Well two more hurdles have been hurdled. I’ve gotten my in-state residency status and I’m officially enrolled as a full-time student at Portland State University.

I’ve got a couple more little hurdles and some paperwork to get done but the seas are looking smoother. This is good. School starts on September 27th and I haven’t enrolled in classes yet, I still need to get that done once I’m allowed to. I guess I need to figure out when that is; I may have to wait until I attend the mandatory orientation first, I dunno.

But the two biggest obstacles are overcome. In 4 weeks my blogging will drop to almost zero again as I become entrenched back the horrors of our education system.

Tomorrow I go out and get a Viking tattoo…

I have officially turned in my application for residency as well as my application for admission to Portland State University. Transcripts should also be on the way soon. Now I just wait.

Hopefully smooth seas are up ahead.

Hmm, do I have any homework due? Umm, no, I don’t think so. Any exams coming up? Wait, let me check… nope. How about work, any of that going on? No, doesn’t look like any of that either. Well well, if I didn’t know better, I’d say I was on vacation! Wait, wait… I think I am on vacation! In fact I think I’m on:

Summmm…

Errrr…

VACATION!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

School is done! This is my first actual Summer vacation in 17 years. So I guess I now need to figure out how to fill my next three months. Here’s what I’ve got on the list so far:

Get my license transferred & car registered

OK, so I think you’ll enjoy this story. In order to go camping I’ll need to drive to whatever campsite I end up selecting as my cherry popper. While my Texas drivers license is still valid, the registration for my car has expired. Now in order to register the car in Oregon I’ll need to get an Oregon driver’s license. Well to get the ball rolling last week I headed down to the DMV to get my license.

Now Oregon requires you to retake the non-driving portion of your exam if you’re transferring your license from another state. Stupid, right? Well it’s $5 and not a choice, so I dropped a five and took the silly test. I’ve been driving for 14 years now, what do I care about a beginner’s test? So yeah, I failed it.

In my meager defense the test had all these questions that were obviously designed to test if you read their stupid manual. So on top of my list: get myself back on the road.

Go camping

As I’ve already mentioned I’ll be going camping for the first time in my life this Summer. I’ll go at least once, but if I like it expect to hear about me going 3 or 4 times this Summer.

Calculus

Ah yes, I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned my need to catch up on math before. Now however it’s really becoming do-or-die time. With the upcoming Fall I’ll be taking the math courses needed to finish up the degree. In my case it’ll be calc 4, linear algebra, and differential equations. So this Summer I’ve got to reaquaint myself with all the math I’ve forgotten.

ARM processor

For those who aren’t aware, in order to insure my Geek Card remains valid I’ve got to maintain a certain level of geek activity. This Summer I plan on start down the path to becoming proficient (and if not “proficient” at least pathetically incompetent) programming an ARM processor.

However with reality being reality and me being me I’ve got to admit that if anything doesn’t really get accomplished this Summer, this is likely to be it.

Walk There

I don’t want to say much here, tomorrow (or soon) I’ll post more about this. But it’s on the list.

Hit up Portland parks

Portland is just full of parks. One of my early thoughts for the Summer was to visit every park within city limits. Using my bike for as much (if not all) of the trips possible. Then I went to the Portland parks website and saw that there are 287 parks in Portland (Though that number includes non-parks like community gardens. But there’s still a heck of a lot of parks!). Yeah, that’s not going to happen. So instead of all the parks I’d like to go visit an “appropriate amount” of parks. How’s that for non-commital??

So that’s my list so far. I’m sure there’s more stuff to put on here, and some stuff that wasn’t big enough to list. And there’s no promise that it doesn’t get derailed into a netflix-filled, beer-fueled, three-month stupor. But hey it’s fun to make lists right?

So come by and expect grand adventure.

No no no, check that. Come by and expect shameless laziness. I’d rather you be pleasantly surprised than disappointed.

Yay Summer!!

I live 3 blocks away from the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall where the Oregon Symphony plays. So far I’ve only attended the symphony once since I’ve moved up here. I’d like to go more often, but it’s a bit of a budget killer.

Earlier this week I stumbled upon a sweet discovery. As a student I can get tickets to certain shows for $10! Crazy huh? I simply check the OS student page and see what’s coming up that qualifies for student pricing.

Well as soon as I found out about this little piece of awesomeness I hit up the website and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a concert this very weekend! It’s a violin concerto so I expect to enjoy it quite a bit.

As I type this I’m wearing slacks, a polo shirt, and there’s a ticket burning a whole in my pocket. The show’s in 20 minutes, so I better get out of here. Yay student discounts!

Here’s one of many reasons that homework takes me so damn long. Two hours ago I sat down to work on my Digital Design assignment…

2 problems. Both require a truth table that get’s converted into a Karnaugh Map just to get started. You don’t have to understand what that means, just know that it’s a bunch of tedious work. So I’m in Calc and I’m thinking “there’s gotta be some extension/script that’ll do the grunt work for me.”

So I start googling. I find nothing. Do I return to my homework? No, of course not! I then start looking up what I need to know to write my own extension for OpenOffice. I hang out on their wiki, then check out a few code snippets. In the end though, I haven’t really learned enough other than if I want to write extensions it’ll be a few weekends of reading before I’ve got anything worth using.

Two hours later here I am, blogging. Amount of homework completed: 0%. Maybe those punk kids with their fancy “pencil” and “paper” have one or two things figured out…