I found a bug, too.

Actually, my bug is nowhere near as scary as Hannah's pidgeon. This one really is a software bug; Hërr Tomato and VB, you guys don't have to worry about feeling too Cathode-Ray Tanned if you inferred the right bug this time. If you guys actually fell back to the real world, though...heh, you must be so confused.

Anyways, my bug. I don't know how the heck it came about. I do believe I'm the one that made it, though; two days ago, I was working on some Query software, and I could run queries. Yesterday, I got an ASP error of some sort, but it wasn't affecting what I was working on, so I ignored it. Then, I showed my coworker (mentor, really) Pete this weird HTML/JS trick that filled out an entire element using only a NAME attribute, or some such...and the whole Query system's f^*#ed. "IIIIiiiii'm in trouble." Pete didn't disagree.

Bug hunting sux0rs. Especially if you're the one who made it, after going on a rash of not leaving sufficient comments in modified code. I narrowed down my Monster to an unterminated string, somewhere...which means I only have to find a doublequote character without a buddy; find a file with an odd number, and I'm halfway to the solution.

The first place I looked: The general script file for our system. 677 doublequotes. "Well," Pete said over my shoulder, "It's not like you had anything to do today anyway."

Not like I have anything to do tomorrow, either...not with that wonderful glitch there, anyway. At the very least, I'm guaranteed some hours to put into that monster. Here, quotemark quotemark quotemark...

Base 2; Clouds and an Umbrella

As of just before this entry, I have 1101 comments. That literally translates to a sexy 25, 2^5, base 2 and the number 5. 5 is quite an odd number of things to have; we have 1 body, 2 near-identical sides...and 5 digits per extended extremity. I wonder why we don't have 3 of anything, as that would complete the primes related to the human body. ...Actually, with the mind in the gutter, I do suppose we have 3 sex parts, 2 categorized as sodomical (coinage?). A Freudian context may be more tactful -- more discussion-prone, for the mature and otherwise of topics. I've sprinkled my dirty comments around here enough that you'd easily suspect whether I would be "Mature" or "Otherwise," regardless of Freud.

Friday, I saw some other forms of tact in that context -- and it brought a smile to me. I had to take Rosebud in to Applebaum's for a soundpost adjustment. Scott wanted to do a few more things with the instrument -- shorten the soundpost ever-so-slightly, change the tailpiece -- and they were going to take about 20 minutes. I went down to Capitol Lake, which is about a half-block from where I work; it's not like like I would've been able to fix that stupid VBScript bug in 20 minutes anyway.

As I hit the grass, I saw one guy happily napping on the turf, and a few benches, one of them...occupied. There were a couple of bodies there, not moving at all, but with the arm positions -- the guy's arms around her back, the girls arms disappeared from my view behind his -- I could tell it was quite the round of tonsil-hockey. Normally, I'm a bit non-plussed by that -- but they were under an umbrella, whose canopy rested atop their [necessarily immobile] heads.

That was just so cute. I sat down on a bench a hundred feet away from them and looked up at the sky; it was nice to see lovers in the park, but staring wouldn't have been that interesting (or polite). The clouds, on the other hand, moved much faster than those two did.

The sky looked like it had a continental divide between two huge cloud bodies -- there was a near-perfect zig-zag of blue in the sky, peppered with tendrils of mist. The winds drew the two continents closer together, and within a minute I had seen fingers lace together, form balls, form bridges, form unity. I bore witness to a great merging of bodies.

I glanced over at the couple again. The guy's arms were in the same relative position, though the girl's shirt seemed to be on top of one of them now. Speaking of merging. Still, there was a certain charm to all this happening with their heads and shoulders enveloped in an umbrella.

I miss the days where I could date...I would love to have the time to spend in even simply idle happiness with someone. And not just because now I have an 8' diameter umbrella (ahem, ahem, cough, cough). It's almost sad being married to work; but, I'll still have my fun. I'm getting my first paycheck next Thursday; I'm gonna make a photocopy of it. I'll print out a page of the Analyzer source code and scrawl over that WIFE, with KIDS written over my paycheck; heck, it's traditional to have a framed shot of the wife & kids at work, ain't it? I've been needing to personalize my desk anyway, and that little piece of Tiger's Eye just wasn't doing it.

