Because I don't own an XBox360 (or an XBox, for that matter), I have been largely immune to the Halo 3 hype of the past couple of weeks. I'm not ignorant of it (if someone is shouting in your ear 6 inches from you, you will hear it: that's what the marketing campaign has been like), but I'm not the target audience for these ads, either.

All the pressure salesmanship, however, does serve to highlight what seems to be a rather disturbing trend both in Hollywood and the gaming industry: "sequelitis."

This year has seen Spiderman 3, Fantastic 4 2, Pirates of the Carribean 3, and Saw 4 hit the theaters with a loud splash. It's an act of faith that if your movie is huge, it will continue to spawn more sequels until the grosses drop. However, the lack of quality as the series continues (who though Spiderman 3 was as good as 2, or even 1? Be honest) is marked and (in many cases) crippling to a franchise.

Meanwhile, a quality movie that might have satisfied the viewers more lies gathering dust on a shelf somewhere, still in the can... if the script was even filmed.

It's become much the same way with games. As a kid, not a month would pass when a new machine would pop up in the arcade with a flashy cabinet, some contol configration you've never seen before (Defender scared the wits out of me when I first saw it: about 3 times as many buttons as the other machines, and faster than a NOX-boosted street race car!), and a new concept. Pac-Man, Guantlet, Tac-Scan, Tempest... games that challenged and (sometimes) scared you with their sheer audacity.

Now... C&C3 (I liked it, even if many didn't... but not my point), StarCraft 2, Supreme Commander (not a real sequel, but a recognizable one nevertheless), Halo 3, Resident Evil 4... Final Fantasy XII (I still fail to see how "Final" it is... :lol: )... sequelitis is alive and (debatably) well in the games industry.

What kills me about all this is the lack of inventiveness this has bred. Sure, some upcoming games (Spore and Universe at War) are looking very inventive and original, but their unique looking concepts are buried by the 2's and 3's cascading into the marketplace like an avalanche of stagnation. Even games out on the market (World in Conflict) that have shown promise as a new concept have been drowned out by the incredibly loud Halo 3 campaign.

Not all sequels are bad (Star Control 2 remains one of the most innovative and fun games I've ever played). It's time, however, to reevaluate the number 1, however: after all, without 1, how are you ever going to get to 2, 3, 4, etc.?

Another week, much like last week. Work, school, homework... nothing really to say.

So, I figure I'll just throw some things out there:

Music: picked up Gamma Ray's last album. I was kind of disappointed with it, really: they have a very positive vibe in all their previous albums, but "Majestic" was very bitter. There are some decent songs on it, but nothing like "Revelation" or "Lake of Tears."

Games: I'm trying to get back to Dungeon Siege 2. I left off early in the game, and really haven't had the time to play as much as I need to fully get behind it.

Movies: I did get the chance to watch "Seven Samurai" again last weekend. It's a very old black and white film by Akira Kurosawa, about a small village besieged by bandits. The peasants hire 7 warriors to defend them; however, the warriors are not the invincible heroes the villagers hope they are... and they have secrets of their own. If you can deal with subtitles, I whole-heartedly recommend it. (If you can't, I hear "The Magnificent Seven" has a near-identical plotline.)

Books: I finally got through "Chainfire," the latest Sword of Truth novel. It took a bit to get into it (very slow at the start, and very frustrating as well: unraveling a mystery you're not even sure is a mystery can do that), but there finally came a point when the pace picked up, pieces of the puzzle came together, and it flowed into the end... sort of. I'm into the next book now ("Phantom") and after this, only one book remains in the series.

If you haven't read any of them yet, I recommend the series to any fantasy fan. It's as real as fantasy gets (paradoxical but true). "Wizard's First Rule" is still one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read, topped only by "Faith of the Fallen." It's also very adult reading (no, not XXX-adult), so don't say I haven't warned you.

Tech: More and more, I'm liking my little mp3 player. It's not too big, fits as much music as I need, and is very easy to reload if I want something different. My only real issue with it is the display: the choices are highlighted in very pale blue on white, so picking out songs in a hurry is kind of difficult. Otherwise, I like it more than the iPod Shuffle my son has.

School: I'm still there :lol: .

Not much else really. Kind of random, but I don't want anyone to think I'm in a coma or anything. Hopefully, something interesting will happen that I can relay and not feel so... well... un-updatable (if that's a real concept...).

Have an interesting week. Cheers!

