BigCat’s Blog of DOOM

I hate the lids on the Taco Bell cups. They never fit right, and 3 out of 4 times I end up spilling some of my drink on my shirt or on the table. Tonight was no exception…good thing it was just an undershirt.

I feel like one of those people who couldn’t make it at a good engineering school, and went to some shitty school where they baby you, designed the damned things. I can hear some crappy prof who only has their MS and teaches some CivE class with 5 students in it saying; “Oh, you suck at using cad, don’t worry, no one will die on your shitty bridge. The point is you tried hard.” or “It’s ok if the lines don’t match up exactly, it is only a Taco Bell lid, it isn’t like someone is going to spill on anything important,” as I walk back into work looking like a jerk with a big red stain on my light blue shirt.

Bastards, all the schools like U of I and MIT should set standards for shitty small schools. That would make my deflated U of I grades look better against U of M grads around here.

Oh well…enough bitching about Taco bell.

In other news, the table top is off of the legs. That thing is freaking heavy. It was hard to guide it off the bolts on the main legs by myself. Good thing I’m a beefcake. !BEEFCAKE!

The desk is apart, the computer monitor is sitting on top of the beer fridge, and the tunes-box is sitting on top so I have music while I work.

Next I move the boxes sitting in front of the bookshelf and entertainment center to where the table used to be, so there is room to get those out of here tomorrow. That is, if I get a freaking Uhaul. There isn’t a single one of those in the city it seems like. Oh well, it may be more expensive, but there are some other trucks I think I can get.

Well, back to work.

This is a funny article on why some guy dropped out of engineering.

I agree pretty much entirely with what he says, except, I don’t think he was actually smart enough to be an engineer. There is a purpose to the weeding out, and good schools put good teachers in the important classes, even at the lower levels.

The courses that aren’t taught well, are re-taught by the professors in upper level Engineering classes, which is a waste, but this guy didn’t stick around long enough to see that.

I forgot to mention my new numbers so you can all reach me on the new phone.

Lauren: Six One Two, Six Six Nine, One Five Five Seven
Me: Six One Two, Six Six Nine, Five One Nine Eight

Please don’t try our 217 numbers unless you absolutely have to. We are disconnecting them at the end of the billing cycle.

Also, I updated to Gallery 2 for my image software. Check it out at bencatlin.com/gallery2. The wedding photos aren’t up yet, but I’ll get them transfered over as soon as I get a chance.

That is all I can think of for now.

Current Mood:  excited

K, so I got home from this amazing retreat we had this weekend, and there are things I should write about, and a few crazy things I’ve been thinking about from the retreat that I won’t write about until after I do them…but first, I want to inform everyone that the whining about the cell phone will stop.

I placed an order when I got home tonight.

And my patience paid off. I waited until Letstalk.com had the phone available, and they had a super deal on it at $150, vs the $300 directly from cingular.

Total out the door for phones and overnight shipping so I can have my new phone while I’m in Vegas next week, $214 and there is a $50 dollar mail-in rebate on Lauren’s phone.

So, Tuesday I’ll post some first impressions after I get it up and going, and I will have new cell numbers for everone by then.

Called Cingular, and while I was talking to the guy it showed up in their database as available for general customers.

But, do they have the phone I want to get for Lauren….of course not!

Waiting game until I find both on a site where I can get them together.

We went out again and looked at condo’s.

This trend continues where we look at condo’s that we like, and then feel like we won’t get one because of circumstance, then we go look at apartments.

Freaking annoying.

So, the one we really like that has high condo fee’s, and is actually a co-op, not a condo dropped 15 grand in price. That is like $100 / month on the payment. Now, if we can find out why the hell they think it is reasonable to charge over $500 a month in association dues, then maybe we will get somewhere. Thursday at 8 we have a meeting with the realtor of the place to talk about that stuff.

