davedot dot com

Do you ever feel like this?

I won't be entering vet school in the fall of 2008. I haven't decided what I will be doing yet. I feel burnt out. I'm not sure what I need to do next, but I know that vet school would be a waste of time and money right now. I feel like a year of doing something different would refresh me, and I could use it to strengthen my application.

I also feel kind of lost and hopeless. How the hell did I end up where I am in life? Why? I remember thinking when I was in high school, "If I can just make it to Virginia Tech, I'll study hard, go to vet school, everything will be awesome." Where the hell did I get that idea? Virginia Tech? Don't get me wrong, it is pretty amazing here, but where did it come from? Why vet school? I could've gone for computer science and had a useful degree in four years. What do you even do with an animal science degree? Plenty of things, I'm sure. I'll be looking for animal lab or management jobs. Maybe I'll do something with breeding. I could get along with a little field experience. Hell, I could just live in Blacksburg for a year or two. Even if my only animal work was volunteer, it doesn't take much to live comfortably in Blacksburg.

My other major plan, if not vet school, was grad school. It's different from what I'm doing, but probably not different enough. For now, I'm preparing for but not anticipating going that route. Time will tell.

Scott-O-Rama, a blog which I have enjoyed for the past year or so, has disappeared. The url takes me to a GoDaddy "Coming Soon!" message, and emails to Scott have bounced. If anyone knows what the haps are, leave a comment or contact me.

I have just landed at my new web host (thanks again Uncle Bill!) and I'm proceeding to situate everything else. Until I get things behind the scenes working properly, I'm just going to leave the default theme. Back in a couple days!

It seems that everything is so "Web 2.0" these days, with all their AJAX thingamabobs that update your information five seconds before you enter it, and custom switching stylesheets based on the weather in Brisbane. I didn't even have any shiny or glassy starburst graphics... until now!

Unfortunately, my content just isn't very Web 2.0, nor is the site in general. That's why I was forced to create my very own starbursts that didn't have any new-fangled technological references.

They were created using PS CS2, and a couple of Web 2.0 button Photoshop tutorials.

As an aside, I do believe this is the most categories any one post has ever belonged to.

I have five drafts waiting to be written on, and some of them have been sitting so long that I'll probably just delete them. I thought now that midterms and such are done that I'd be free to blog, but... eh. I've been photographing trees and such because it's fall and I like the colors.

On an unrelated note, rule 34. I have no idea what most of the first thirty-three rules are. The first two are "Don't visualize" and "No, really, don't visualize!." Rule 34 is NSFW, so you'll have to click below to read about it.

(more...)

One of the advantages of buying hosting is that you can host as many websites as you like. I had this idea, I want to start posting the little doodles and things I do in class on a blog. To that end, I introduce Scribbles. These are not high art by any definition of the word. They are simply scribbles in between my notes.

I used a Palm for a while. It was portable, and it made keeping track of ideas a lot easier. Unfortunately, I never quite mastered the input, and eventually it died. After that I started carrying little thread-bound composition notebooks in my pocket. It was amazing! Call me a Luddite, but there is just something so natural about putting pen to paper. Things go exactly where I want them to, I don't have to do any strange jiggery-pokery to get somewhere to write, and I can draw diagrams and pictures right smack-dab in the middle of writing.

I have purchased a moleskine, but I haven't brought myself to write in it yet. It's just too pretty. I may have to soon, though. The notebook I'm working on now is showing its age, and I'm running out of pages to boot.

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I'm not quite sure what's going on in Kristine's life right now, but she gave us a pretty easy SPF this week, involving some random stuff.

I'd just like to point out that these are thumbnails. Apparently there has been some confusion. If you click on the pictures, they are links to larger versions of the images. If you don't click on them they are still links, but they don't really do any good for you.

The Kitchen Sink

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This is the sink in my kitchen. The dishes aren't mine, I swear. My roommate and I take care of each other's dishes, but only when we're not being lazy. Needless to say, I was being lazy

Something that needs fixing

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1

These are computers in my closet. The one on the right runs Smoothwall, the middle one is a webserver, and the one on the left isn't running. I need to fix it.

Garbage

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The description of this part of the assignment was "Something you’re going to throw away right after you take the picture of it," but if I put that in the title of the image, I'd have nothing to write here. It's an empty Mountain Dew can.

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I was worried for a bit that I wouldn't get to participate in this week's Stuff Portrait Friday. Kristine was a little late getting the challenge up, and with my hit-or-miss performance since I started, the odds looked stacked against me. Fortunately this week's SPF is about my favorite time of year: Fall.

The change of seasons

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I know this might seem like a huge cop-out, but I actually wasn't trying to capture the color change of the leaves. I was trying to find a decent way to photographically portray the wind. When the wind gusts it blows leaves off, but it's sort of hard to predict. For me, the wind has always been a big part of fall. Fall is a season of change, and wind is the weather of change. Nobody talks about "the flurries of change" or "the patchy fog clearing in the late morning of change."

The beauty of home

I'll get it up eventually.

Once more I dig into the Photo Folder of Doom™ to bring you pictures of a waterfall! This is a short hike from my home. I love all the little waterways that run around my area. I sort of miss it. It's been a while since I've had a chance to get out and enjoy the nature back home.

My favorite part of the weather change

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My favorite part about the weather cooling down is that I get to wear my sweaters. I really do like my sweaters, and I don't get nearly enough opportunity to wear them. I just prefer warm winter clothes in general. They make me feel all soft and snuggly and comfy.

So that's my fall in a nutshell. Walnut, if you want to get specific about it. I don't think they get ripe enough for human consumption though. The squirrels usually get them first.

Did you play?