On Draining the Self

Yesterday, I once again branded a green bandage of blood-donating honor. I didn't even faint this time! Though, I did feel very slightly dizzy and had to sit on one of the beds at the center; all in all, an extra hour for a stay, without mishaps. I think I've almost recovered from that blackout reaction I've had the last two times.

Unfortunately, I completely lost balance this morning on the way to the 'loo. Maybe that's a result of peeing more yesterday than I had in months. I find it odd that the day I bled a pint was the day I had to pee much more than regular...in any case, I've definitely gotten encouragement to hydrate myself more consistently. (Melissa: Short of my own drinking habits, the experience was good. Why not give it a shot again? ...Uh, accidental pun intended.)

Another probably poor thing to do today was take my first practice-GRE mathematics test today. Plenty of heat, plenty of forgetting DiffEQ concepts. Sorta bad times, there. The results are dismal, but for the first week of summer, I'm glad I could answer about half of the questions. I just have to do a little reading in number theory, game theory, linear algebra, and figure out what field an Incidence graph comes from.

While I have plenty to keep me busy, that wasn't exactly the reason that I haven't written for almost a week -- nor was WarCraft III, directly, though that is becoming the Preffered Choice of Time Burner. No, what I read Tuesday morning derailed me until I could talk with some friends about it.

I never realized how high on Google I could make myself. Believe it or not, this blog is [currently] the third fourth hit on Google for the Cowboy Bebop song, "Bad Dog, No Biscuits." But that isn't the cool part: There's a guy who found this entry by above-mentioned Google hit, and then commented later; he's an Algebra student, from Italy! I've gotta write him soon, that's too freakin' cool.

And now, for the cloud to my silver lining: Holding this blog as a forum open to the internet is fantastic, as I get sometimes exotic hits (though I'm sure Cassie's MacArthur Park attracts much more attention), and I can perform public service (namely that list of SPSCC Professors) that I know at least one girl outside of the blogs has used. Unfortunately, it also opens up all of the perhaps-offensive material I write to the public eye. Most notably, I caught the attention of the composer whose contemporary work I've periodically shat upon for 7 months. Getting his attention actually wasn't that hard, since I am currently the only immediately obvious, relevant Google hit for that piece. I've spent my free time of the last five days preparing a response to a letter he wrote me...appropriate backtracking will come soon, as will the letter which I will make as public as his.

Many 3-lettered "Words"

I don't know how to handle a vacation. Theoretically, when Evergreen ended last Friday I went on break. Well, work and my contract started today. Some break.

At work (LGAN) I'm doing troubleshooting on databases for King County Jails, Snohomish County Jails, and DASA. Thus far, this has been grunt work of running a single-variable query on every variable in the database. That took all of last week. I actually ran out of work to do, because Pete (the guy I'm directly working for now) had been busy with King County Jail's budget. So, I took up reading books.

Today, I managed to finish an entire book on JavaScript -- a Quickstart Visual Guide or somesuch; it was quite the out-of-date book, as it had a chapter that dealt with frames. Last week, I read a Complete Idiot's Guide to XML. By the end of summer, I plan to have a good handle on:

• JavaScript
• Java
• ASP
• CSS
• XML
• XSL

and to regain my grips on SQL and C++; SQL will be much more pertinent, as Pete has embedded quite a few SQL queries into the SAS code for the DASA databases.

This entry is an exercise in flagrant abuse of acronyms.

Should I come across some free time soon, I plan to have a great entry. I found the JavaScript I needed to write "The Proper Lobbing of Damian's Pesky," and some script that can publish "De Strongest Destronger" from Christmas four years ago. Those are the coming attractions, and that may be all I have time for...(notes to self: Get in touch with Jim for math review; break out GRE exam books).

