Ulmus Jefferii

… Ronald Reagan sits at the right hand of the Father as Ron Paul breaks his personal record for Sudoku.

I have never seen so much man-on-man love in the Republican party. Granted I wouldn’t call it as I really saw it with Nancy there. I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger ready to throw her at anyone that said anything bad about old Ronald. Save Ron Paul, they were all ready to change the constitution and re-elect Reagan.

They all loved comparing themselves to Reagan, in particular Romney. My friend Ramapajama succinctly paraphrased Romney’s summation: “And like Ronald Reagan, I put words into Ronald Reagan’s mouth”.

About halfway through the debate is was obvious that Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee were disappointed with the limited number of questions to which they were asked to respond. This is when Ron Paul began keeping his mind sharp by doing Sudoku. I mean it. Go back and look at the paper in front of him. He was on a roll. At the end he almost got stuck and asked Huckabee for some help, but solved it before Huckabee could offer any suggestions. Therefore it is a legitimate new personal best.

In conclusion, I wonder why Reagan is looked to as exemplary. I really think this will lead to more administrations like our current one.

First, let me say that I don’t think this really says anything about GW Bush. However, the irony of the situation is humorous and many would say fitting.

I first heard about this painting on “Wait, wait … don’t tell me!”. The painting in question is titled “A Charge to Keep” by W.H.D. Koerner, and it currently hangs in the Oval Office.

According to Bush himself the main subject resembles Bush himself. He interprets it in the context of a hymn, “”. However early uses of this painting were in the context of a criminal fleeing [link, link].

Really none of this matters. But you still have to laugh a little, and think that maybe people misinterpret other things very differently than they were originally intended. Sources such as some Books (I meant to capitalize the ‘B’ because some people use “Book” as if it was a proper name).

I began with high hopes. But by Wednesday I was tired a little on edge. If ego was to stand alone and did not nourish itself parasitically, mine would be deceased. Luckily it clung on some how. Needless to say, it is back in full health and making me think I can do everything I need and/or want to do.

I am not falling behind in anything, but I didn’t work save a few hours this week. That is one thing I want to do that has suffered. For anyone not aware of my position (listen up spammers), I am a grad student and yet continue to work part-time for my former full-time employer. The management makes sure I am happy and only show minor aggravation with my unpredictable work schedule. Any money is welcome to a grad student that has watched his sad portfolio dwindle with the rest of the US economy. US…that makes me think of my earlier vision of a Surface-to-Air missile (SAM) decked out as Uncle Sam (US).

My research[sic] is going well. I got some streaming video using h.264 encoding boards working. However the container file format for the video looks to be proprietary. Maybe I will get the source code (with a NDA of course). I am still having difficulty seeing where this work is leading though. I am setting up a system but I don’t see what new areas there are to explore.

I am endeavoring once again to pursue a real education in electronics. I am sitting in on a class “Electronics for Music Synthesis” and realizing the electronics I learned I have never really used and that there is so much simple electronics that solving entire books of equations will never teach you. I feel like I know code like a musician knows his/her instrument. I want the same for electronics. Perhaps that is too much to desire, but no harm is to be done by trying.

Innate understanding, a supreme comfort, a complete different frame of mind in which understanding does not require thought. I suppose I want to master things with a Zen-like completeness. I am grasping for some new simile, but I lack that craft.

This weekend I need to update my resume and think about what the hell I am doing with my life post-grad school. The disillusionment of grad school has gone much deeper and made me wonder if I should just move to the country and be a teacher (sans long hair of course), or open a public house. But right now I still have a love of technology and neither of those would work. But that leads to my trying to establish hobbies. I have been trying to add robotics to my hobby list and in February I have resolved to add brewer too. Academic and polymath are not to be added to my CV, I leave those to my cookie making friend.