Quite a bit has happened. Let’s start with the awesome: Dad bought a new car.

Under the hood...

Angel Eye Headlights....

And, with the even more awesome: I get to use the old one.

2001 BMW X5

This has been my dream car for quite some time… I was thrilled when my Dad pulled in with the new one. His old car now becomes the “third family car”. And since I’m the “third family driver,” I get to use it. Hooray! I’ve already done a few things with it — including replacing the window regulator in the door (the little guy that moves the window up and down). With a lovely auxiliary adapter and Bluetooth audio gateway, I was also able to set up a wireless audio connection with my phone, which doubles as my MP3 player. So now I have the ability to hop in the car, choose a song/playlist/whatever out of my music library, and have it play through the car stereo. Neat. GPS from my phone works the same way — voice guidance playing over my music. Double neat. I’m considering ordering some LED kits for daytime running lights — like the angel eyes my Dad’s car has… but they’re proving to be kind of expensive. So maybe not. It’s neat as it is.

In other news,

I’ve taken up a Summer job down in Cincinnati with my relative, Matt. We’ll be working as day camp counselors for a local community club. Although it’ll be my first time as a camp counselor, I think it’ll be a positive and rewarding experience, not to mention a good way to spend my time over the Summer. We’ll be taking the X5 down there in a couple of weeks — my first long-distance drive without my parents, which I’m also quite excited for. I’ll probably end up visiting some other friends from Ohio while I’m down… something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile. Should be fun.

On the tech front,

I’ve been working on a Content Management System to utilize when working with future clients, currently called HCMS. It allows for more customization over positioning and such than other CMS systems I’ve worked with, and also provides an extension system should some functionality not be present by default. After I finish this system, completing projects for future clients should be a breeze. Throw together a template, stick HCMS behind it, add whatever extensions they might need for specific functionality, and off they go. No more coding dynamic sites from scratch for a single purpose.

I’ve also been working with GazeboNews, and recently assisted in the launching of their new site, which now consists of a whole lot more than just news stories, as it did before. We’ve been using Wordpress as a platform for the new site, but the more we add to it, the more I think it’s the wrong direction to go in. Wordpress is meant for blogging (as I’m doing now). A series of posts with comments, maybe a few pages/widgets here and there, but nothing too fancy. This is how GazeboNews used to operate, back when they used Typepad and were limited to this kind of system. Now, however, they have the ability to modify Wordpress to suit their needs, so we’re bolting on new features left and right. The template has sort of become a mess (code-wise), and I’m afraid that things are going to break once Wordpress gets upgraded or some such. Perhaps once my CMS is finished, it can serve as a replacement. I don’t believe Wordpress is meant for a site with the kind of functionality GazeboNews has in mind.

Hopefully I’ll start updating this blog more often… although I know I’ve said that before. Guess we’ll see.

I’m starting to stay up really late. A lot. On school nights. This isn’t good, but I find myself losing track of time and getting to bed really late. Sometimes I lose track of time, then end up completing homework really late at night before retiring to bed.

First of all, I joined the sailing team (somewhat inadvertantly, however). It’s probably a good decision in the long run, however. It gives me something to do, and my parents say it should help me get into colleges who aren’t just looking for someone who hangs out at his computer all day(/night). I’ve only done one regatta so far, which was kind of a bust due to no wind, but I hope to participate in more relatively soon.

Another recent event is a Tribes 2 mod that I’ve started, which I’m calling Krypton Construct. Krypton Construct began as a co-development project with another Tribes 2 player I met, named Netherdark. We named our lovely little Quantium Modification “Xenon Construct”. Netherdark and I had some conflicts, though. He wanted to strip everybody’s credits out of the mod, and I did not. So I broke off, took some stuff from Xenon mod, and started from scratch, using Construction 0.70a as a base for my mod. I named it Krypton Construct, and so far it’s going pretty well. Some features that set it apart from other mods are Permission Spheres, an advanced F2 menu with player preferences and an integrated save system, and Theorem, my lovely little bot who helps me administrate the server. Krypton has climbed the ranks of Construction Mods (if I do say so myself), and is up at the top with ACCM, ECM, and Metallic. I plan to make many more advances, and hopefully help it to become the best construction mod out there, but that is going to take quite a bit of work.

On another note, the Tribes 2 master servers are going to be shut down on November the 1st. That’s no good. Electricutioner, a coding mastermind, is developing a replacement for these vital servers that he says should be running well before November 1st. Once this occurs, we should have full community support, and free accounts for Tribes 2. This means that I can hand out copies of Tribes 2, free of charge, that people can play with no hassle. The popularity of Tribes 2 just might go up as a change… which would be great, because I never want that game to die. Hopefully this plan doesn’t backfire, but I have a high amount of confidence in Electricutioner, I think he can get this done quickly and intelligently.

I’m a Sophomore now. It’s no different than being a Freshman, except for the fact that I’m no longer hanging out in the basement for most of the day. I’m also taking Driver’s Ed this year, and I should be able to get my license right before the start of the Summer. Driving is pretty awesome, and easier than I thought it would be. I’m a bit ahead of the game, as I’m already driving on highways and such (even though we’re not at that point yet in the class room). The only problem I’m foreseeing is that once I get my license, I’ll be without a vehicle. I was considering purchasing a cheapo American-made car, but after talking to some family members and friends, I’ve decided that that’s not a good idea. Instead, I’m planning on getting a car of slightly higher quality. Now, my dad told me about his plans to eventually sell his BMW X5 and buy another newer X5… and a thought occured. If I earned enough money by the time he decides to sell his X5, maybe he’d sell the car to me. That would be the most awesome thing in the world, but based on my research, I’d have to get a pretty darn decent amount of money before he’d sell it to me. Like, at least $10,000.  That will take awhile. I’ll need quite a decent job to make that happen. Hopefully I can find a decent opportunity over the summer… but as of now, this idea is somewhat of a dream. Maybe I can do some freelance coding or some such….