The lesson of my college years is that time is more valuable than anything the material world could offer; and I spend so vigorously...

Riemann's Reamage, Other Art, and Arts of Others

I found Art with Leah & Cassie a relaxed working environment; it wasn't home so I wouldn't screw off too terribly, and it wasn't [my] school so I wouldn't stare at the wall for any extended period of time. Actually, last time I went to art, that flopped. Screwoff time with Kobar, Leah and Cassie was grand, and Cassie did a portrait of me, so I ended up staring at a pillar for a half hour.

Half-Hour Photo

Only a half hour. Geez, she's good.

Of course, every time I went there Leah and Cassie demanded I paint something and other. I dunno why; it seems to be a strange ritual that everybody in an art room must do art. One of them told me two times ago to "Paint math!" Here was the result of that: The Solar Mallet.

Kobar actually made art with his paper last time. I think his talent shows; what say you?


Tropical Island; on Fire

I could argue that what I doodled out was actually art, since math is art, but I somehow doubted that Leah and Cassie would believe me / care. So, I showed how the Cauchy Principal Value integral is superior to the Riemann Integral when integrating across asymptotes:

Riemann's Reamage

See, Riemann integration is the sum of infinitely many rectangles under a given curve; for 1/x at x = 0, the value is very badly undefined. CPV, though, does what Riemann does from both sides, so the opposite infinities cancel each other out. That's why the CPV integral is a nice, firm 0, where Riemann got, well, Riemed. Title is thanks to the lovely Kobar.

Trouvant Forêtteur

(That title was shoddy, shoddy Frenchicating. But that was making up for this weekend's activity of paintball -- relation pending another entry.)

I don't remember when Finding Forrester came out, but I recall not really wanting to see it. I somehow got the impression that it was going to be Sean Connery talking with a blaccent for a few hours; that would've been too much of a pop overload for me, so I prejudicially avoided it. Shame on me.

I didn't watch Forrest Gump for almost a decade after its release; but that was just because I wasn't into good movies. Forrester's my newest entry on the List of Movies that Make My Mind Melt -- LMMMMM, for short.

Anyways, it was about 10:20 when I finished the movie. Damian and my mom had stepped outside to get some air; I felt like catching them before they should decide to take a walk. Damian and I walked alone, since my mom was in her 30th waking hour and ignoring our recommedations that she get some shuteye.

It was 10:20, and the sky still had some blue to it. I swear, I'm going to walk every night I can this week, because that's just too amazing. Damian and I saw that the clouds still had a tint of orange; I thought our best bet to get away from the trees would be to go down to Ward Lake. Off we trodded, Damian in his sneakers, I in my sandals (my sneakers are still soaking wet from rainy paintball Saturday).

On the way, Damian decided to review for Biology. Sounds random, yes, but something inspired him to start on the gall bladder and kidney stones. I endured him from Morse-Merryman to Log Cabin, and then I couldn't take any more and just broke into a sprint. I'm glad I still have my Distance Runner's "Zip" (Cough, cough, bullshit, bullshit, like running in bullshit, cough, bullshit) and could easily stay ahead of Damian. I was in sandals, though, and am sorta paying for it now, but it was worth it at the time.

By the time we made it down to Ward Lake, the sun had set completely, but more importantly Damian got off of kidney stone passage and onto the testes. See, Damian and I developed a linguistic hypothesis: Testes is the plural, so testis must therefore be the singular. We half-argued about this, and experimental proofs of The Testis, when Jim rolled down the hill from Katie's house in his car.

Imagine his surprise when he rolled down the window to be greeted by, and invited into, an argument on The Testis.

We Nelsons aim to please; lovely immaturity is the easiest target.

Insolvability of the Quintic

Here's a little excerpt from my final exam that I submitted today at 14:40:

"The bottom of page 93 (section 9: "Orbits, Cycles and the Alternating Groups") reads:

"'It can be shown that there are no formulas involving just radicals for solution of polynomial equations of degree n for n ≥ 5. This fact is actually due to the structure of A_n, surprising as that may seem!'

