Andy Newman's Journal

12:23am: made my first loan payment on the gta today. only paid the payment amount. still need to pay off my usbank reserve line and have enough for the plane tickets to san fran this month so thats why i onyl paid the $108 they want. starting next year ill pay much more, like double what they say. school work and research is gonna overwhelm me the rest of this semester it seems. saturday may be the last day to drive my baby, which is sad. i still need to get mouse poison and stuff to block the exhaust(steel wool). other than that its about ready, just need to clean the interior, i washed and waxed her on wednesday. i think im gonna go to sleep.

8:10pm: i got my vanity plates the other day. "89 GTA" Nothing to fancy, just tell everyone what it is so they know what they are having the privilage of looking at. gonna go skate tonight. just for fun not intramural. it sounds like it will be an every wednesday thing for a while. thats a good thing. other than that nothing much to say.

12:34am: what to do? a while back i held the door open for this fairly cute girl and it turned out that she lives next door. so over the fall i've kept a lookout for her and i havent seen her much since. i did get to hold to door for her one other time a few weeks ago and got a nice smile, but since im not one to chit chat i dont offically know her name. turns out i do know her name because hersh (my roommate) knows one of the other girls that lives there. anyhoo, i havent seen this girl since and id acutally like to so i could maybe talk to her or something like that. probably would fuck it up but hey, maybe i wouldnt. i should just go over there and knock on the door and try something, but i know ill not do that. alas, i probably shouldnt worry about it at all as the work schedule is going to ramp up by leaps and bounds very soon. i dont see anyway out of the 10-13 hr weekdays and 6-8 weekend days by veteran's day (2 weeks from thursday). class work will be very intense, and ill have the deployment of my disdrometers, a paper writing, work on the agu poster and hopefully the research for antother paper in the spring and lastly, code development and more basic field observations for the disdrometers. so yeah, ive been putting things off and of course it will bite me in the ass, but i dont care, ive had a nice fall and a nice transisition to grad school. plus ill only have 6 credits in the spring so if i dont get all the work done on the second paper and code development going this semseter ill be able to do much more after new years. so as much as id like to try and get the girl next door (hehe) i wont or shouldnt. damn it sucks to have my work ethic and ability to not say no to more work. oh well, at least i have my baby (GTA). which ill be getting ready for the winter storage here very soon. ive gotten all the cleaning products for a good wash and wax along with leather and vinyl/rubber preservant. i also got a new floor jack and 4 jack stands for her and ill get an oil change, coolant flush and a couple other things to make sure nothing bad happens over the long winter. thats bout it.

2:05am: the sioux looked like ass all weekend but got lucky enough to get a split. not sure what the heck is going on but they aren't skating hard, their passing is off, and they don't play defense right now. a lack of effort can explain most of it, not sure why they wouldnt get up for minnesota but whatever the issue is it better be solved quick.

12:08am: today was a good day
today was a good day as ice cube would say. it didnt rain all day, was actually kinda warm (50ish) and sunny for a spell in the afternoon. this means i drove my baby to school today and took her for a cruise after dynamics for about an hour. we went out to larimore and i opened 'er up a little on a back road. got up to 105 mph and she was still pulling hard. very nice to see and it felt like we were going 80 or so, fer sure not 105. when i get a radar detector ill go back out to that road and go for more. tonight i took a couple laps on washington and saw a little shitty neon that was trying to get the mustang in front of me to race, but they didnt. it wouldve been funny to see. i think it was a 6 cyl. 'stang so it may have been close. hehe. also we rented an ice sheet for 1.5 hrs tonight so i got a nice workout and had fun playin' the ice hockey. thats why today was a good day

12:41am: i dont really think i should name my car as it seems really weird. anyhoo, it rained today, before i could get home, so the gta got wet and dirty. boo on that. ill try to have that never happen again. there was a little dirt on one of the roads also so she is actually quite dirty. ill have to get a car wash this weekend and buy some wax and all the other cleaning products i need and shine her back up. time for sleep now

11:56pm: well today i feel that i am really getting to know my car. i gave it a once over this morning to get all the bugs off and again with dan when i showed her off to him this afternoon. i am starting to get a feel for her personality and she saw the enemy three times today. once a gay little red import with a huge wing passed me and tonight i took her up washington once just to see what was out there. some lowered import was trying to show off going the other way while we were at a red and i got behing an eclipse i think for a bit also. good to let my baby get a feel for the vast amount of imports in grand forks. its about time to get a little more american representation in this town and i hope to do my part. this weekend or next or whenever i get money ill probably get a k&n air filter setup and new plugs and wires if needed. i talked to dan about getting a new rear wing(the one weak spot on the car) and it sounds like they have a pretty sweet paint that has a little more flex than the rest so ill buy a new wing and mounts this winter and have them color match and paint it up and ill put it on next spring so its ready to rock and roll with a much improved look for probably minimal cash. damn i wish it would stay warm i really really really enjoy driving my GTA. i really need a name for her but i still cant think of one. hmm....

