Spring Break Begins…Ends
I really shouldn’t be writing this. It’s 9:15 on the Sunday before I return to school for a final eight weeks. I’ve just gotten home from Los Angeles. There’s probably unfinished homework somewhere that I could be working on. But no, I am here at this forsaken computer, typing yet another entry, one that could easily be three separate entries, as I have much to say.
I’ll try to do this chronologically. Friday, of course, was a great day. Probably the second-best day of the year, after the last day of school. It was a half-day, a Friday, and the last day before spring break. What more can you ask for? And so I happily played computer games. All night. And over the weekend. I don’t know what came over me. It was this sudden need to play, an uncontrollable urge to give in to the computer (as if I haven’t already). And all those plans of developing some awesome PHP application were gone, and all there was were the games. They weren’t even good games. Except for Red Faction, which I rented from Blockbuster (for Playstation2) and Chrono Cross (Playstation) which I bought for $20.
I may as well say right now that this was not a good week for my coffers. I easily spent fifty dollars on various items and expenses, many of which were probably not worth it. More on that later. Anyway, Sunday the horrible game craze was broken when my brother and I were enslaved and sent off to work for an elderly neighbor who wanted his tree trimmed. Though I was unhappy at leaving my game at first, I found the work to be satisfying in a way that writing PHP or doing schoolwork cannot.
With code, everything is virtual, not real, not tangible. With schoolwork, one has the conscious feeling that what one is doing is not worth it. Only major projects that turn out well ever leave a sense of accomplishment anymore. I’ll only be happy to graduate high school for the escape it will give me, not the satisfaction of making it through our flawed education system. So this manual labor was good for me, in a way, and I now appreciate it. After voicing this to my father, I was given the extra task of coming back on Thursday to weed and clear the backyard. My brain was disgusted, unhappy, rebellious, while my body screamed for exercise. A virtual tug of war between different selves.
But before this tug of war could be resolved, Monday came, and I was invited by Jim and Dylan to come with them to a movie (Hidalgo) in the afternoon. We arrived at the theater at about 4:00, and, three hours of previews later, the movie finally started, and it wasn’t bad. I found it somewhat lacking in some areas, but it was good overall. And, of course, it had Viggo Mortensen (spl?) in it, the actor who played Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (I thought I’d clear that bit up in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last four years).
After the movie, we spent a whole two hours in Barnes and Noble (and we felt nerdy about it, too) just looking at books and marveling at their stupidity. I mean, come on, why is there an Idiot’s Guide to the ACT Test? We also contemplated buying Mein Kampf, The Art of War, and The Communist Manifesto, but all 90 billion available editions were quite pricey. We chuckled at the thought of carrying Mein Kampf around Desert Ridge, though, just to see if anyone would stare.
After BN, Dylan called his mom to pick us up, and we walked over to Ultimate Electronics while we waited for her. We marveled again at the garish home theatre and stereo equipment, and then we left when the snooty-looking employees became annoyed after we turned on the horribly loud “Bose Theatre Experience” (scientifically engineered to improve sound by forever damaging your eardrums).
The next stop was OfficeMax, where we played immaturely on the office chairs (they’re pretty fun, until a mean lady starts glaring at you). We finally crossed the vast expanse of parking lots at Desert Ridge for the last time to meet Dylan’s mom at In-N-Out Burger. After eating, it was decided that we would sleep over at Jim’s house, since I had never been there (in three years of being his friend) and we all felt like celebrating spring break by staying up late.
“Late” is an understatement. We never went to sleep. The night was mostly computer and video games, a D&D-like game called Mordheim, and the occaisional pillow fight between Dylan and I. Eventually Jim was elected High Inquisitor, and he used a torturously bright lamp to make us confess our sins. (That’ll keep you awake, constant fear of being blinded.) In the morning we flopped on the couches in the living room and finally went to sleep.
Couches were not a good idea; my neck is still sore from that. We also acted like we were drunk, and I was voted best impersonator for my rapid Japanese and my drunkard voices. (Voices never to be heard again, I assure you.) Three hours’ sleep was enough to get us in the mood for a swim in Jim’s 70-degree pool. It was cold, to say the least, but it felt warmer as my appendages became numb.
I finally got home that day at about two o’clock, ready for a nice, long nap. Unfortunately, I was denied that pleasure. My mom had come home early to take Zach and I bowling, and she hadn’t thought about the fact that I would be feeling as if I had a hangover when I returned. Despite my ungrateful protests, we went anyway, my strength bolstered by an Icee and several Dr. Peppers.
Bowling was fun; I did better than I have done in a long time, and I actually won the first game, even though I was tired. It seems that I bowl better when in a state of exhaustion, because the second game was bad (I ended up with an 83). After bowling I was awake again and ready to do something productive when I got home. I’d already been working on a new site for Brettia over the weekeng (between games), and it was almost ready for posting. A few finishing touches, a failed attempt at a library script, and it was done. The whole thing took about 15 hours. My employer would be appalled (his opinion is that all websites can be done poorly in Dreamweaver in five minutes, rather than perfectly by hand in several hours). Then again, the new Brettia site is by no means perfect, but how many other sites have rounded corners? (Technique credit: Fedora Core)
So I’m happy to have that out of the way. Sadly, I didn’t get anything else accomplished. I know that Mr. Trapani is probably running out of patience by now, since I haven’t really done anything for him since December. I have several school sites to work on, and he’s depending on me to take over his network next year, but the lack of time is just not allowing me to do everything I want to do. I’ll make it up to him in coming weeks, hopefully.
Tuesday turned out to be a good day, and Wednesday was the same, since I went to the eye doctor and was told that my prescription hadn’t changed in four years. That’s always good news, especially with my insane computer usage. Thursday was all preparation for the main highlight of my spring break, a family trip to Los Angeles. I also downloaded Fedora Core 2 Test 1, but one of my install CDs turned out to be corrupted. On the upside, Windows got six more gigabytes of space after the Linux partition was deleted.
Friday was the long drive out to California (six hours, to be exact). I started a new book, Angels and Demons, one that I bought from Barnes and Noble on the night I was out with my friends. It’s the prequel to The Da Vinci Code, and it’s better, in my opinion. I won’t give the entire plot away, but it’s about a college professor who becomes caught up in a plot by a Satanic organization called the Illuminati to blow up the Vatican with a new weapon called antimatter that is very much like an atomic bomb. There are all these religious implications as well, as well as chase through Rome after an assassin hired by the Illuminati to kill four Catholic cardinals. I won’t say anything more except that it is worth reading.
The first stop in CA was the beach, and then dinner at a nice restaurant that proved to have bad service and bad food. (I’m rushing now because I have to go to bed.) Saturday was the best day of the trip: Six Flags Magic Mountain, home of just about every extreme roller coaster in the world. I must admit that I was somewhat nervous at first, having always had a fear for roller coasters (especially those like Goliath that drop 255 feet and go 85 miles per hour!). But after the first one, Viper, it was all downhill, literally. I ended up riding on five different coasters, one twice.
This may not sound like much, but the wait times for many of the coasters were upwards of two hours. So we couldn’t ride too many in an eight-hour day. However, we did have this thing called FastLane, which allowed you to go through a much shorter line on four rides of your choice. This proved quite helpful; otherwise it is likely that we would have only ridden three or four times instead of six or seven.
Finally, today, Sunday, was the ride home. I must go to bed now; I’m being threatened with death, so I’ll elaborate tomorrow if I can.
Eggplant Parmesana