It's been a variably-paced week, so if I seem to be a little scattered, it's because... well... I am a little scattered!!! :lol: I'll try to keep it logical, but...

Work:

[spoiler] Work was a little schizo this week. We started on Monday with nothing to do but play around with the test-plan documentation. It's all on a wiki page the QA team maintains, and encourages us to comment and update as necessary. We ended the week in a mad dash to finish major integration testing on 2 new databases they needed to handle the flood of new customers they signed in the past month. It was a little extreme, to say the least. It didn't help that the new girl kept finding non-existent bugs, and then swearing up and down that the whole program needed to be changed to suit her perception of the way it works... I give her another week :lol: . [/spoiler]

School:

School has been tough to keep up with: with so many hours at work, I have trouble falling into a nice homework routine. I've been keeping up for the most part, but the one class I haven't worried about is the one that snuck up on me and put me behind a week :evil: Fortunately, I have most of the backlog caught up... but it put me behind on the other two catching up... which means no games for the 'Hammer on Sunday :( .

Games:

Haven't played much of anything. I'm sort of in limbo here: I'm waiting on Universe at War at the end of next month, but with all the time demands I have, I'm not entirely sure I'll have time to give it. I'm still going crazy with the occasional foray into Dawn of War (never gets old for me), but since I have no time for a full campaign... :(

GS:

Check out the UaW forum, and find the (inevitable) "SC vs." topic. Someone decided to get cute and actually launch a personal attack on me... over a video game!!! That hasn't been released yet!!! It's a first for me. I laughed my... um... head off at it when I saw it. Laugh along with me.

Gadgets:

I needed something to listen to music with at work, and I wasn't interested in dragging a CD player with me everywhere, so I picked up one of these. It was inexpensive, highly consumer-rated on CNet and Amazon, and had features that appealed to me. Best of all, no iTunes needed. I can rip CDs, crush the songs down, and transfer them with any media player I choose.

iTunes just annoys me: my mother-in-law found an iPod Shuffle in the lost-and-found where she works (yes, let that sink in... and realize it had been there for at least 3 months before she was allowed to take it... sad :( ) and gave it to our son. Naturally, I had to download iTunes to make it work, and it just hates me. *mini-rant over*

Interruption: I had to pick this back up and edit it because my friend (who's close to my age, but not as versed with computers) needed help working with PowerPoint. He's seen what I have been doing for college, and it seemingly inspired him to take on-line college courses... I'm a trend-setter!!! :lol:

Well, I don't have much more to say... if you missed the last blog post (about music) and have anything to add, I'll keep my eye on it. Enjoy the week!

I love music. I can't play or sing a note, but I have the lyrics to my favorite songs memorized, and can lip-sync along with all of them (kind of like Milli Vanilli, but I'm not trying to make a living off of it :lol: ). I married a musician (flute, piccolo, piano, organ, and she can sing like an angel) and all of our kids have awesome singing voices, so I'm surrounded by music all the time... even if our tastes don't always mesh (my wife tried to drag me to see the Dixie Chicks; I threatened to move us to Cleveland if she did, and she backed down ;) ).

So, I figure I'll share some of my tastes with you all, and let you listen for yourselves (just haunt youtube, Yahoo Launchcast, and Media Player radio for a bit and you should find the bands I talk about; it would take a long time for me to link a sample from all my favorites). I will warn you now: my tastes are diverse in the extreme. I will listen to almost anything (not rap, numetal, or country... I have to draw the line somewhere).

Humorous:

Ray Stevens is a genius and extremely funny ("The Streak" is almost as funny as "Bulbous Bouffant," for those of you who have clicked the link in my last blog). Some of Adam Sandler's stuff is pretty good, and anything Weird Al puts out is guaranteed gut-busting.

Slow Music (as in, non-metal):

I've always liked Styx, Journey, Queen and Pink Floyd; the music is literate, deep, and absorbing ("The Wall" is a stunning piece in it's entirety, as is "Dark Side of the Moon"). A lesser-known band (at least, in the US) I follow is Marillion, a progressive rock band from the UK I've liked since '86 ("Misplaced Childhood" rivals "The Wall" in sheer emotional impact). If you check them out, however, keep in mind that (in my opinion) the songs pre-"Thieving Magpie" are better: Fish had an incredibly distinctive voice compared to Steve Hogarth, and the music was much more textured and complex. Also, it's the only band I hunted for at the music stores when I was in the Mediterranean in the Navy (I paid $30 US for a rare CD in Nice, France; "Grendel" FTW!!!).Also, Fish's first solo disc contains an appearance by Jannick Gers, currently the 3rd guitarist for Iron Maiden :shock:.