"Let the record state that 'My socks have been blown off.' I've recognize a parallel between Fraleigh's favorite phrase, 'Never underestimate a theorem that counts something,' and a phrase I'll have to include with a publication at some point: 'Never underestimate the statement "It can be seen that..."'. I underestimated that statement with the Insolvability of the Quintic; lo and behold, 382 pages later, it was seen."

What makes me happy about the proof I wrote, which is 3 solid pages, is that it can generalize to any integer greater than 4. This means I've also proved insolvability of the Quintic, Sextic(?), Septic, and n-tic polynomials. If I had no love for this subject, I would've turned in that exam answering only the T/F questions.

If I really had no love for the subject, I would've answered the last question thusly:
10.) T/F: I think Galois Theory is easy. "Bullshit, I say. See pages 430-435. Scratch head. Repeat ad cruento. Whether the solution generalizes to Sextics, Octics or whatever, all those polynomials are just septic to me."
Katherine's response: "Fuck no." She's awesome. She answered #10 when she got to Sean's office to turn the exam in; Sean misread the "n" for a "yo" the first time he looked at her answer. "Well, thanks, Katherine, you just wrote your evaluation." Sean's awesome too.

There's gonna be another drunken math party next Tuesday. I'll bring The Impostors; I'll watch the class load up on beer; and then I'll probably screw around on Scott's guitar some more. He's really nice when he's drunk; he just hits extra strings and thus plays out of tune, but it's all good.

If we come up with any dirty math limericks, or maybe just dirty limericks, I'll keep you guys posted.

OHS Orchestra Concert

Correct me if I'm wrong, Oly people, but Damian has told me that the Chamber Orchestra will play Turtle Island String Quartet's Skylife tonight. That's the same song that I used in the "Death of Monswar Beeson" scene in Showdown at Noon o'Clock.

I can not say how Happy I will be to hear that tonight. Anyone wanna join me? I'll offer a ride to Harry Potter, if you've got a ticket.

Mr. Cannon

This entry is addressed to the title:
What's your e-mail address?
Paul's response is here.
This is the only way I have of contacting you; I've tried the traditional method of using the one you leave in your comments, but that address is non-functional.
This entry was written for the sake of a letter in response to the entry linked here.
Please e-mail a response to me. Thank you.

Marcher sous la Lune

It was 10:20 at night. The thermostat still read 73°; no air conditioning meant we took what we got. It was 10:20, but the sky still had a dim hue of blue, in the western trail of day; some clouds even caught orange from two hours from now.

I couldn't sit inside and boil, toiling at either dishes or algebra. I had to get out because it was uncharacteristically warm and bright for so late an hour. I got out, and was met by la clair de la lune; the moon played a part in coloring clouds orange.

So I walked; on Boulevard, without regard for the one manual-transmission car that apparently liked to do everything in first gear. I decided an early morning would demand sleep tonight -- and yet I write; what nocturnal spite -- so cut through a neighborhood to come back to my house via the Amhurst-street neighborhood.

I was amazed at what a lack of trees can show. My house is surrounded by trees, tall timber on all sides, so I have a restricted view of the night sky. Walking through that neighborhood, there were a scant amount of trees and only the occasional 2-story house to block my view. The sky was spectacular; I only wish I had brought a camera.

I had a "Down to Earth" sensation: Sky was a plane, a slice of my vision, inconceivably massive and leaning against some infinitessimal support. The plane was tilted toward the earth, only curving around cylindrically so I wouldn't see a field of nothing behind me. The earth was no longer my house, dwarfed by trees, but dozens of homes with the occasional Douglas Fir or Red Maple serving as beacons of height. If not for the trees, the massive background plane of moon and cloud would have crushed us all; that's how empty the first 200 vertical feet above me felt.

Ah, but I am glad I had nothing to obstruct my view. Moonlight is absolutely wonderful, and I didn't have to give a thought to chills; I love summer nights.

La Clair de la Lune, et ses Nuages

Venez, vous nuits d'été, pour faire les bonnes promenades.