple of generations than all of human history. also, immortality would be nice, the one that wolverine has. I don't really care about the claws, just don't let me die.

i had a professor in religious studies once. he told me that there are three types of people... those who can count, and those who can't.

Past card. Good one. I'm doing that

valid point. I've done TA before, and I don't think it's really 20 hrs. But every program is different. They might put me in 2 labs, or have extra hours of recitation, who knows. The thing that sucks the most is the grading, I agree, especially midterms. We had to work past midnight to get everything done, and that just didn't mesh well with a full course load, with senior projects, and all that.

guys, I found the guy that previously held this position.