"Pop" Metal:

When metal met the mainstream in the mid-80's, everyone leapt on it likelittle kids on a freshly made bed... and not always in a good way (some of the most sickly-sweet love songs are "power ballads" that would make Barry Manilow blush in embarassment). However, some of the bands of the era actually knew their stuff: Twisted Sister ("Stay Hungry"), Stryper ("Soldiers Under Command"), Extreme (debut and "Pornografitti") and Tesla ("Mechanical Resonance") have depth and real feeling to their music.

Speed Metal:

Ignore Metallica here. They may have popularized the genre, but they, like Starcraft, were far from the best at it. Anthrax ("Persistence of Time"), Megadeth ("Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?"), and (careful with these guys) Slayer ("South of Heaven") top my picks in the early days. A newer band with thrash tendencies, Shadows Fall, also makes my favorites (it doesn't hurt that their drummer is a local guy :D).

Power Metal:

More melodic, more focused... I love this ****of hard rock. Iron Maiden founded it, and almost every band in the genre links to them somehow (mostly through Helloween ("Keeper of the Seven Keys, Pt. 1 and 2" are must-haves!!!), who opened on their "Seventh Son of A Seventh Son" tour). Gamma Ray ("Insanity and Genius") spun off via Kai Hansen's leaving Helloween in 1990; Blind Guardian ("Night at the Opera": metal with a full chorus... very incredible) worked with Hansen, and Iced ******* Earth (the US's absolute best power-metal band, bar none) have been close friends with Blind Guardian for a long time... in fact, Demons and Wizards (self-titled and "Touched by the Crimson King") is a collaboration of the two bands.

Jag Panzer (from Colorado) are another favorite. Find "Thane to the Throne:" It's a musical retelling of "Macbeth," and has as much force as Shakespeare's original play. Excellent stuff.

Savatage (from Florida): "Streets" is another rock opera that I highly recommend. Also, nice trivia fact: Trans-Siberian Orchestra, the Christmas rock and cla$$ical band, spun off from Savatage (in fact, "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo)" appears on both "Dead Winter Dead" and TSO's debut... but it was on the Savatage disc first).

Other good (not great, but good) bands: Nocturnal Rites, Dream Evil, Sentenced (lattter part of their career: they started as death metal), and Falconer.

Progressive Metal:

Symphony X are a simply incredible band from (gasp!) New Jersey. The sound like Dream Theater (pretty good band themselves) but louder and harder. "Divine Wings of Tragedy," "V," "Odyssey," and "Paradise Lost" all have strong story songs and tight, textured sounds. Very excellent.

Aggro:

Uncla$$ifiable music... a mixture of genres that almost create their own separate genre. Fear Factory ("Obsolete"), Machine Head ("Through the Ashes of Empires"), Faith No More ("The Real Thing"), incubus ("Make Yourself") and (another caution here) Into Eternity ("Buried in Oblivion") stand out here for me.

This is by no means my whole list... I have a lot of tapes and CDs. If you have any questions about any of the bands I've named, or any in the same genre, I'm very willing to answer questions or share other recommendations.

...thank God it's Friday!!! Well, technically, it's Saturday, but I don't care: I've been technical enough this week :lol: .

Work has been fun:

We ran through all the test plans something like 4 times this week in preparation for a major release this week. They've reworked a large section of the main application, and that means everything (and I mean everything) needed to be retested from scratch. We wrapped up early today to regroup, and the interns got to critique the written test scripts and take a shot at editing them.

The lead test guy is super cool: he's so laid back he's nearly comatose 8). Some of the test data he comes up with... somewhere, lurking one of the sections of the program, is The One Ring; one of the companies he's created is the Wing Kong Exchange (good movie reference there... try to guess where it's from!). It's too bad it's temporary... working there is a lot of fun.

School moves along nicely:

The second week saw some progress in our capstone project; some of the pieces are now there to work from, and everyone is starting to understand the full scope of the project is not as daunting as it first appeared. Everyone still looks to me for the technical details, but I flat-out refused group leadership from the get-go (I don't like to lead, but I make a fair second-in-command, or sergeant).

