Messing with mobile posting.

A flash

I could write a lot of boring stuff here about the past week or two, but I think I'll keep it brief and relatively superficial instead. I moved back to Ames, and I've spent the past week or so getting settled in and relaxing a bit. My semester looks pretty good. It's definitely going to be a little easier than I initially thought it would... but I thought it was going to be hell, so really it's not so far-fetched if it's easier than expected.

My classes are all 10AM or later (Tuesday and Thursday I start at 12:40PM... WOO!) so I get to stay up pretty late every night. This is obviously a good thing, since I'm usually awake whether I want to be or not.

As soon as I got back, I started hanging out with friends that I hadn't seen in far too long. This week I've gotten drunk a couple times with my friend Chris, and played some StarCraft II with him in our spare time. Another friend of ours, Stinn, came back to town the other day, so we all went to Welch Ave and drank with him. That was pretty fun. Got to meet some new people, and made a late-night trip to Perkins. I also saw my friend Emily for the first time in a very long time today, ate Panera and tried gelato (which I'd never had before). That was tons of fun!

What else?... I'm grouping with Mike G. for senior design. For anyone who doesn't know, Mike and I have worked together in several classes, so we're used to it, and we are a pretty awesome team. I am anticipating a pretty good outcome to the project. We still haven't been assigned one, but we're hoping for something to do with embedded systems or possibly virtual reality.

I applied for a full-time position at Omaha Public Power District this week. It's for an EMS engineering position that opened up this past year. I'm not quite ready to commit to a company yet, but it would have been foolish and short-sighted to pass up the opportunity to apply for it, and I like to pretend I'm neither of those things... just for fun though, I know I'm not fooling anyone.

I think that's all the major stuff that's happened this past week. It ended up being longer than I intended, even though I spared most of the minor details and occurrences.

A few random thoughts:

-Dexter is a great show and I wish I had known about it sooner. (Thanks, Chris)
-You know that you've come a long way as a person when someone goes right for the throat in a discussion and tries to hurt you, and you just laugh at them. (This happened recently, and yes I did laugh. Apparently that particular hole in my armor has been patched up. Better luck next time)
-Where has gelato been all my life? Seriously, how had I not tried that stuff before?

I guess that's it for now! Bye.

I was bored, so I wrote this

siren

Dulcet tones

ring out over the open sea.

The sun meets the waves,

reflecting as the surf claps firmly

against the face of cliffs.

Hear those fingers quickly plucking;

each note is thunderous,

even above the ocean's roar.

Solitude is her accompaniment;

there is not another soul here,

yet hers still soars.

Her dark hair flows smoothly

with the wind's caress.

Beautiful brown eyes survey

the endless horizon before her.

Sun-touched skin glows

as dusk draws near.

Surrounding the jagged rocks,

the restless sea hears her song.

Ancient wood hums and sings

as fingers and strings dance on and on.

Caught up

Okay, now all of the content from my old blog has been moved over... Well, all the content I want to keep anyway. Hopefully I can start posting more often now that my summer class is over with. I appear to have aced everything, which is good. I don't think I deserved to, but I won't complain if the graders want to help me out here.

Over the weekend I went up to Raddison Lake in Minnesota with a bunch of friends. We stayed at Brett's cabin and did a lot of shooting, off-roading, swimming and other assorted lake activities. I managed to roll an ATV my second or third time riding one. Live and learn, I guess.

I am unbelievably sleep-deprived, but I've had four really fantastic days. Here's hoping the good times continue as the school year starts up again.

Let's see, what else? I suppose I could mention that Black Wolf (my desktop computer) is finally going to get finished this week in preparation for a good StarCraft II binge before homework piles up. If it would cool down about 10 degrees and 30% humidity then I'd probably get a good bike ride or two in as well, but it looks like I might have to wait until next week for that.

I think that's all I've got for now. Sleep deprivation from last week + epic weekend catching up, brain no think good.

-Ryan

Quick Update (July 19, 2010)

Hokay, here’s the rundown:

- Started P90X last week. It hurts like a bitch, but it WORKS. I can already feel a slight difference in my strength and endurance. Highly recommend this workout.

- I put off my summer class for far too long, and now I get to do basically the whole damn thing in the space of 3 weeks. It does not pay to procrastinate.

- I went out and pre-ordered StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty the other day. It comes out on the 27th at 12:00AM, but I won’t be able to play it until the weekend of August 6th (when my class ends). Needless to say, that weekend I will be drinking and playing a lot of video games (something I haven’t done at home in a very long time…the games, not the drinking).

- I am thinking about developing an Android app this year. Anyone who would like to be a part of the project / has ideas for apps they’d like to see made, feel free to comment or contact me.

- Why do I bother writing on this thing? There are like 15 people who know it exists. Oh well, it’s fun anyway. And I can say funny things, like “Velociraptors will eventually take over the afterlife (after jumping the electric fence separating Raptor Heaven from People Heaven) and fly down on stolen angel wings to feast on our flesh”.

- Okay, maybe that wasn’t so much funny as just weird. I think that’s a pretty good description of my personality in general, though. If you can’t appreciate weirdness, then screw you! I hope the raptors visit you first.

See you in a couple weeks once this damn class is over with (possibly before then if I decide to write angsty posts about how much procrastination blows).

-Ryan

Elemental

Steady earth beneath my feet,

and raging fire within me meet.

The earth gives solace,

calm, and ease.

The flames roar higher,

scorching sensibility.

The torrent of fire seems inconsolable;

it rushes with anger, pride and love.

It hungers for my peace,

devouring it, breaking my resolve.

My only hope is to bring my feet

back to solid ground.

To choose calm over chaos,

to feel nothing rather than hurting.

Far too obvious,

the solution lies in front of me.

As the bottle drains, so do I.

Together now, we are empty.

—————————————

Just some freeverse I threw together the other night. Before you go “oh, Ryan’s so emo, blah blah”, let me just say that this was more of an exercise than anything, although I definitely have had nights like this before.

Too busy to breathe (Jun 23, 2010)

I don’t have a whole lot of time to write, so quick run-down:

Last Thursday-Sunday:

Table Rock Lake. It was awesome. We boated, tubed, ate lots of things we shouldn’t have, drank excessively, did karaoke, and watched movies on the projector screen out in the patio. I got horribly sunburnt, but it was well worth it, and now I’ve got a tan! Thanks, Arab heritage! Pics on Facebook if you’re interested.

This week:

22nd birthday was yesterday, which was a pretty good time. Didn’t do a whole lot, pretty much just went out to eat at Upstream (which is a great place, for those of you who haven’t been there). This weekend I’ll do a better job of celebrating that in Ames!

Next Week:

Daily routine of summer class, work, guitar, exercise and other assorted activities resumes, followed by a trip up to Minneapolis to celebrate the 4th of July with my friends Brett, Kassie and Mike. Can’t wait for that.

I suppose the last thing on my mind is that Mother Nature seems to be trying to turn Omaha into a lake. So much rain! And the storm last night must have been a bad one, because this morning my neighborhood looked like a horde of disgruntled lumberjacks had run through the area hacking limbs off trees at random.

I don’t have a better ending for this post than that. Oh well!