Welcome To My Hell

But on the plus side, I got this picture. Totally worth it.

Edit: Not worth it. I haven’t felt this sick in years.

That’s good advice. Write that down. Once I get the above mentioned manifested in some occupying fashion, I’m sure I’ll be in just fine.

But this weekend was three days long, and so unproductive I could kill myself. Blown engine with no replacement, so cars were out. Everyone was out of town. Thank hell I had the company of Ciena otherwise I’m sure by Monday I’d have been suicidal with boredom.

Everywhere I’ve been in the last two days, I couldn’t throw a rock without hitting someone who went camping and couldn’t wait to tell me about it. This very second cohorts are out in the hall discussing camping. Jeez…

When approached with camping stories, thus far I’ve immediately bitten back with “I didn’t go because I knew it was going to rain all weekend.”. When in actuality, I don’t mind rain in the least. Just didn’t have anyone to go with, no equipment, etc.

It’s my fault really, life doesn’t happen when you sit inside your house. Because nothing changes. I read the news about every hour now purely because it’s the only reality based variance I have. You can’t meet new people inside your house. It’s unlikely that person who will become a future friend is going to stumble up to your door any time soon. “Hey, I heard you were bored, and I happen to share many of the same interests, wanna hang out?”

I pretty much just sat for three days. Well, not quite that extreme. But still, it was the laziest I’ve been in a long long time. The inability to break my daily routine of working, and then going home and doing essentially nothing until the next day has to stop before I lose it.

Time to teach.

Went to adjust my rearview and a five-legged spider was camped out on it.

Consequence of having so many cars… The ones that don’t get driven for long whiles start gathering wildlife.

Ripped the CRX apart today. New Oil Pump. New oil. New Spark Plugs. New Thermostat.

Is there any better feeling in the world then a productive day? I think not.

Also, new daily. 1993 Acura Integra LS Special. Good solid car to get around in before I buy another Prelude.

So I’m at UDOT getting my InDesign on and I found this sign…

Now I have racked my brain for 20 minutes trying to decide why this sign is on the door, and I keep inevitably arriving at the same and all too obvious conclusion.

Anyone want to chime in on this and tell me what else it could be for? It’s going to drive me nuts.

I’ve really got nothing interesting to say. Things are no different now then they were a few months ago. I’m really quite detached. I got into work today and was half way through teaching a class before reality stuck and I knew where I was.

Sitting at home by myself on a Friday night. Not a lot of fun. Don’t want to go out by myself though.

I remember why I dropped out of college the other day, as I have been trying to submit an application for admission into the U of U.

*sigh* It makes me throw up a little in my mouth thinking of Community College.

Now don’t get me wrong, I was lazy. That’s most of the reason for my failure there. I had a free ride. It wasn’t my money so I didn’t take it seriously. But the hell I endured trying to work out said financial aid is so awful of an experience for me, that I didn’t remember it until yesterday when I went to pick up my transcripts. I nearly cried. Back then I’d fill out mountains of paperwork only to wait in line at the Student Center for hours. That’s right HOURS. I timed it at 80 minutes once. No matter how many times I went, I was missing a form, or an ID, or something. I went through that for three semesters of poor help, bad professors, good professors with accents so heavy I couldn’t follow them, dean’s who didn’t give a fuck when I reported bad professors. Etc. etc.

One of my physics professors at SLCC once said…And I quote (I remember this vividly.) “You always have the same mass so you would weight the same amount on the Moon as you do the Earth.”

Now, past the fact that he was clearly a little off. I think it was just an honest slip of tongue. I say dumb things too sometimes in my class. But, when I piped up to clarify and correct him. He flew off the handle.

*sigh* School. I love to learn. Sometimes I hate being ‘taught’. I’ll tell you, SLCC did way more to keep me out of school then they did to encourage me to continue giving them money.

If I had to pin down the reason I don’t post much anymore. I’d have to go with having a girlfriend is distracting.

But now she’s out of town and I’m still not compelled to post.

I digress. It’s because I hate the new wordpress UI. it’s just too much. I need to post and upload. That’s it. The flashy nav is not working for me. And more over. It’s slow as hell! Use to be I clicked a link, blinked, and the page was there. Now every time I try to post something or even navigate around the WP back end. It’s like 10 second to wait.