Web Scripting is starting to be a bit more fun: I also understand the "verboten" words on GS a little more clearly ($tyle is a CSS keyword, used for advanced HTML formatting; cla$$ is another piece of CSS, as well as a programming keyword... still a pain to work around, though :evil: ).

Portfolio... well, a monkey could pass that class, so I worry about it like I worry about dust motes, or pebbles.

Getting through Friday, though...

I take I-90 from the east side of the Hudson River to I-87 to get to school near the airport. If you use Google Earth, or MapQuest, you'll see that those are pretty wide highways (for NY, at least), and normally pretty quick.

However, today they were a nightmare to drive: a van caught fire on the median about 5 exits up from where I get on 87, and it backed up traffic about 7 miles south. What usually takes a half-hour to drive took an hour and a half... and made me an hour late for class. Fortunately, everyone else was late too; unfortunately, it meant staying an extra hour to make up the lost time.

I finally worked out a way to listen to a lot of my collection of music without carrying 60-70 CDs:

It's always frustrated me that I couldn't work out how to burn mp3s to a CD. I've run through at least a dozen CD-Rs trying to figure it out: I've had minor sucesses (one lumped the entire group of songs together into one long song... about 8 hours long :( ) but mostly unplayable failures.

This week, however, I was able to rip all my Iced Earth and Demons & Wizards discs and burn all but 3 on one disc (Alive in Athens 3-CD set wouldn't fit; I'm planning on putting that on with the Blind Guardian, Dream Evil and Nocturnal Rites compilation). So much music, so little space... it's magic :lol: .

(I still can't get the "spoiler" tags to work, unfortunately... if you've made it this far I apologize for not making it work, and I'll try somthing different next blog.)

And that's my week. How have you all been doing?

Oh... do you wear... galoshes?

Very busy week and a half since my last real update. I feel very drawn-out right now, like a man sentenced to be slowly pulled apart by heavy horses chained to each limb.

First off, my new job: 8 hours a day of testing a large application with 9 major parts. Each day we've been running full-scale tests on the entire application, trying to stretch it to the breaking point. All this is in preparation for a major update: kind of like extreme beta testing. Being the imaginative and resourceful people we are, we've broken it a lot. Unfortunately, every time we break it, we have to test it again. I think we get to slow down next week... but I'm not holding my breath.

School: this term I have my last 3 classes (wow, it feels weird saying that!) before graduation. Capstone will be the toughest: a sort of senior thesis fortechnical types. Our class (6 people, down from 13 originals, and a transfer in from another school to boot) must build an application from scratch, using only what we've learned. Our instructor has become our advisor; his job is to make sure we don't kill each other :lol: . The biggest drawback is, I'm the best coder we have: everyone else has a talent for something, but I'm the "lucky" soul who has to make this work... no pressure really, until you factor in work and home... oh well, only 3 months until that's over.

The other two are Web Scripting (HTML, JavaScript, XHTML, some XML) and Portfolio Development (how to write a decent resume). Easy stuff there... even if I've never touched HTML before I am a programmer: I live and die by proper syntax and hunting down my errors. As for the other, it looks more like fun than real work (the instructor is very cool: I've had her for two ****s, and even though Microeconomics was horrible, she still tried not to kill us with it).

Music: OK, I've seen Iced Earth in concert 3 years ago ("The Glorious Burden" tour; we were very fortunate, as Jon Schaeffer, the guitarist and leader of the band, had major back surgery soon after and had to cut it short several months early), and they are incredible. Their latest album is part 1 of a 2-part super-epic: "Something Wicked." It's a complex story: Earth was once the home of an advanced society called the Setians. They were almost totally massacred by... us (yes, you read that right!).

Just before the slaughter, 10,000 of their chosen went into hiding, disguised themselves as humans, and cast a cloud of confusion on humanity in order to keep themfrom profiting on the destruction of their race. For 10 millenia, they lay in wait, manipulating events and keeping us divided until their Chosen One is born to lead the world into self-destruction, and only the Setians are left.

In other words, they're waiting for our Anti-Christ. Part 2 is next year... I can't wait to see how this plays out.

(Embed isn't working, so...)

10,000 Strong- Iced Earth

Musically, it's a very strong album. Schaeffer has used his time collaborating with Hansi Kursch of Blind Guardian to learn a lot of excellent new tricks, and there are orchestral sections that make me feel the tragedy of the Setians. If you like hard rock (even if you don't, for that matter!) do yourself a huge favor and give "Framing Armageddon" a listen... it won't disappoint you.