5:37pm: life is soooo good right now. ive got my gta and i just break out in a goofy smile every so often. damn im soo happy

10:03pm: still hope
so there is still a sliver of hope. i went to the und credit union started an account and did a loan application. i find out tomorrow morning if i can get a loan without a cosigner but the ladies at the office seemed pretty optimistic that i could. so hopefully i can still work the $3500 dollar loan angle (they follow the same blue book procedure as usbank) and use my reserve line on my checking account for the rest. man i really want this badly.

1:30am: fuck usbank. im soo pissed at those bastards right now.

11:14pm: its almost over! my search for a trans am may be finally done. that 1989 gta (see yesterdays entry) was still available today and i have a conformation from the seller to a purchase price of $5300. So the only thing left is to go to the bank tomorrow and get the loan through and this weekend it will be mine!!!!!!!!! There is an interesting twist that almost cost me the car this morning. the blue book value on this car is only $3500 for some reason and USBank will only loan to that amount. i almost shit a brick when i was told that this morning. so im still short $1800 bucks plus sales tax and getting nodak plates, which will put it around or a little over $2000 short. thankfully i have a $5000 reserve line on my checking account so i'll use that to get the extra cash right now. bad thing is that has an 18% apr interest rate. but the saving grace is that i still havent gotten paid for september yet, and that is $1500 bucks. i also have another $1500 coming for october plus about $600 coming for reimbursment for student fees and text books, along with another $150 for the vancouver trip in august. , thats over $3700 coming to me in the next 3 weeks, so im pretty sure i can still swing it all. it just will be tight for the next couple months probably. november rent might go on the credit card somehow. tax payment in the spring might get interesting also, but thats still 6 months off or so. i guess its nice in a way becuase ill have almost half of the car paid off in 2 months max, then the loan payments on a $3500 dollar loan wont be that bad (would be just over $100 a month on a 36 month loan). so, hopefully i can do a 36 month on that and make big payments next summer or fall after i get caught up on this big hit, and hopefully the olds doesnt die or need something big done to it.

10:58pm: well, this past week i found a car in forest lake, a 1989 pontiac trans am gta to be exact. arctic white, t-tops, 350, dark gray leather interior and only 80,000 miles. so i went down there and took a gander saturday morning and it was pretty much what ive been looking for, for the past 4 years. very solid car, but not sooo nice that it should stay stock. so tomorrow im gonna try and finalize my loan, call the dude and make an offer. the tricky part is getting it back to gfk. i have two options, one i like more than the other. so the first option is to go home again this weekend, but stay at my parents house, get the car on saturday morning and tool around for the day, then drive it back on sunday. hersh would be along for the ride so he could drive the olds back. second option, get the dude to meet me in alex thursday or friday or saturday and get it back to the forks right away, with hersh again of course.

since i was back in the cities just yesterday i dont really want to drive all the way back again, however hersh wants to go all the way back to see a couple buddies and i wouldnt mind having the car down there for a couple days to show everyone. actually that would fucking rock totally. also, it would be nice to see crow again, since he was in gfk while i was down with the car. i did see him at mile marker 50 on 94 on the way back though. hahah. but again im not eager to spend another weekend in the cities due in part to saturday's events...

the second option would be nice because i would drive 5 hours less for the weekend and i could just cruise the back roads of nodak and minnesota and enjoy the car some, and i wouldnt have to deal with any drama that seems to come out of a visit to the cities. also going all the way back, it would be the third time in 6 or 7 weeks which is a little much. and i may be going to see my bro in mankato in two weeks so that would be three travel weekends in a row. kinda hard on the olds and the bank account.

in the end i like the first option for a couple reasons besides the ones stated above, but im leaving out. so ha.

12:50am: good to see the vikes win, 2-1 (1-0) now. terribly sloppy game but its a win and maybe over the bye they will work on actually scoring touchdowns on over half their drives inside the red zone. it should be 75-90% but ill take 50% right now. nothing new this week, nothing to vent about either. pretty boring week. watched jeanne come in saturday night some, but its actually almost borning now. i mean 4 landfalling hurricanes in the past 6 weeks. its becoming a normal thing. i should really get to bed, larry is in town so i actually need to get up in the morning. blah blah blah....

