I have a tendency to be a very stubborn, persistent perfectionist and I can thank that aspect of my character for keeping me up late tonight. My dad has been doing a lot of work with Protect Marriage Illinois lately. They’re working on getting signatures for a petition to allow the people of the state to vote on an amendment to the state’s constitution that defines marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman. Because people are already going to be out and about and have somewhat of a politics-mindset next week during the March 21 primary elections, he’s working on organizing volunteers who can collect signatures from a legal distance away from various polling places. In order to help facilitate the organization of these volunteers, he wanted an online form where people could sign up for the location and time(s) they were planning to gather signatures. So, I spent several hours this evening working on this little project.

How exactly I was going to tie this to persistence and stubbornness, I’m not quite sure. I think I was going to comment on my desire to avoid leaving things hanging and my inability to relieve myself from focusing on the task at hand. I was planning to go running about 9:30, then 10, then 10:30, and so on, until my brain was totally fried (and I was basically done with the project) at midnight. Running cleared my mind and I was able to import the list of polling places in DuPage County, a task that I was struggling with before got out. I also spent 15 or 20 minutes tweaking little things about the appearance and structure of the HTML code generated by the script I wrote … even down to the indentation of the HTML source. I guess it’s proof I’m a software engineer if I spend a significant amount of time making sure the generated code is tabbed out nicely.

I have decided against providing a link to this signup form, as the strong opposition my dad and his colleagues have encountered suggests to me that were the URL to get in the wrong hands, someone would spam it and make my life crazier than it already is. If you want to participate in gathering signatures, see the Protect Marriage Illinois web site for details on how you can help.

My dad told me that an Episcopal priest told him that what he’s doing is hateful toward homosexuals. I’m thankful I don’t have opportunities to respond to people like this, as I have a tendency to burst out and become upset easily. But, I would like to comment that it is absolutely absurd to claim that it is hateful to preserve marriage as God defined it in Genesis 2:24, which states, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." It is unnatural (Romans 1) for men to be with men and women with women.

Anyway … I would write more but it’s getting really late. I miss writing, but either have little to write about, or am too busy or too tired to post.

Well, my first “spring break” is nearing a close as bedtime approaches. For those of you who don’t know, MSOE is on the quarter (trimester) system and we therefore get breaks at slightly different times from everyone else.

We got a nice snowfall today to end off my spring break. I can’t complain, though. Because of the lack of snow we’ve had this winter, a little bit here and there makes for a nice change. I put some shots of the snow up on Facebook.

I’d like to say more about my break – go into detail about some of my activities – watching the third season of Fox’s 24, working, church, just to name a few – but I’m feeling pretty tired from my overall lack of sleep. I slept 8 hours last night and took 2-3 hours of naps this afternoon but already feel prepared to go to bed.

Anyway, if you want to know more, let me know. I’d like to update my schedule on here before too long and post a few papers I’ve written recently, but we’ll see how busy I am this week.

Monday in SDL, Jake called me codemonkey and it kinda stuck. Then today, I kept eating Taylor’s peanuts was called code squirrel.

As a result, you can IM me now at CodeSquirrel84

I should make a real post one of these days. I have too much going on.

Didn’t you know? Late nights are the thing…

going to bed after a couple of hours of op sys refactoring and music making

rise and shine at 8; class at 9

that makes four nights in a row of 6 hours of sleep

Well, folks, on Friday night, we finally got the snow I’ve been waiting for the last month or so. David and I went over to Wheaton College and hung out with our sister and built a big snowball, had some snowball fights and ate ice cream. David is most definitely one tough cookie, as he single handedly took out a college student in about a half a second for trying to destroy our snowball.

Pictures are on Facebook.

So I’ve wanted to post on here for a few days and boast about my score of 160 that I earned when bowling with a bunch of friends on Friday. I know it’s pretty meager compared to the top score of 300, but I was quite pleased with my accomplishment, as it is likely the highest score I have ever gotten. I think the coolest part of it all was the three strikes in the 10th frame.

Anyway, I would write about my weekend in more detail but don’t feel like doing a whole lot of writing at the moment and some of the glamour of has faded away in the busyness of this week. If you want to see pictures from bowling and hanging out afterward and then Shih man’s birthday on Sunday, see my Facebook page. I’ve decided that’s a better, easier, and cooler place to upload pictures than my web site because those to whom the pictures pertain will see them. Recent comments have proven that those who read my blog are generally not the people I see the most and photograph on a regular basis.

Well, the Little Honda that Could no longer can. The Japanese space ship is sunk. In case you’re out of the loop and those phrases mean nothing to you, they refer to my car. The mechanic ran some engine sealant stuff through the coolant system and it appeared to fix the issue with the burning antifreeze, but by the time my parents picked up the car and drove it home, it was blowing billowy clouds of white smoke out the exhaust once again. The car still drives, albeit not quite as it should. I imagine that if the leak gets bigger again, the car will become susceptible to stalling. Because I haven’t had a mechanic tear apart the engine, I don’t know exactly what the issue is. Likely, it’s a blown head gasket or a crack in the heads. I haven’t quite decided what I am going to do. My dad wants to buy the car off me and take it to a mechanic he knows to see exactly what is up. Scott doesn’t think that’s worth it. In any case, I pretty much need a new car. So, if you’ve got one for sale, make me an offer and if I like it, I’ll consider it.

Someone complained to me today that I haven’t posted in my blog in a while. I’m not quite sure what he was trying to imply, but it’s only been four days since my last post. If you consider all the huge month+ long gaps between some of my previous posts, three days is nothing.

Anyway … my car is temporarily, perhaps permanently, decommissioned. Unlike some people I know, I don’t name objects besides people and animals, so I will refer to my car as simply “my car” from this point forward. ANYWAY … I noticed this white smoke coming out of the exhaust as I pulled into my driveway last night. It seems that this is a result of antifreeze leaking into the engine and burning with the gas. My car is at the shop and will be looked at first thing in the morning. The guy I talked to is going to pump some special sealant through the coolant system to see if that will fix the leak. If that doesn’t solve the problem, I’ll probably have to decide between ditching the car and getting the head gasket replaced. Thanks to some help from Scott Vetter, this might not be as costly as it sounds.

I go back to school tomorrow evening and have a full day of class and work on Thursday. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, as I've enjoyed my Christmas break.

I sent Google an application today for one of their Engineering Intern summer positions. From what I’ve read, it sounds like an exciting place to work and an all around great opportunity to learn some new things and get real-world experience . I’m skeptical at what my chances are in receiving the internship, but we’ll see where God leads me for the summer.