Dr. Memnus Lagbane Soultooth the Mad

I wasn't actively comment-whoring yesterday, but thank you all! In my defense, there wasn't a huge amount of competition in the collegiate division.

An i for an i makes the whole world negative.

I can sum up two of my classes at once by saying "If it doesn't work, it's an interface problem; if it does, it's a spline."

Spline may be a funny word, but hodograph is even better.

The human ass is surprisingly difficult to model, and trying gets you very strange looks in a public computer lab.

Pacific Coast Championship 2007: Single FITA

On a bright enough day, the sun shines on the targets so strongly that you step off the line, close your eyes, and still see rows of circles. When you're really in the zone, you can see the echo of your sight and your bow as well, and the whole picture pulses and flashes with every sound you hear.

I hit that stride after lunch on Sunday, despite some unwelcome (but not unexpected) protests from my muscles.

It was one bright spot in an otherwise mediocre weekend. I've had few to no chances to practice outside, and especially my long distances are distressingly weak. I was also sleeping on the floor at night, which was allegedly not much different from the beds, but couldn't have been good for my hips and shoulders.

i need to shoot more, I need to turn up my draw weight another five pounds, and I need to very much build up my general strength and endurance. Even as I fell into the right mental space, each shot was a strain, pulled through on sheer willpower and stubbornness. More than once I was only saved by my new ability to recognize a bad shot setup, and my willingness to let it down and start over. This kepy me on the line until the yellow light more than once, but time has never been an issue yet and I'm not worried.

I'm holding off on talk about results until official standings are released, later this week. There was some confusion about who belonged in what divisions, and people that nobody'd heard of and didn't show up for awards. Suffice it to say that I'm suddenly much more interested in the Desert Open, less than two weeks away.

click

Remember when I said that the worst was over as far as grad school is concerned? Yeah, well, so much for that. They decided to offer interesting classes after all, and I'm head TA for a bitch of a class. Never mind I'm feeling weirder and weirder about life in general, and can't quite pin down why.

Maybe I can blame it on the sudden shock of having the campus crawling with people again. I think I liked summer better.

( Dirty scheduling details ) The kick-in-the-pants-fuck-you part is that drop day is next Wednesday. I have to make a decision, and I have to make it soon.

Expect more spammage from me over the next few days while I pound through this mess.

click

Tournament report: 123rd National Target Championships
Double FITA + ORs

This tournament was huge. There were well over 400 archers there, and you just have to look at the name to figure out why. I'd had some internal arguments about whether it was out of my league or not, but "what the hell" won out and here I am. Surrounded by big names, a few blocks from the Olympic Training Center (strangely, not the one that does archery), my only goal was not to make a fool of myself. Unfortunately, I peaked on Wednesday (day 2 of 5) and delivered only mediocre performance otherwise. An acceptable (for me) first FITA of 1117 was followed by a meltdown in the long distances (dammit I need to learn to cope with wind) and a second FITA of 1044, my worst all year. That left me with an 88th seed in the elimination rounds - thankfully, they'd opened up to include all archers, instead of the top 64 - and a first-round no-show got me to the second round. Mentally I was in the right place, but the middle finger of my left hand was quickly starting to develop a nasty blister, and covering it with athletic tape only helped so much. A decent group on the first end was sadly followed by five sevens, so I packed up.

I don't feel bad. By the time I'd left, the guy who beat me - one of the Olympic Training Center's resident athletes - was being eliminated in the 1/8th finals.

So, a week before classes. I hope to do as little as possible.

click

Done.

I thought I wouldn't stay up reading it marathon-style, but here I am.

( Thoughts for 3:30 )

Oh man, it's so past my bedtime.

click

Whoa, has it been two weeks since a post (three since an honest one)? Hi, I do still exist. I've been up to various things.

( Moving )

( Archery )

( School and happenings there )

( That book thing )

( Crack of other sorts )

I imagine I've missed a few things. Oh well.

click

( Useless crap ) The only part of that I think you should care about is that I'm now on Skype, as truememnus. No idea who took memnus; whoever it is has no profile information at all.

click

I have a much larger, much more introspective entry brewing, but you don't get that today. Today you get disconnected snippets from my life.

I have yet to get access to a computer on which I can do my Master's project - the "summer" project may well become the fall project I'll actually sign up for. Until I do, though, I spend all of my time at school in the engineering computer lab. This lab is set upstairs in what I think of as the Bunker, the submerged classroom building between the old Engineering building and the new Engineering building. The top floor of the Bunker is, in fact, nothing but computer labs: going from one end of the hall to the other, you have Exit, *NIX Lab, Windows Lab, Bathrooms. However, this being outside the normal school year, they've also (rightly) deemed summer the most sensible time to repaint said hallway. So basically, anywhere I want to go - be it outside to eat lunch, or to the bathroom - I have to dodge through the giant fans and men on stilts to get there, and then I have no choice but to track white paint in on the lab carpet.

I've also committed to moving out of my apartment, into one of four bedrooms in a house. Two of the others are currently rented to Snowbird ski instructors about my age; the fourth is as far as I know available. Let me know if you're interested in a low-ceilinged basement room in the Sugarhouse area, with laid-back twentysomethings as your housemates. For those to whom I've offered crash space should you come through the greater Salt Lake area, my couch is coming with me, so the offer is in fact still open.

... I may be reading Twisted Monk in the lab, but someone else seems to be looking at a gun catalog. At least I keep my back to the wall.

I'm also looking for suggestions for a good Livejournal client to install on Debian, preferably one as full-featured as Semagic. Tag and userpic support is a must.

click

June is Pride, and oddly enough, Salt Lake City is no exception. The Latter-Day Transvestites entered a float in the parade, of course. ( All hell broke loose... )

In other news, I'm looking for a place to live in Sugarhouse. Though I'd prefer my own apartment, one of the cast is looking for people to fill in her house, and the offer is... enticing. I have two weeks to think about it. I need them, too, and something may still appear on Craigslist.

click

It was shaping up so well - I almost got away with no work past 3, every day. Unfortunately, 3 has now turned into 5, monday-wednesday at least. In a perfect world, students would bend to their TAs' whims, dammit, not the other way around.

We have pseudo-automated grading though, at least.

click