Check it out

Here's my actual blog: http://spivonious.spaces.live.com/
There's not much there either, but at least you can see some pics of the pup! :)

A Third Post?!?!?!

Yes I know my blog titles are very creative :).

Today I worked what I think is the longest shift I've ever worked. 5:30AM to 4:00PM. Man are those Black Friday shoppers crazy! The minute the doors opened at 6AM they all ran in an staked claims on the items they wanted. It was probably also fueled by the fact that Sears was giving away $10 to the first 25 people through the door. I'm in Appliances, so we weren't too busy, as not too many people give washing machines for Christmas.

Anyway, my record for the longest shift will be broken tomorrow. I work 6:30AM-5:00PM at Sears, and then drive over to Gamestop from 5:00PM until we close. All totaled out it will probably mean 15.5 hours of work. Ugh. However, this day alone will probably fund my entire Christmas shopping this year. Let's see...6:30-5 @ $8/hr and 5-10 @ $5.15/hr. That's $84 + $25.75, or $109.75 for the day. Counting today's $84 and Sunday's 7-8 hours at Sears, that's almost $250 before taxes. Not bad for three days work. If I could do that every weekend (not that I want to; I'm exhausted) that would be $1000 a month, which I could definitely use. Oh well, Christmas Break is coming soon, right? :)

Speaking of Christmas Break reminds me of my schedule fiascos. I'm forced to take two comp sci courses next semester instead of one because my transferred courses didn't count for enough credit. That's fine with me, since I wanted to take two anyway. The problem occurs in the fact that I need more music courses than I can take. Let me explain:

For my B.A. in Music I need to take two music electives. I'm taking one this semester: Popular Music. Next semester the only music electives being offered are Popular Music. Do you see the problem? I also need one more 'W' course. After moving a course to the winter session (I'm not too happy about having to shell out even more money to MU) I made enough room to take both comp sci courses. There is no room for an extra music course. And isn't the last semester supposed to be an easy one? Mine's ending up to be 20.5 credits.

All I can say is that it's a good thing I applied for that loan, since there's no way I'm going to be able to make any sort of money next semester with that courseload. Hopefully most of my courses don't require too much out-of-class time. The only thing that I'm expecting is a ton of reading (being that I'm taking Italian Renaissance, Music History II, Artifical Intelligence, and Software Engineering).

Sorry Dr. Mollah, I never got to take one of your classes. :(

A Second Post!?!??!

It's amazing, and I never thought it would happen, but here I am at this Blogger site again. Perhaps reading Bretz's post about the Opeth concert spurred me to write another entry. However, I've already made a blog post about the show at Xanga (www.xanga.com/spivonious).

I was reading through Drs. Elzer and Mollah's previous posts and saw the Scotland was mentioned. I visited Scotland this past Spring Break. My excuse was to visit my girlfriend who was studying abroad at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, but really I wanted to see some of another country that wasn't Canada. Nothing against Canada, it has some really beautiful places (Nova Scotia comes to mind) but it still has an American feel to it. So a trip out of the country was the natural thing to do.

During my stay in Scotland (which has the most spectacular scenery I have every seen -> the highlands = majestic images of divinity) I spent most of my time in Glasgow, getting used to the European city. It is truly amazing how different cities in Europe are. First of all, the public transportation is clean, cheap, and goes everywhere. Second, there are tons of places to go. Third, and perhaps the coolest part, is that all of the buildings are old. Not American old, where if something is 50 years old it's heralded as a monument to the past. European old. If the building was built after 1850 it's new. It was quite an experience to walk into an old Victorian highrise and see a completely modern Border's bookstore. Even the fast food places were old on the outside.

Speaking of fast food reminds me of the exchange rate. When I went over, it was about $1.95 to 1 pound. At first I was in a bit of shock at seeing a Big Mac extra value meal cost 4 pounds ($8), and a cheap CD cost 12 pounds ($24). But after spending some time with my girlfriend's flatmates (who were all Scottish), I learned that their minimum wage was 4 pounds an hour. That puts it all in perspective: In the U.S. a meal costs $5 (about one hour of work). In the UK a meal costs 4 pounds (about one hour of work). That helped me understand the exchange rate much better.

Even though everything was twice as much, we made an effort to go see things. Since I was only there for a week we wanted to do a lot of little trips rather than one big trip that would take the whole time (i.e. trip to London, or trip to Paris, etc.). We took a bus out to Sterling, which is a wonderfully cute little town with a huge castle overlooking it on a dormant volcano. Castles are the coolest building ever invented. I even sat in the throne and got a photo of it.


How cool is that?

We took some small trips around the city of Glasgow, and then spent a few days in Liverpool. Yes, I know it's not in Scotland, but it's right across the border into England. Wow is their accent strange! This lady was talking to us on the train and I seriously could only pick out every third word or so. I had no problems in Glasgow, but these Liverpoolians have one crazy way of speaking. Since Laura is a huge Beatles fan (she later went to London and visited Abbey Road) we went on all of the Beatles tours and even had a pint in the Cavern Club (where the Beatles got their start). This including the Magical Mystery Tour, complete with authentic 1960s tour bus. Among the tour stops, Paul's house, George's birthplace, Strawberry Fields, and Penny Lane.



It was tons of fun, and we stayed in this old Victorian hotel for super cheap since we got a late booking deal (normally 250 pounds a night, we stayed their for 70 pounds).

This post has gotten very long, and I have Database tomorrow, so I'll leave you with that. If you ever have a chance to go to Europe, take it immediately. Sell your car if you have to; it is that awesome. Oh and I doubt the anonymous commenter on Elzer's post about Scotland will read this, but Glasgow's favorite team is not the Rangers (although they do have a following). It's the Celtics (oddly enough, pronounced like the Boston NBA team).

First Post??

I already have a Xanga blog, but I like this site better, so I'm going to try it out for a little while.

Just to address a few things in my profile: shredding on a guitar refers to playing very fast while soloing. I'd put myself in the "above average" category for guitar playing. Also, if you don't know who Opeth is, go out and buy Blackwater Park right now. Try to listen past the death metal growls to the excellent music behind them. Soon you'll learn to like the growls, and will have trouble imagining how the music would sound without them.

Dr. Elzer is awesome. By far the best teacher I've had for a Comp Sci course so far. The other two have been Webster and Liffick. Liffick was good, if a little unorganized. Webster is responsible for deforesting Brazil. Databases is fun; I'm learning a lot more than I did at my internship over the summer, which is good. I know that this stuff will definitely show itself again in my career.

I really don't have much to post, so this is the end. Perhaps I'll post again.