And I don’t want to hear any of that maybe it’s the DB or your host…it’s not. The slow shit started the very hour I switched for my old hacked up version of WP to their updated one.

Anyway the whole point being…Perhaps if I can leave the WP UI out of it. I’ll post a bit more.

Not a single response from these people for 2 and a half hours.
Well, I’m pretty much a loser. Ouch.

I just barely got back from filling my CRX up with Ethanol. And this receipt was still in the tray at the pump.

Found one of these bad boys in my exhaust before leaving work.

To whom it may concern: You guys were outside WAAAY too long. I come from a car community where pranks are commonplace.

You’re lucky I thought vehicles were off limits. Otherwise a whistler would be the least of your worries. Ever try to drive home when your horn has been wired to your brakes? ;)

Until next year.

Twice actually. I had no idea until just now.

Past my magnificent flattery, mostly I’m just dumbfound that a tie “knot” that was the manifest of screwing off with some free time actually caught more than the just the eyes of YouTube.

A few examples:
Example 1 (The good one.)
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4

I have to admit, I feel a bit naked and exposed having two people who too obviously know their ties dissect and scrutinize my knot. I have absolutely no clue how to read the notation, or theory that they’ve echoed as if it were a second language. I feel like I’ve lied to gain entry into some sort of elite tie group, but now that I’m here, I am oblivious to the customs and culture found within. Embarrassing indeed.

Found these reviews on the weblog here.

To my eyes the ‘Eldredge’ is an absolute beauty, but the solution Jeffrey Eldredge chose for the final move does not exactly leave us with a ‘knot’ in the technical sense of the term. He simply tucks what is left of the narrow end of the tie away under the collar and the loop the tie forms around the neck. That way we depend on the pressure the loop around the neck exerts on the collar for the whole structure not to come apart. To improve this situation I added two ‘through-the-loop’ movements to Jeffrey’s invention. Translated to Fink-Mao notation, my ‘Eldredge’ variant reads like this:

Ri Co Li Ro Li Co Ri Lo TCi Ro Ci Lo TCi

‘T’ means ‘lead the narrow end through the loop you just made,’ the exact same meaning Thomas Fink and Yong Mao had in mind, when they introduced the ‘T’ to their notation. There is no space between ‘T’ and ‘Ci,’ because it is one move— make sure that you go ‘through’ and really ‘center in’ before pulling the loop closed, else disaster is imminent. It requires a bit of concentration and inner quietude to tie, but once done you will have a luscious triangular knot of silk under your chin, which can not disintegrate. Due to the optimal symmetry Jeffrey’s sequence supplies, the finished knot is open to being sculpted to perfect shape. I found it enough for me to go with both thumbs under the knot, to put all the other fingertips on top of the knot, and to slightly press the knot flat.

Now, the two added moves mirror the pattern visible atop the knot. Due to the asymmetry of the visible structures on the front of the knot, starting with the wide blade to the right or to the left, no more is negligible and may even gain sartorial meaning. The most common pattern found on ties are diagonal stripes. The historical background of the stripes is a thing in itself—for now only so much: In Europe it is common, that the stripes, when looked upon from the front, run from the lower left, to the upper right. Given that we are used to read from the left to the right, the stripes are pointing upwards. In the United States of America, to the contrary, the stripes usually point downwards—no metaphorical allusion to politics or even economics intended.

The orientation of the structure on the ‘Eldredge’ is dominated by the upper most diagonally running edge of the tie’s fabric. If it is pointing upwards or downwards depends on how you start tieing the knot—with the wide blade to the right, or to the left, and on your choice between the original ‘Eldredge’ and my variant of it with the two through-the-loop moves added. No matter if you wear New-World or Old-World style diagonal stripes, in both cases you have to decide if you want the diagonal on your ‘Eldredge’ follow suit, or counter. Decision made, you have to choose the according procedure of tieing the knot.

