Hieumor

After a day like today, I would normally drive out of the city limits to enjoy the sky treats. Here's one from my drive back to Lubbock this past weekend. Just lovely.

As this is my second after 1am post for the week, I wanted to note for posterity: Group work prepares you for the real world. But not for "team bonding" or "get along with others" skills that initally come to mind. No. More like "this is what it feels like when you want to strangle a small number of people at the same time" kind of real world experience. I don't mind that I have a hideous test tomorrow morning I'm not prepared for. I mind that I have to finish up two papers and a presentation due tomorrow as well. And by finish up, I mean complete the missing parts. And by missing parts, we're talking about whole multiple page sections. 12 point font, 1.5 spacing, with pictures and references. Good Stuff!

So here we go, lets count down...10 days till I a) fail the semester or b) find there really is a God.

• Surviving 3 trips to the ER
• Driving a bright yellow Porsche GT3… more than once… and really really fast!
• Driving a WRX… (only once… and a lot slower!)
• Me in red hair, going to a concert with a guy with blue hair in a WRX.
  
• Sushi in 4 different cities
• Calling out my own number for a table because I was hungry and tired of waiting, and trying weird animal feet at DimSum
• Purple Grottos at 3am
  
• Autocrossing
• Having friends like mine
• Summer Internship with a kick ass roommate and awesome employer
• My digital camera
• Mom shopping for a Kiwi Green Honda Scooter
• Knowing my little brother dissects brains and will find cures for bad things

The Pictures (650+) are finally up from the 2004 IMECE Anaheim Trip. Many gracious thanks to Will, DanyInMyPants, Jeremy and Graham for contributing.

Long post short:
Nov. 12-16, 2004 - Anaheim, CA.
Graham and I flew SWA from Lubbock to LAX for the 2004 Congress. I went as the RegionX SSC Representative and Graham went on behalf of Texas Tech and the IPTI Collegiate Council. After the long days of meetings, technical sessions, forums, and the EXPO, we did some site seeing. Highlights of the site seeing were the In-and-Out burger joint, Rodeo Drive, Jay Leno, Hollywood, West Coast Choppers, the numerous DelTaco joints with their DelScorchoSauce, and clubbing in Fullerton.

It was great to see all the SSC guys again & the IPTI CC guys and Thomas from last years council! And it was awesome to meet some new peoplage: Will and Maurice.

Thanks go out to: The SSC guys for being supportive and working diligently for the future of SSC. Also to the IPTI guys for your presence a the SSC meeting. Many thanks to Mikey for helping out with the rental car ugliness. Many more thanks to Ryan for navigating from the backseat. Many many more thanks to Graham for driving, carrying my luggage, and putting up with me.

For once, a holiday at home wasn't bad. There was very little if any stress. Lots of sleeping, good food, the occassional nutty kid with bad eating habits, but otherwise: uneventful. I got most of one of three papers done. *yeaa!* There was even an American wedding to attend which result in me taking home two additional dresses and pretty jewelry. I swear, I'll never be too old to play dress up!

I guess the only eventful thing was the gas station attendant accusing me of gasing and dashing. All I look for when I'm pumping gas is decent octane, decent price, and a card swiper. Card swipers help me avoid going inside and being accosted by icky men and other people's children. Anyway, I digress. So I pull up to this nice Chevron on the side of a major freeway. I pull the brakes, open the tank slip out my debit card and head towards the swiper thingy. There's a little sign covering the swiper thingy that reads "out of order". CRAP, get back into my car, swing around the hot guy filling up his huge truck and park on the otherside of the building at an open pump. I pull the brakes again and get out when the gas attendant comes up and says, "You owe me $5 on that other pump."
"Excuse me?"
"You pumped $5 worth and didn't pay"
"Uh.. no I didn't"
"Yes you did"
"I couldn't have, the card swipey thing is "OUT OF ORDER""
"Your gas tank door is open"
"That's because I was going to... Dood, seriously, where's the camera?"
"No. I saw you and your car, you pumped, you need to pay"
"Come with me. Now." I pull him through the little convient store to the otherside where hot guy is still filling up his truck.
"Hey, do me a favor and tell this guy I never pumped any gas into my car"
"Yeah, she didn't. Seriously." Hot guys tend to rock like that.
Gas attendant looks at me and shrugs his shoulders and says someone has to pay for the gas.
"Not me, man. Sorry."
So I go back, finish pumping some premium goodness when gas attendant man comes out again.
"Yeah, so there were these kids in this truck that was there before you... and they didn't pay. But they came back and paid." PunkA$$ kids getting me in trouble. Some people's children.

