October 2005


Halloween

I got up at nine this morning, giving me plenty of time to watch the news, browse the net, eat something and get ready for my 11 o’clock class this morning. Today’s French class covered the preposition ‘chez’ and inverse questions. We got our exams back after class, I didn’t do so well. After class I went to Tolliver for a while before getting some lunch at about 1:30. After lunch I sat outside at the red tables for a little while and did some of my French homework. I went back to Tolliver Hall after and remained there for a while. While I was in there it got rather cloudy and dark outside. It started pouring at about 4:15. I was on my computer in Tolliver putting the finishing touches on the website update I’ve been working on for the last two weeks. I got it online at about five. Shortly before six I got something to eat in Tolliver because didn't feel like walking 30 feet in the rain to get to the cafeteria. I went back to my room after I finished eating. There was still a healthy drizzle outside. I just watched some TV before bed.

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Sunday

Like several Sundays past, today was especially devoid of activity. It was a bot warmer today than it has been, but still quite pleasant. I only left my room for a late lunch and dinner. I spent the better part of the day finishing up the upcoming website update.

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LA Tech vs. San Jose

I slept in this morning and ate a little something for breakfast in my room. I didn’t leave until three. Bianca met me in front of Cottingham and we walked over to the stadium. Yesterday I agreed to accompany her to the tailgating festivities. She often takes pictures of the tailgaters for one of the LA Tech websites. Between three and five thirty we walked around a good bit, visited with several people and groups, including the engineering school’s tent. Over the course o the afternoon, we got food from the alumni tent, the engineering tent and the Lincoln parish hospital tent. We left at about 5:30 and went back to her apartment for a while. She reorganized some things in her room and I watched TV for a while. Sometime after seven I walked her over to a friend’s house for some sort of gathering. Her place was a little ways past the stadium. After parting company, I walked back to the stadium and caught the second half of the Louisiana Tech, San Jose game. The second half had just started when I walked in. I ended up sitting with Darren from my dormitory. Just after I found my seat, LA Tech scored a touchdown to break the 14-14 tie. Not long after that they scored again with a highlight film-worth play. After catching the ball on a passing play, an LA Tech receiver fumbled the ball as he was tackled. The ball was immediately picked up by another Tech player and ran to the end zone for a touchdown, bringing the score to 28-14. Later, LA Tech intercepted the ball and got a field goal out of it as the 4th quarter started. That would be the final score of the game for a final of 31-14. After the game, there was a good deal of jubilation from the students and players alike, leading me to believe that this may have been Tech’s last home game? Later this evening I recoded the desktop wallpaper and portfolio content pages on my website.

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Third French Exam

I did a little studying this morning for the French exam, but I don’t think it did much good. I finished the exam at 12:15. Even though I don’t think I did too well, it was a relief to get it out of the way. The only remote concern I have now is the economics exam next Thursday, and I don’t think I need to worry about that. To quote my economics professor: “If you don’t make an ‘A’ on this test, you’re furniture.” I went back to my room after class and had lunch there. I went back out again for dinner but I spent most of the day at home. I did some work on my website this evening.

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Realigning

This morning’s economics class was about exchange rates. He covered some basic points but there wasn’t all that much detail. The session only lasted 45 minutes. I went back to my room after class as it was a bit early for lunch. I ended up eating in my room anyway. I remained in my room until I had to leave for my two o’clock class. I found I got an ‘A’ on the exam I took Tuesday. Today’s sociology class was about family. Most of the material wasn’t exactly news, as is so often the case in that class. This evening’s class was about the beginnings of the civil rights movement in the 50’s. Most of the lecture was about lynchings and the NAACP. I went to dinner after class and then went back to my dorm room. I probably should have spent the whole evening studying for the French exam tomorrow but I just blew the time away and picked at my website a little bit. I’m currently working to “realign” the website a bit, just changing some of the page formatting around. One of the things I’ll be doing is widening the daily log column to finally accommodate the lengthy entries. From this date on, I’m going to try and improve my writing and use paragraphs, as one long and wide block of text looks too imposing on the home page.

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French Exam Review

We reviewed for the upcoming exam in French class this morning. A lot of the review involved Professor De Mattos asking a whole bunch of questions in French. “Quel ge as-tu?” After class I went back to my room for lunch. I think I did my French homework while I was in my room but I’m not entirely sure. I went to the cafeteria to get some dinner sometime after five. It was more crowded than I was in the mood to contend with so I went to Tolliver Hall and got some steak quesadillas. I did my sociology homework while there. The assignment was to do a short cost/benefit analysis of having children. I thought it was an asinine question of several levels and I stated that opinion explicitly on the page. I went back to my room for the evening after I was finished.