I hope I can give you a more regular update soon; until next time, stay safe and stay sane.

I have class in about 5 minutes, so I'm going to make this very quick:

Work: This week, after training and watching (snooze-inducing) videos, I finally got to play with the big program. I've managed to break it several times; I seem to have a knack for finding the weirdest things to try :lol: .

School: started back Monday. It's a little intimidating when the instructor says, "I'm not teaching you anything, you are on your own. I'm just an advisor in this class." Tonight: HTML.

Games: got back into "Company of Heroes." Good stuff.

Music: Iced Earth's newest came out Tuesday. It's part one of "Something Wicked." Get it now. No words can really describe the album: the best metal I've heard in a long time.

Gotta go. More when I have actual time.

...no really, I don't feel like that :D ... I'm in good spirits right now, and just feeling whimsical in general, so I'll run things down quickly:

No, you're eyes don't deceive you: after 6 or 7 months, I've changed my avatar. While I still like the sniper kitten (it's always struck me as a perfect reflection of my personality: contradictory and whimsical), I felt the need to change to something else. So, after 15 minutes of fudging around to get the screenshot, and another 5 cropping it to fit, I present to you... the Daemonhammer from Dark Crusade, capable of slaying demons, daemons, and, of course, Orks (when they attack, of course ;) ).

The weekend was spent doing some clean-up with my wife and kids in preparation for the fall. With Labor Day on Monday (yesterday now), and the upcoming new job, my wife felt it was a good time to straighten up, move some furniture (what is it with women and furniture! The couch is perfectly fine where it is... especially when we guys are the ones who have to move it :lol: ), and get the older two kids ready for school. One of my good friends stopped by to wish me a happy birthday (which I celebrated very quietly until Sunday... more later), and hand me a card. He prepaid a reservation for a copy of Framing Armageddon for Sept. 11th along with my wife... very nice indeed!

Sunday saw us all up to my parent's house for a combination Labor Day party and birthday party for me and my older daughter. We all wandered around the huge backyard, talked school and computers, exchanged news (they've wanted me to get an internship for months now, because they realize how excellent the experience will be and how it will translate to success; to say they were overjoyed is an understatement), and just hang out. It would have been capped off with fireworks, if they were legal in NY... which they're not... so we didn't have any... right? ;)

Today (or yesterday) was the traditional hang-out with our oldest son. He's almost 13, and very anxious about all the sudden recent changes that have happened in the past couple of years: several job changes, school, two more siblings (he was an only child for almost 8 years; to have to share time with us has been very stressful for him), and junior high have made him very stressed out. So, just before school starts every year, I take him out, just me and him, and do something: an amusement park (like Six Flags in Lake George), a local fair, a museum, anything to give him some last few hours of quality time without his siblings bugging him and me.

He wanted to see the latest Harry Potter film, and good luck was with us: one theater in the area had it at late afternoon. We went to Crossgates (the local mega-mall), watched "Order of the Phoenix," poked in some stores and ate dinner. We talked about my new job, what 8th grade is like (wow, does that make me feel old!), people in general, and how the new school year would see him through. We even hit the arcade (there's still one left!) and shot up some bad guys on Time Crisis 3. We had a simple good time; what more could you ask for?

So now, I will wrap this up: I have to be to work in 6 hours or so (no more late nights here! :lol: ), so I have to try to overcome my natural insomnia, get some sleep, and be fresh for my first day of breaking software to fix it :D .

Have a fun and exciting week, and remember: when doing you homework, always wear your headphones (Thanks to Bill and Ted for that awesome, non-heinous advice :lol: ).

Yes, it's an update very close to my last one, but with a lot of very important things happening at once, I felt it was necessary to do this now.

First off: two finals down, none to go. Group Dynamics is a quick trust-building excercise, so there's no real pressure there. Our group roles have been long established, and all we need to do is just bang it out in 10-15 minutes, and we've passed the course.

The project went... not so smoothly. The PowerPoint presentation I put together for the final presentation somehow got mixed up with a previous version, so I had to stop twice to switch versions and give the full presentation. Nevertheless, I nailed it. Period. I even have a couple of my classmates wanting to use parts of my project in their future projects (I promised to keep the licensing fees reasonable :lol: ). Not bad for someone working on 2-3 hours of sleep...

