So you want to go to college?

I have to admit that I have loved the idea of higher studies for a long time. I have been through it for more than 3 years now and I will say that I have actually lived during these years. This does not reflect in anyway as to my upbringing as a boy. But as a college student you go through many things that you just don't expect to go through when you are at home. You deal with people, situations and events. You learn to make mature friendships and learn to nurture them through many obstacles. That's a time in a person's life where everything is in such flux that no matter which way they decide to go they always have a a chance to go another way if they want to.

One thing that I do greatly admire and appreciate about college study is the amount of technical thinking, innovation and imagination that takes place. Being an engineer I especially look forward to attending the graduate thesis defenses that happen at the end of every semester. These are some of the best and brightest that the school has to offer and they present their best work to an interested and knowledgeable audience. It has to be a high-point in any person's life to do something like this. Obviously the end result of this is that you pass and get a degree from the school where you have spent a major part of your last few years. It is definitely an exhilarating feeling. One to cherish for a long time.

People who do go to college and have the facility to do a higher-level of thinking and imagine and create wonderful things must realize how lucky they are. These opportunities are not availabe to everyone and will never be available to many. These are definitely a blessed lot. Once you realize that I think you will put a lot more effort into your work and a lot more zeal towards reaching your goal.

Education - it is an interesting and a wonderful thing. You have to learn to love it though.

All in a text editor, eh?

Have always been a fan of the "vim " command on unix. It is usually the most powerful command I use due to the fact that I use it to change the config files for just about everything.

Two reasons I like vim:
1. Very simple to look at as an experienced user, but extremely hard to look at as a beginner. A great way to show off skills.
2. On a more serious note, it allows for greater viewing space especially on a small monitor without too much resolution. It is a blank screen for crying out loud; therefore, you can use the whole screen to edit whatever file you want to.

I have no aversion to emacs, joe, pico, nano or any of the other editors. I just like vim because I have been used to it for a while now. Initially when I started out learning linux I spent some time actually learning the vi commands. Gradually I got used to doing the "Esc + wq" and things of that sort and eventually I couldn't live without it.

The bad side effect of all this is of course that I can't use a text editor like notepad anymore. Everytime I finish a paragraph or want to take a break from writing I keep pressing Esc+wq. Very frustrating when working in windows.

Anyone else have this problem?

Let's Rhumba, Cha-Cha and Tango together!!

Well, that was a heck of a weekend I should say. If anyone at all has experienced the joy of learning something new and enjoying it while doing so then I can bet half of them are talking about learning to dance. I happened to go to a little workshop for learning a few Latin dance moves this weekend. This workshop was for 3 kinds of dances the Rhumba, the Cha-Cha and the Tango. If anyone has seen these dances when danced by professionals you'll see why it is so much fun learning these dances.

If anyone has seen the little dance performed by Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones in "The Mask of Zorro" you will see the passion, the motion and the raw emotion that any dance can bring out. It was a great experience. Dancing is all about showing emotion, feeling and experiencing it in an almost pure form. It is a beautiful coalescent of feelings. If you haven't tried these yet you're missing out on a lot of fun. Take my advice and try it, you just might enjoy it.

So the DNC wants a nominee?

So, now we are I guess in the home stretch of the debates' cycle. The democrats should decide soon who is going to take on the mighty 'bush'. Anyone who is up on the news knows that the democrats get another chance tonight (Nov. 4, 2003) to show off to their young voters. I think all candidates need to address this demographic a little more. Especially the college students. These college students are going to be graduating soon and their lives can change by the policies that the next administration is going to enact. The reason why college students don't turn out to the polls is because they are a neglected lot and they don't feel that they can make things any better by voting. I mean as far as the Presidential candidates are concerned they don't even consider these young voters to be an important demographic, until NOW!. Now everyone wants votes and democrats will not win this race if they ignore this population.

Finally they are making some sense and concentrating on attracting younger voters. If you build loyalty among these guys now they will serve you for a long time. That should be reason enough to go to them. Anyway, I hope they do a good job tonight on the CNN.

However, in all honesty I don't expect the democrats to even give a fight now. I mean come on Bush is leading in all the polls and it turns out that he is doing something for the economy. If he can turn it around come November next year I don't see anyone stopping him. The democrats are a lost cause they don't seem to have a clear agenda to fight Bush on. I know there are few problems in the present administration but so were the previous ones. What matters is that do the good things outweigh the bad things. As of this last month it looks like it. The economy is slowly gearing up and hopefully it will maintain a steady growth rate. That's what's important, "Steady growth rate". Anyway, let's see how that goes...

Now that's football...!!

If anyone caught the matchup between the Vikings and the Packers last night they were in for some good stuff. Favre was more than his best he was amazing. There are not enough words to describe what Green did. One hell of a game. There is no point being sarcastic about this game at all.

I wanted the Vikes to win after that defeat to the giants last week. But, the way the Packers played I think they deserved to win and what a way to save the season for them. That Favre showed he is no less of a tough customer than he was during the last decade. Good luck Brett!!

Another game to watch last weekend was the OSU vs PSU. Now that is what I call a photo-finish. Though I feel that OSU did not win morally. That 1st down call just before last touchdown was not right and they should have discussed that play properly before calling it. They should have the same review capabilities as the NFL man. That was a key game and now PSU falls back. This is crazy OSU does not deserve to be in 6th now.

That bring me to another one of Saturday's games. Hurricanes vs. Hokies. Now that started out as a real slug-fest but the Hurricanes just petered out at the end maan!! The key being the 3 interceptions by the Hokies. And boy they made those interceptions count, didn't they? It was one hell of a game to watch. I stayed up all the way until midnight to watch this game. You could tell that Miami pretty much lost all hope after that 3rd INT. You could see the loss in their faces. Then everyone started losing their temper. This kinda thing happens when you start losing so badly that you can't even talk about it the next day.

Anyway, good luck to all the teams coming next week. But, watch out the "Tide" is going to roll again. "ROLL TIDE" baby!!