It’s been a busy few days. My Fraternity held Initiation last night. It went well, and now my little bro is a full Active. Woohoo!

Sorry, no witty rants today. However, I would like to share a solution to a computer problem I had: If you own a Philips CDRW800 drive – model PCRW804 – and have noticed that CD’s burn slowly when using 80 minute blanks, I found a solution: Update the firmware! Of course, this turned out to be easier said than done. One would think that the Philips website would have the update. Sadly, that is not the case. I searched high and low for the firmware update, but met not but failure. That is, untill I happened upon some random French site. There I found it, and here I mirror it for the rest of the world to use.

It’s been about a month since I debuted the ‘New’ Keacher.com, and in celebration, I’ve decided to post my resume. If you’re looking to hire a bright, computer-guru Electrical Engineering student, I’m your best choice. I will make a valuable addition to you company’s team.

Nature seems to have found its way into my room at the Fraternity House. A small black bird somehow appeared in the room while I was in class. Apparently, Minufo is deathly afraid of birds, and was rolled in a little ball panicking while Dave shooed the feathered beast outside. That happened Monday. Today, I came back from class, opened my door, and was greeted by a black avis [see below] darting over the couch. I was able to snap a photo before it darted away. If you can identify it, I would be greatly appreciative.

Regarding the word ‘avis’: there is disagreement about its meaning in the online dictionary world. I got the word from the MS-Word thesaurus but decided to check the meaning on Dictionary.com. I was a bit surprised to find a definition of ‘Advice; opinion; deliberation.’ when I was expecting something related to winged flying things. Now unsure of myself, I checked the Encarta online dictionary. A search for ‘avis‘ returned no results, so I tried ‘aves.’ Once again, no definition, but to my surprise, one of the suggested alternate words was ‘avis.’ Now thouroughly confused, I made a stop at Merriam-Webster. To my delight, a search for avis returned an entry for rara avis, with a given meaning of ‘rare bird.’ Confident that ‘avis’ is a synonym for ‘bird,’ I proceded to finish writing this entry. Moral of the story: sometimes even dictionaries should eat crow.

Apparently, I’m out of the loop. Back on Friday, I noticed a sign on U.S. Highway 41 (a.k.a. Wabash Avenue) that had significant damage and a number of adjacent tire tracks. It was obvious that someone had done a little unintentional off-roading, though I didn’t think much of it. Coincidentally, Doug, one of my Fraternity Brothers, wasn’t in class that day. I thought it an odd day to skip, for we had an MSYS [Mechanical Systems, somewhat like dynamics] test to take. Jump forward to today (Monday): I was sitting in the Commons, killing some time, when I noticed Doug was doing homework that had been due Friday. I ribbed him for skipping class, a joke that quickly went sour when he indicated that his car was no more. It turns out that the accident happened Thursday night. That’s right: it took me three and a half days to get the skinny.

Doug showed me pictures of the car, the sign, and the skid marks. The story goes that he sweved to avoid a rapidly braking car, had the tail slide out, over-corrected, and left the road, taking out a park direction sign and damaging an age-old Clabber Girl baking powder billboard. The park sign, being made of the green-sign-on-two-metal-poles variety, yielded rather quickly. The Clabber Girl billboard was another story. Built of thick wooden beams and anchored with metal braces to cement feet, the structure stood fast against the oncoming Cougar. The sign lost a foot. The machine lost its form. Has the car breathed its last? Too soon to tell.

Despite today being a national holiday, Rose held classes. I wonder if any of the High School students touring Campus, here because public schools are closed on holodays, noticed. Hmmm….

I was sitting around today, fresh from a game of 8-Ball and a round of Worms Armageddon, when I received a call for assistance from one of my on-campus friends. It turns out that Matt is installing new headlights in his BMW 328is (clear corners and different lenses for the main lights), but the new lights take a different connector than the old lights. He was trying to wire up the new connectors, but the wind and [mild] cold was making his 30-watt soldering iron ineffective.

I came over to new res with, among other things, my propane blow torch in tow. Needless to say, the torch made short work of the soldering. Problem was, a considerable amount of solder vaporized before reaching the wires. Mindful that successful soldering means having solder on the wires, we set out in search of a more appropriate iron. Half an hour later, a 100-watt gun was fired up. It proved barely adequate, so we fell back on the torch several more times. At the end of the evening, one headlight was done. It even worked! More amazingly, Rose Security only bugged us once to get the Bimmer off of the sidewalk (which Matt had parked on to facilitate access to AC power).

After an interlude of a few hours, which included a Speed Three mini-reunion trip to BW3’s and Black Hawk Down, Matt, Chris (a.k.a. Dr. Smack ), Joey and I decided to take Chris’s car out for some donuts. No, not mini donuts, nor square donuts: car donuts. We drove around for a while until we spotted an elementary school parking lot, conveniently located in the Middle of Nowhere. The time being after 1:00 a.m., there wasn’t a soul to be seen. After a brief trek over grass (oops!) we arrived on the parking lot. Chris gunned it, gained speed, and flicked the wheel. Though not really a dount, we DID manage to get the Camry sideways and enjoyed the distinct smell of rubber burning. Not satisfied with this 1/3 donut, we set out again. Before long, we found a deserted, snow-covered, gravel parking lot. Chris dropped the auto into reverse (FWD == donuts easier in reverse), cranked the wheel, and massaged the loud pedal. Brakes were slammed, the rears bit, and the front broke loose. Several revolutions later, we high-tailed it outa there and back to Campus.

Because of these escapades, I was able to miss the enitre Luau Party, a fact that I feel no compunction about. In my mind, our parties are nothing more than excuses to get drunk, not to mention playing loud music throughout the night. As I write this at 3:30 a.m., there are STILL subwoofers thumping. So you can get inebriated and make a fool of yourself. Wow, that took a lot of effort and maturity – good for you. Oh wait, there’s more to it than that. I forgot about breaking random stuff, leaving various messes, and losing all recollection of the night. Man, I must be missing out. Sure, there are women at the parties, but I’m sorry if I don’t find dames reeking of alcohol attractive. Overall, the thing that really gets me is the ‘Saving of the Whales.’ Suffice it to say that for me, avoiding our parties would be more of a benefit than a loss.

Today one of my Profs decided to spend about 15 minutes reading Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The message that I got from the Professor was an opinion about affirmative action, though such words were never used. I too have feelings about affirmative action, though because of the lasting nature of the Internet, I will not voice them here. Rather, I wonder about the use of class time to talk about personal ethics.

Certainly racial issues are not directly related to engineering sciences – op-amps and turbines couldn’t care less who designs with them. None the less, ideas we experience in school will influence our morals throughout our lives, conciously or no. Therefore it is imperative that we mold our own minds in a manner that we may focus on the good and justness in one’s soul. When a professor talks about how to be an upright citizen and a moral professional, take heed; certainly one wastes more time daydreaming in class than the five minutes a week taken to discuss virtue.

I try to live a positive life. My mantra is, “Everything happens for a benneficial reason; it merely takes time to recognize the good.” I believe, like Cicero wrote, “nature has given to mankind … a compulsion to do good, and … a
desire to defend the well being of the community” [credit]. If someone feels the urge to recite rhetoric emphasizing positive ch ‘i, I am fully supportive.

The world would be a better place if everyone stopped for just one minute a day and wiped all hurtful thoughts from their psyches.

(Sorry, Netscape doesn’t support extended character sets very well)