We were hanging lights yesterday when a couple rush by us on their shiny new scooters. Mom turns to me and get's all excited, "Hieu! I want one! Lets go shopping!"

So today, instead of hitting up the traditional day after T-Day sales, we headed to the Honda dealership where my mom found this cute little KiwiGreen 50cc moped! I think after she gets the license and insurance taken care of, the Accord will have a little green sibling in the garage!

Wiggers - see definitions 3 & 7.

I was flipping through my Facebook and found one. I was amused to find that he’s a conservative, deer huntin’, white male who identifies himself with his hometown area code, 713. He even hates on those with the newer area code, 281. Who knew area codes were just soo defining?! I was even more impressed his entry for ‘hometown’: H-Town (N*Word) representing the 713 since 1984.

This country music lovin DDR playin wigger took the time to spell out “representing”. Shouldn’t it have been “represen-en” or some derivative thereof?

Heee, yeah. He can't truely be thinkin he thuggin. Besides, we all know the 817 and 21fo' peeps kicks everyone else's asses.

The lack of the meaty updates is a result of me participating in a lotta CYA action. The little “hour” squares in the datebook of my Clie are packed with a play by play of my project filled day. Sigh.

And so today I share with you some funny clippettes from this past week.

The Jesus Look. Rachel and I did some much needed shopping the day before our big Banquet when we had this “What’s with the Jesus Look?” discussion. How did wispy, patchy, multi-directional facial hair growth become in vogue? Seriously. It’s disgusting. Facial hair is unattractive unless it’s trimmed and kept clean of falling debris - read: crumbs. Lately, it’s been the trend that these pimply pubescent teens try to grow these hideous cheek-shielding throat-warming facial mullets. Some of them have never shaved before and so it’s not even rugged manly stubble – it’s baby hair. Some of these “beards” are soo thin, you can see the multiple cowlicks as it crawls across and down their poptart eating faces. To all you Jesus-Lookin peoples, be warned, I just might hand you a disposable Gillette with a red bow this Christmas.

Red Lights. I’ve always been amused when I’m riding with a guy and we’re talking and he forgets his turn or where he’s going. Especially when he tells me it’s because he finds me distracting in a good way. It’s more of an adventurous event when I’m riding with Rachel. We end up talking about boys and cars and toys when we run a red light and there’s this huge black truck deciding that hey, it’s green, I’m gonna go even though this chick with a huge Christmas Tree in her back seat doesn’t look like she’s stopping. And it came *<--this close-->* to the car. Okay, more like a foot. But I’m telling the story, so it was mere inches! We’re okay, the tree’s okay, and that was that.

The Date. Oh this tree and the Banquet, got to tell you about that. We had this Winter Banquet that we’ve been planning for months now – hence the need to relocate a tree to the Banquet site. It got hairy at times and we were running crazy low on funds, time and staff, but we pulled it off. Of course it didn’t happen without some humorous high points. Like JR soliciting dates for me. *Sigh* Like I need a date. Much less could tolerate someone acting in “date” capacity on a night when I was in NotHavingTheTimeToEntertainYou™ mode. This “date” even had the nerve to NOT purchase a much-needed-to-be-paid-for ticket and waltzed in with the “I’m with Hieu” line. No dear, you weren’t with me. Freeloader.

After Banquet time was spent purchasing alcohol and watching engineers trying to spell out names of common items such as “pencil”, “numchucks”, and “exclamation point” from an 80’s Nintendo game.

I survived the week. I hope everyone else did, too. Next week: TheHolidays. Man, they really sneak up on your don’t they?

My dad's always been big into photography. He documented most of my younger years with his 33mm and Kodak paper. The first 6 years of my life fill up numerous volumes of yellow edge photo albums and boxes of slides. I've always appreciated my dad's photography and thanks to the web, I have found a few other photographers to appreciate. If you have some time, check out the works of DisneyMike and Godfrey DiGiorgi - my favorite online publishing photographers.

5 days of travel and many days of homework behind, I haven't posted and won't be able to put up pictures until this weekend.