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The Dawg House

I was up and ready to go in shorter order that usual this morning. I woke up and nine and had plenty of time to get to my ten o’clock class. Today’s economics session was an over view of the history of tax, from the British navigation acts to the current income tax system. It was a pretty enjoyable lecture considering the material. Professor Blackstock was honest and frank as always. I think my favorite part what when he said “A lot of people think the great depression ended with WWII, not true! We came out of the great depression because FDR died.” After class I walked over to the Dawg House, a ‘sports grill’ just off campus, pretty close to CAB, where my economics class is. Britney from French and Kasey from my history class work there. I got a burger and fries. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a decent hamburger. I walked back to my dorm after class and remained there until about 1:30. I stopped by the housing office to pick up a package. I ordered some new shoe strings for my Chuck Taylor’s but I ordered the wrong ones. These were almost an inch wide. There was an exam in Sociology today. I didn’t find it to be too difficult and I was out the door before 2:30. I went to Tolliver Hall afterward and remained there until almost four. This evening’s history class was a continuation/conclusion of Professor Anderson’s lecture on the cold war. I went to the cafeteria for dinner after class and then went back to my room for the evening. I did a drawing or two for a possible redesign of my website. I managed to get a load of laundry done late this evening.

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Monday

A lot of material was covered in French class today. Some of it was review for the upcoming exam. I think I went back to my dorm after class and had lunch there. I went to the cafeteria for dinner sometime after six. I ate with John and I’m guessing a friend of his, Corwin. Josh joined us later. We all stopped in Tolliver briefly after dinner before we all went home. I didn’t do much this evening outside of cleaning up some tags in my MP3 collection.

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Sunday

I was at home almost all day today. I watched the Saints game on TV. They lost again, mostly the result of a bad call involving what was a nice passing play which was turned into an interception after a Rams player took the ball from the receiver’s hand well after he was down on the ground. The Saints didn’t have any time-outs to challenge the play, which would have surely been reversed. The Raiders won today, which was nice. I had to listen to it online as the game wasn’t on TV here in Ruston, which wasn’t so nice. I did leave my room once today to get some dinner. It was quite brisk outside this evening, almost uncomfortably so the coldest I’ve felt since I got here.

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Homecoming

I only left my dorm today for Louisiana Tech’s homecoming game. I first stopped by the barber shop I patronized last Saturday to pay for my haircut. The three o’clock game was versus North Texas. I walked in the stadium about a half hour before the 3:00 kickoff. The turnout was pretty impressive. There were a large number of parents and alumni. There were over a dozen players from Tech’s 1955 football team in attendance. Tech dominated the whole game. The halftime score was 27-0. The halftime homecoming court presentation was much like the several I’d seen at past Tulane games. The one unusual thing was the Texas kicker that took the field in the middle of the presentation to practice some drop kicks, much to the displeasure of the crowd. He was pretty close to the far right couple. Shortly before the homecoming queen was crowned, the escort on the far right ran over and knocked over the ball that was on the stand, which got quite an enthusiastic reaction from the crowd, or at least the students in the crowd. I left about halfway through the third quarter, as there was no question as to the outcome and my eyes were hurting after being in direct sunlight for a couple hours. I didn’t do anything of circumstance in the evening.

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Parents Visit

It was nice and cool again today. I was up and out the door a bit earlier than usual this morning. I had plenty of time to go to Tolliver and get something to eat before class. Today’s French class dealt with more adjectives and their usage. My parents drove into Ruston this morning, stopping on their way to Georgia. I met them in the Caruthers parking lot after class. After greeting them I directed them to the parking lot in front of my dormitory. They brought number of my things from the house I asked for and a couple boxes of food. After unloading the car to a degree allowing me to fit inside, we went to get something to eat. We ended up a Johnny’s Pizza, which I’ve been told has the best in town. I found it to be pretty decent, better than the cafeteria and Domino’s at least. I wanted to get a mini refrigerator for my room. I’d already seen Wal-Mart’s single offering so I wanted to look elsewhere. We went to True-Value hardware first. They didn’t carry any but the owner, “Mr. B,” who greeted us at the door recommended we check a used appliance store. We drove about a mile to it. They had just one, the same model that Bianca has in her apartment. It was damaged however and the price was far from appealing. We drive back to the strip mall where the hardware store is and checked a couple stores there, none of which carried what we were looking for. I still didn’t have a fridge and I needed a few things anyway so we went to Wal-Mart. We picked up the last mini refrigerator on the shelf. I got a few other things including stuff to put in the fridge like Coke and cherries with stems. Shortly after getting home and getting the fridge into my room, Mom and Dad had to be on their way and left. I spent the rest of the afternoon straightening up. All the things from the house were just put on my bed and scattered elsewhere. I got everything cleaned up and hung the posters I asked for from the house. I went to the cafeteria for dinner. Tulane’s football team lost again tonight.