The annoying thing is that the place is the most square feet / dollar, and it is close to Jeff and Q’s, not including the fee’s, and we love the upstairs part of it where the skylight is. We looked at another mult-story building, which had a basement and a washer and dryer, which we liked. But the neighborhood scarred me some. Jeff and Q moved into a neighborhood where downtown is bleeding into the not-nice part of town, but this would be several blocks south of that, where it would take longer for development to improve. It wasn’t an awful neighborhood, but I just have pretty bad fears for Lauren walking to and from the bus stations…especially when she has tests at night, or labs or study groups or whatever….just freaks me out.

That place did have enough room for a computer area / worshop / poker room, besides the two bedrooms and kitchen, dining room, and living room. I’m just not sure we could afford it. I suspose my request for a raise will really be the determining factor for some of that.

Also, somewhat related, suposedly the phone I want is going to be released tomorrow online. In stores in a week or two. Makes me wonder if the discount people will sell them as soon as cingular puts them online. That would be nice, cuz I really don’t want to drop $300 on a cell phone knowing that I can wait a few weeks and get it cheaper. But, I’ve been waiting months for this phone, and Lauren will point out that we have planned on getting new phones since this time last year. If I waited those few weeks to get the phone after it was released I’m afraid Lauren would kill me. So, since it is “official” according to some cingular employees, I’m assuming they will pull the shipments at the last minute due to something stupid, while God points at me and laughs.

Sometimes I feel like I’m having a carrot dangled in front of my face, just out of reach (more about the house than the cell phone).

On a different note, my boss asked me to go to Vegas next week, and try to drum up some buisness. A world-wind tour of the gaming convention. Part of me is set to go, and sees that as a good opportunity for our company, and another part sees that as feeding the worlds entertainment addiction….damn you Piper and your preaching on the US’s entertainment addiction. But I do reall love Vegas…and I love walking outside with my beer, which you can do in Vegas.

That is all for now.

This morning when the radio came on they were talking about the most recent developments in the hurricane story.

It seems that some people in New Orleans are shooting at rescue workers, both in helicopters and otherwise. One MP had a man try to wrestle a rifle out of his hands. People are looting guns from Walmart to shoot other people, not to mention the big-ticket / non-essential items that are being looted, and there are reports that woman are being raped because there is no one to stop it.

This made me very sad (sadder than I already was over the reports of the aftermath), and also angry. Angry at people who would show exactly how fallen america has become.

Then I was thinking about a sermon I heard recently on the radio that Piper gave on Romans 1. He spent two weeks on the versus in Romans 1 on homosexuality, which were very good sermons that reiterated a lot of what I already think about it, then he went back and did a thrid week on the broader principals of those verses. (vs. 21-28) He talked about the symatry in the three paragraphs (as the NIV labels them anyway) and about how the last verse shows that God allows man to be overcome by the depravity of their own minds.

How true that shows through when people turn to shooting at rescue workers, and raping woman because they know they can get away with it.

At small group we watched a video called “transformations”. Liz likes to show it to her groups from time to time. It is about four cities across the world being radically changed by the power of prayer. I can’t help but think that maybe this is evidence that we aren’t the morally upright country we pretend to be, and that more people need to put more energy into praying for individual cities.

We shouldn’t give up hope that a city can be changed by the power of praying people. This shouldn’t be seen as a sign that God abondon this city, but only that he let the people there have an opportunity to express the thoughts of their already depraved minds. I believe that unified prayer of the christians across this country could turn this around without the national guard having to actually go to war against the looting (according to the governor they are decalaring War against those people, and are sending 1500 national guard troops every day to add to the forces there, and this city only had 1400 police officers to begin with).

So, if your the praying sort, pray that God will reign in the minds and hearts of the people that are causing the chaos to continue and grow worse. Pray that the healthy people in that city will not be a cause for a rising death toll. Also, don’t forget to continue praying for places that have other horrible problems, and no government support to help out.

This is a sad week for America. It makes me want to do more, but it is like I don’t know where to start.