In terms of school, things are a bit… weird. The Krypton Construction mod I’ve mentioned above is what my main focus is while I’m at home.  My main focus probably should be homework, but it isn’t, so my grades are… OK. They’re satisfactory for me, but apparently not my parents. I had a painful discussion with my Mom tonight after she saw my grades, which were all As, a couple Bs, and one B- in World Civ 2. She asked me if I needed to drop this class, which I took as an insult to my intelligence. This wasn’t even an honors course, and she was wondering if I could handle it. I’m still in rage over that whole argument, but I told her that the reason I was getting the poor grade in World Civ is because I hated history, which is the truth. I have always hated history. I think that in most cases it is a completely useless subject. What we ought to be learning instead is “modern politics” or some such. Something that will help kids actually understand the world’s current problems (of which is has plenty of). Doesn’t that sound like a better way to build our future contributers to society? Anywho, hopefully I can shift my focus a little bit more to my homework, because it’s kind of slipping, albiet only in World Civ.

Well, now, that was a long post. That felt good.

These grades are not poor! They are acceptable!

I know of many other kids in school who are happy with Cs in all of their classes. They don’t seem to be having any trouble when you look at them. I’m working plenty hard to maintain my Bs, and if there’s one class in the world that I’m not so good at, so be it. I’m not good at it. A C is acceptable for a class that you’re not good at.
I agree that my studying habits could be improved… but do they need to? I don’t want the kind of lifestyle where school is one’s only focus in life. That’s no fun, and fun is what makes life worth living.

My teacher was giving us a homework assignment that consisted of putting together a comic strip. He pointed out an example on the wall, and I got up to look at it. As I walked toward it, my vision started fading to black around the corners until I couldn’t see at all. This happened very fast. I heard the faint sound of scraping chairs on the ground, and opened my eyes, staring at the floor underneath me. My chest had landed on a chair next to my own desk, I was just kind of slumped on top of it horizontally. It felt like I just woken up from a very long nap. My teacher was leaning over next to me, asking if I was alright. I was feeling no pain, just a very dull numb feeling in parts of my body. He asked what happened, and I took a second to think about it. Then he asked if I had fainted. “I guess,” I said, looking at all of the students just staring at me.

The whole situation was explained to me by one of my classmates. Apparently I just started swaying, and fell right into the chair. My teacher commented that I was only out for maybe two or so seconds.
“If you weren’t unconscious, that would’ve hurt like hell,” said my classmate. Well, good.

So I spent the last ten minutes of class in the nurse’s office, getting my blood pressure checked. It was higher than normal, so I was advised to come and get it tested again tomorrow. I will.

World Civilizations Honors is killing me. My mom says I’m avoiding it. She’s right, I am. There’s a project coming up that I’m scared of… This is the worst class I’ve ever had in my life. I really wished I had switched out of it while I had the chance… Life would be so much easier.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Finals,High School,World Civilizations,Grades

Well, I’ve just finished my first set of finals as a freshman, and the grades are in. I went to Edline not a minute ago and was horrified at the first grade that I looked at. Not that I wasn’t expecting what I was being shown, I was expecting that my World Civilizations Honors grade would be terrible. I did a horrible job studying simply because I did not know how how I’d go about preparing.

So after being thoroughly leveled by that sight, I moved on to the other grades, and became happier. I haven’t received my English grade yet, but I had recieved at least an A- in every other subject, increasing my average in every subject excluding World Civilizations. In fact, I did the best in the subject I thought I did the worst in, once again excluding World Civ.

Now that I’ve completed the finals, I have a clean slate (somewhat). This time I plan to kind of make a final study guide as I move through the content. This should solve that World Civ problem, I hope. I’ve always had trouble preparing for World Civ tests, there’s so much covered in so little time. When you begin to study, you realize that you just don’t have enough time to cover all of the content assigned. It’s a horrible feeling, I really wish I hadn’t taken that class. Next year I plan to take a much easier subject… hopefully that will work out. World Civ is the only thing dragging down my year.

Powered by ScribeFire.

So last Saturday my dad and I purchased a PC that will be working as a LAN/WAN server. I’m so excited for this, I’ve been wanting a dedicated network machine for awhile now, and this one is perfect for the job. Once the thing gets here, I’ll probably throw Linux on it, get VNC running, configure Samba, NFS, FTP, and HTTP servers, and let it go. I’m planning to set up a system where my family can access their files from the internet, it just needs to be secure. Our gigabit network also ensures good speeds back and forth from the box. It will mostly serve as a place for videos, music, photos, disk images, and pretty much anything that we want to put on the central HD.
What’s also neat is that this PC has a decent amount of processing power and RAM. This means that not only will I be able to run file servers on it, but I could run game servers as well. I’m probably going to throw up a dedicated Tribes 2 server, because it seems like the Tribes 2 community could use a reliable one, plus Tribes 2 servers generally don’t use up too much CPU.

Powered by ScribeFire.