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700th Post

Today’s Economics class was about the income tax. We did some simple exercises to get a grasp on income tax brackets and the marriage penalty. Afterward we watched a video, which was mostly about how tax money is spent poorly. I went to the cafeteria for lunch afterward and then to Tolliver until my two o’clock. Today’s sociology class was mostly about race. This evening’s history class was a continuation of the lecture on World War II from Tuesday.

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Cafe Du Monde is Open for Business

I put the news on when I woke up this morning. A Fox reporter was doing a live remote from Cafe Du Monde, which reopened at six this morning after having been closed for about six weeks, the longest length of time the Cafe has been closed in its 153 year history. In my opinion, this is one of the most significant signs of returning to ‘normalcy’ in New Orleans yet. Beyond that it was just very nice to see hot beignets being served as I’m quite fond of this particular establishment. I also learned that Snug Harbor, a jazz club which is another favorite place of mine in New Orleans, reopened this past weekend. I left my room shortly after ten this morning, which gave me plenty of time to get something to eat and sit in Tolliver for a little while before heading to this morning’s French class. Today’s session went over facial features again and personality traits. I went to Tolliver Hall after class. I made some updates to the links page on my website. I left there around half past one and went to the cafeteria for lunch. I got some stir-fry and sat with Sara who was already there, although we didn’t exchange many words. I went back to my dorm after lunch. The washing machine was fixed and not in use so I got my stuff in. I remained there until about seven when I left to get some dinner. I went back to Tolliver after dinner and did some homework. I went home at ten.

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History Exam and Wal-Mart

Today’s economics class was about the consumer price index. We used it to compare prices of things today to say 30-50 years ago. We also used it to determine the highest grossing movie of all time in real dollars, basically adjusting for inflation Gone with the Wind. Class ended at quarter to 11, more than somewhat early. I went to Tolliver Hall after class for lunch. I remained there until about three when I went back to my dorm. I called the people who maintain the coin-op washing machines for LA Tech to see if they were aware that the one in my dormitory is broken. They were not. I found this to be pretty asinine as it’s been broken for days and apparently nobody so much as made a phone call to a number posted right on the machine. Anyway, the lady said they’d send somebody. I remained in my room until about quarter to four when I walked to Madison for history class. There was an exam today. It wasn’t difficult. After the test we actually went over the whole thing with answer sheets in hand, and pencils out of sight. I missed 6 of 50. I would have disputed one of what I thought was a poorly worded true or false question but bonus points from previous class work will being my grade up to an ‘A.’ There was a lecture after the test review, which was a very generalized summary of World War II. I went to the cafeteria for dinner after class roast beef sandwich, fries and a slice of pepperoni pizza. I went to Tolliver Hall after dinner. I added a mouse-over on the style sheet switcher GIF on the menu bar of my website which explains the purpose of the three colored boxes. The mouse-over code doesn’t work in Firefox though. I called John in my dorm room sometime around eight to see if anyone had been by about the washing machine. Bianca answered the phone. She said she was about to call me and wanted to know if I wanted to go to Wal-Mart. I had nothing better to so and needed some things so I agreed and headed home. Bianca, John and I left a few minutes later. On the way to ‘the Ruston mall,’ we stopped at Bianca’s apartment to grab some defective picture frames she was going to return. We were at Wal-Mart for about two and a half hours, time which passed rather quickly. Bianca returned her frames with no trouble. She needed a number of things from the store and we wandered around with her for a while. I was very temped to buy a fridge but couldn’t bring myself to purchase the one of the only model they stocked. I just bought some socks and underwear since I was wearing my last clean pair of both and a few extra couldn’t hurt. On the way home we stopped at Bianca’s apartment and helped her carry her things in and visited for a few minutes before John and I headed home. Late this evening I watched the first episode of “The Colbert Report” which aired yesterday and did some of my French homework.

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