The weekend was excellent, I feel that I got a lot accomplished personally and learned a little more about real world politics than I really wanted to know. I had an awesome time with my friends and took a lot of pictures to prove it. I got a lot of technical and touristy goodies out of the trip, too. It wasn't without it's drama thanks to Wells Fargo. But the post will be up this weekend. Till then pray that I get some sleep :-)

The U2 iPod it's like a dream come true!! My favoritest ever band, and my favoritest ever toys, not to mention my school colors, all in one handy, really expensive package!!! Somewhere on the FruitCompany Campus is a styrofoam cup that says "Hieuy's iPod Fund". To all the FruitMonkeys, please, start donating.....

To the chap in Ludington, Michigan who happened upon my site with the msn search: "Funny stuff to do with a group in Walmart",

I hope you found what you were looking for and it doesn't have anything to do with ketchup flavored pringles or dead fish lying at the bottom of the tanks in the "pet" section.

For lunch today, I added people to my Facebook.

I'm working on my Thermal Fluids Lab Report, so as I take a break I will share with you all a conversation from earlier today... edited for your amusement.

SM: An away message: "in and of itself, nothing really matters. what matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself'". My Response: What matters is not that nothing is ever "in and of itself," but when nothing is "in and of itself". That this is ever the case remains to be shown.

at this point, i'm feeling folds creating themselves in my grey matter....

On second thought, if and when nothing is the matter, we propose either that nothing has weight and occupies space, or more interestingly, that matter is nothing. Of course, we could entertain the amusing possibility that nothing does have weight and occupy space and the matter is nothing--in which case everything would be vacuous, including this lengthy meandering.

Me: I've always disliked that phrase "in and of itself" it bothered me and I never knew why. It's like that word "segway" and when people use it in a sentence. "I'm going to segway into something else"... I want to say no, no you're not. You're not going to segway, you're going to change the subject. Segway is like Nutmeg.

Or Legume.

Nutmeg, people put in the oddest of recipes. Honestly, if you didn't have it, you wouldn't miss it. Like the word segway, you don't need it.

And Legume. It sounds funny, like segway. Just say nut. Because it really is just a nut. Really, it is... Sure you can be technical, but if you're going to do that, use the scientific name, at least it would be acceptable nerdism.

Legume = Vericose Veins. Or it should. It involves the word "leg" and "ume" - as in "exhume" - which is a word that involves dead ugliness in it, not unlike vericose veins.

I realize that segway is actually spelled s-e-g-u-e. But see, there's that g-u-e combination again. I can only deal with so many in one post at a time.

***
And so ends another episode of Hieuy wordage issues. It's going to be a short week as I count down to the much anticipated trip to Anahiem and the 2004 IMECE. I'll try to post a little bit everyday, perhaps entertain you all with stories from my childhood or tidbits on people I know. We'll see.

It snowed quite a bit yesterday as I left campus, and I stayed up late last night to watch as every major network started coloring in states and spouting irrelevant numbers. I woke up to the "news" that just minutes ago, there were talks of concession. Well here we go folks....

We were promised snow after midnight - it's not here yet, but it's definitely cold enough. I still don't get the "36°F but feels like 22°F" thing. Just say it's 22°F. It's 3am!! It's not like it could be warmer in the sun!! It's like me saying I'm ready for this test, but I feel like I'm not.. Face it, I'm not ready... even if I was in the sun.

Nothing could compare to Halloween in Austin on 6th Street... But there isn't one evening on 6th Street that could compare to the over extended party that was this weekend. Ah yes.. It all started Thursday night as I was craming for a major exam and ended sometime Sunday afternoon. Running down a short list of the lessons learned and the random good stuff:

1. You really can't get as drunk on days 2 & 3 & 4 as you do on day 1.
2. Do not fall asleep in a room full of drunk people, especially if they're your friends - here's why
   
1. Antiqueing
2. Tea bagging
3. The big penis that'll be drawn on your back with a Sharpie
4. They have camera phones.. that take video.
   
3. Jeremy would like to throw.. anything.. across the back of a couch and do it.
4. Jeremy likes to have his ass grabbed.
5. Amusement is watching a whiteboy C-walk. Oh yeah - a whiteboy.
   
6. Miss V makes a hot french maid and Miss B makes a hot nun.
7. Thier dog can out wheeze a 60 yr old two-pack-a-day smoker.
   
8. Arby's is open 24 hours.
9. Not having to paying cover - always good.

I myself went as a race girl. The costume purchased from Fredericks with fishnets from VS. And I was pretty damn hot! No, sorry no pictures... Certain things should be left off film.