...which leads me to the other big event on Monday morning: I had an interview with a local software development firm. The position was an internship with their QA department (basically, forcing their software to fail so the bugs can be flushed out before release). With what I'd done with my own project, and all the testing I'd done on it to make it work properly, all the testing ideas and methods were very fresh in my mind, and I know I made a very immediate impression on the interviewers...

...because I got the position!!!:D :D :D :D

I start next Tuesday. Full-time gig, 32-40 hours a week, until I finish school (I guess... could turn into a full-time position if I play my cards right). The fact that they made their decision so quickly is overwhelming, but at this point, I just chalk it up to being confident without coming across as over-confident.

I get more money (always a good thing with 3 kids :) ). I get experience in my chosen field (which helps me big time down the road). I get less free time... but really, I've had way too much of that recently; even the tutoring position didn't fill the time as much as I would have liked. The only other downside is my tutoring hours will have to be trimmed back... but it would have happened in 3 months or so anyway, and keeping C++ and math fresh is no longer as necessary as it was 6 months ago.

I made sure I was early to the interview by staying up all night Sunday (not really difficult... insomnia can be my friend, too :lol: ), and somehow agreed that night to become a charter member in the Universe at War Union. So far, it's still waiting for one last member to accept his invitation, but once it's live, I'll be trying my hardest to make it as excellent a place to hang out as the 40K and C&C unions have been to me... and do so with the short amount of time I'll get during the week.

So... until next Tuesday, I'll still be here as much as I usually am. After that, I'll try to be here whenever I can. Hopefully, I can find a way to juggle all 5 balls I've got in the air without dropping any of them (then again, I'm a very good mental juggler, so I don't really see how I can drop anything :D ).

So, until next time: stay well, be safe, and don't let the Force push you aound :lol: .

Hello, everybody! Just an update to let you know how things are progressing my little corner of the Twilight Zone (aka upstate New York):

Books: I picked up "Fulgrim" (book 5 of the Horus Heresy) and "Chainfire" by Terry Goodkind today. WH40Kers will recognize the first book; the second one is book 9 of the Sord of Truth series, one of the most mature fantasy series I've ever read.

The people are fully fleshed out: the hero, Richard Cypher, is a very flawed, vulnerable hero who nevertheless tries to do the right thing... no matter how much it may cost him. His partner is Kahlen Amnell, a woman with a power that denies her the ability to experience true love. Together, they fight against the death of magic, and the forces of tyranny... but not the kind of tyrrany you may expect. Even if you're not a big fantasy fan, I'd highly recommend the books... with a warning: the subject matter is very intense at times, and Goodkind is not afraid to add intimate moments (and twisted versions of them) to his novels.

Games: still working on HL2. It's very compelling, and very addicting. I'm still dabbling in my usual (DoW, C&C3, DS2), but HL2 is taking center stage right now.

School: the term is winding down. Calc final was Friday... studied my eyes out for it, so I'm sure I passed it. Wednesday is the Group Dynamics final presentation: the only way I mess that up is by not showing up. Monday is the Applications final project presentation; I gave a dry run for it last week, and tweaked a few things the instructor pointed out.

That was the hardest course I've taken so far. Going through the process of building an application (specification, design, etc.), getting it to run properly (so far, I'm the only person in class to have a working application... it doesn't have to run, I found out, but I'm a very determined person, so I felt I needed it to run)... it was very rewarding, but very draining.

And having to stand in front of everyone and talk about the project... it challenged me in a way I'm not sure I liked. I'm naturally a very quiet person. If you were in the same room with me, you most likely wouldn't notice me, because I take pains to blend into the background. I even had my wife's best friend convinced I was a mute for almost a year (should have seen her jump when I talked for the first time :lol: ). Standing in front of people, even people I've known for almost 2 years, is an incredible trial for me.

Also, I feel very guilty about how well I'm doing compared to my peers. I have a very original concept, with a lot of incredible ideas for its present and future application in everyday life and in business. Compared to my classmates, I have the stand-out project: it sounds arrogant, but I really don't see any other way to explain it. I just feel bad because these guys are my friends, and I don't like seeing my friends struggle with their projects.

Ah, well...

After Wednesday, I get a week and a half off before the final 3 classes of my associate's degree start (wow... it's almost been 2 years since I started... time flies). During that time, I have a few things around the house to do, and get two of the kids ready to go back to school (our oldest goes to 8th grade this year; the middle child starts kindergarten, and she's really excited).

And the summer is winding down as well...