Jeffrey’s subterfuge of tucking the tip of the narrow end away under the collar frees you from any worries about the narrow end showing. Granted, there is the philosophy, that a tie has to be able to move freely. I agree—to a certain degree—in respect to the wide blade. Nevertheless some people are of the opinion, that the narrow end should be free, too. But then again every decent tie has a ‘lead’ on its back, a small sewn-on horizontal loop meant for sticking the narrow end of the tie through it, so it won’t get visible by accident. From this I deduce, that it is sartorial consensus, that the narrow end should stay hidden. Now to the wide blade.

Due to the ‘Eldredge’ being of the largest order of magnitude possible with a regular tie, and due to it being an almost perfect equilateral triangle, the tie’s wide blade blossoming out of the sharp vertex pointing downwards, a broad tie—maybe even a ‘kipper’ of 1970s fame—is mandatory for achieving æsthetical proportions. You may object, that kipper ties are out of fashion, but a 1950s narrow tie, like they recently seem to have come back to fashion, emerging from the voluminous ‘Eldredge’ just looks plainly ridiculous. I just can say, remember Lord Whimsy’s dictum: ‘Fashion is for those who have yet to understand style.’

It is uncanny, the development is still unfolding. After I learned about the inverse tie knots, invented by edeity, and clearly transcending Fink & Mao’s 85 ways, I made some calculations—of course by means of the formulas devised by Fink & Mao, and spent a thought or two on the matter. The original ‘Edeity’ knot and the ‘Hen Tie’ are of size 11, comprising 4 center moves. Formula (15) (Fink & Mao 2000: 115) teaches us, that there are 80 knots within this class. Edeity’s ingenious idea to wind the narrow end around the tie’s wide blade, instead of the standard procedure the other way round, made possible size 11 knots, and showed the way to a lot more knots. In theory you can tie every regular knot inversely, which would double Fink & Mao’s 85. But only inverse knots with odd size are acceptable. If you tie knots of sizes 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. inversely, then the seam of the tie would either be on the front of the wide blade, or on the outside of the knot. The former is plainly unacceptable, the latter might be a matter of debate. Because of this, inverse knots of sizes 10 and 12 are not feasible. 13 again would be possible, but back then (see ↵merovingian ties and more Merovingian ties) I deemed them to be impossible with a tie of regular length, hence I dismissed the thought. Well, Jeffrey Eldredge dared it.

In the movie Jeffrey does not follow the convention of having the wide blade to the right, seen from the wearer’s point of view. Hence you can take the video as what you would see in the mirror when tieing. Accordingly I mirrored Jeffrey’s moves for the Fink-Mao notation. Here is ‘The Eldredge:’

Ri Co Li Ro Li Co Ri Lo Ci Ro Ci Lo Ci [T]

The knot is of size 13 and comprises 5 center moves—this class contains 240 knots. ‘The Eldredge’ is of optimal symmetry 0, and balance 2. The optimal balance achievable in this class would be 1, but I am not yet sure, if—due to the visible inverted-V structures characterizing the inverse knots—this parameter of æsthetics is applicable here. The ‘T’ for the final through-movement I put in square brackets, because Jeffrey actually does not do it. Instead he tucks away the tip of the tie’s narrow end under the collar. There is not much left of it anyway. Fink & Mao added the subscript suffix ‘on’ for ‘Onassis’ to the Lo Ri Lo Ri Co T Ri Co variant of the Four-in-hand, worn by the late Greek shipping tycoon. So, in the future I might substitute the [T] by an ‘E,’ or ‘ET’ for ‘Eldredge tuckaway.’

So, now you know about ‘The Eldredge,’ to my knowledge the latest in hitches worn around the neck. But stay tuned, as I still have something up my sleeve, maybe ‘the last of the tie knots’ …

Shooting. Tricking at the park. And Photoshop.

Ah. A Saturday well spent.

I’m teaching PHP this week. I don’t really get a chance to code too often and teaching PHP has kind of got my gears turning. I really want to code something, but I really have no effing idea what to make.

I need something original, yet entertaining. Simple, yet elegant.

Layman: I don’t want to write software to to track real estate listings again. But I also don’t want to make scripts that calculate dumb crap.

High five to my current class by the way. Best student’s I’ve ever had.

Jesus, ever since Ciena switched to swing shift, life after work has just become a masturbatory marathon of online television, youtube, facebook and nostalgia of the fun I had Friday.

Lame.

Perhaps I’ll take up shooting.

…Oh wait.