1:37am: holy shit i just found a cd called "when love goes wrong" bunch of old songs but apparently they are some of the most depressing ever recored. that would be so damn funny to throw that one in there. hahahaha

1:32am: what a horseshit performance by the offensive line tonight. they cost us the game by themselves. holding and false start penalties everywhere and the free linebackers and d-ends on basically every play. good job. the linebacking core and secondary didnt help much either. do you not know how to cover tight ends and running backs in the flats? fuck!!!! philly is not a good team. i will give them no credit. a team that blitzes that much should get eaten alive with decent blocking by the offense but we sure as fuck didnt have that going on tonight. damnit. we had the ball almost 40 min and score 16 points? whatever. dynamics homework is going ok, its hard and there is a lot left for tomorrow but at least there was some progress made today. only bright spot over the weekend. well i did finish another tom clancy book on sunday and got sioux season tix and fsu won, so i guess it wasnt that bad. that being said, im still pissed. always wanting more. good way to live, keeps you motivated, even if some of the things you want you cant control, like a good football team in minnesota.
in other news i found another keeper song to add to the wedding song list (if that ever happens) so far ive got the following for sure:
love stinks - j. giles band, you give love a bad name - hall and oates, i don't believe in love - queensryche.

other possibilities thought of tonight are: die my darling - metallica, she hates me - puddle of mudd, anything from the darkest days album - stabbing westward, the one - foo fighters, kill you - eminem, my only enemy - american hi-fi, tear away - drowning pool, everything sucks, thanks for nothing - dope, brand new low - treble charger, almost honest - megadeath. some of these are streching it a little but oh well.
i guess i should get to sleep.

2:25am: at last
well, since im drinking alone for the first time in my life(unknow to me why im doing it) i thin its time to revive a lost art. well lost as of march of this year, which is only 6 months old, so its not a lost art yet. anyway just wanted to say that i decided to stay at UND. i got the summer job at nasa and the nasa fellowship for grad school. i somehow turned down TAMU before i got the fellowship but now, looking back, it was a good decision. not much else to say right now, as im getting tired. i got up at 630 today to get hockey tickets and thankfully our number got called. yeah, it was a lottery. 495 tickets for up to 3000+ people or so. lots of people went home pissed at about 845 this morning. i thought i would have something profound to say but thats it.

12:32am: grad school
ok, now that my senior project presentation is done this should be the last hard week of work finishing a program for perl, taking a test on wednesday for surface trans and writing the draft of my senior project paper. i can now concentrate on deciding where to go to grad school and that is perfect timing because my decision has to be in no later than april 15th, only 2 weeks from thursday. anyway the situation hasnt changed all that much. OU still has the 18g r.a. offer on the table, TAMU still has the 19.2 g offer on the table. they also still haven't said if its an r.a. or a t.a. which is beginning to bug me. i want an r.a. right away and if that doesn't go, then they are automatically out. talking to paul about staying here has lead me to hear of 16-17 g's a year if i dont get that nasa fellowship. if i get that its 18 g's a year and a totally kick ass resume booster. the trip to australia in jan '06 is a possibility still too. the new thing is this offer from fsu of 22 g's a year plus tuition (tuition is covered by all the others too). that is by far the best offer, but it costs more to live in tallahasse i think. i haven't talked with any professors there or anyone at all so i think that i'll send them an email this week turning that one down. that leaves the three from before, OU, TAMU and UND. if i knew i was gonna get the fellowship i would stay here no questions asked. but alas i wont know about that till june 30th. the sucky thing is that if i go elsewhere and i do get the nasa fellowship i cannot take it becuase it is assumed i will be attending UND for that grant. so here is a start at ranking the schools to try and help me make a decision.

resources available for radar meteorology: OU, TAMU and UND in that order but UND is really close to TAMU, but we still dont have an operational budget for the radar which is worrisome

ranking for breadth of research and classes: TAMU, OU, UND
TAMU i feel is the best, OU is close and UND is lagging behind, but getting better every year. UND does have an OBAN class, which the other two do not.

ranking for my interest in the offered research: UND, TAMU, OU
TAMU is a close second to UND and OU is a little farther back but it is still really cool stuff

ranking for potential cool things for me to do with my research and field campaigns: UND, TAMU, OU
the only problem is that the UND things are much more uncertain that the TAMU things. OU doesnt feel like i'll be getting out of state ever for my M.S. which is a bummer (except for conferences of course, but every school has that opportunity)

common interests with professors: UND and TAMU (tied) then OU

feel of belonging to the department: UND, TAMU, OU. only becuase im at UND i feel the most comfortable, TAMU feels better than OU with the professor student relationship but i did like the OU grad students more overall.

cost of living: all are about the same.

things to do: not sure here. OU is the best for the big city feel. TAMU and OU have year around golf. im not sure about fishing in those areas though. UND is probably last in this area, but there is ice hockey and fishing for sure here. OU does have street hockey which was fun.

salary: TAMU, OU, UND thats if i dont get the nasa fellowship. with that it becomes TAMU, OU and UND (tied). without the fellowship the spread from TAMU to UND will be 3 g's a year. with the fellowship the spread is only 1200 dollars between TAMU and OU and UND. i know they say money shouldn't be an issue but 6 g's over 2 years is alot. in fact that is about what im looking to spend on my trans am (6-8 g's) this summer. so money is an issue for me like it or not.

these ranking should help, but really they dont yet. every school leads in some and sucks in others. i wish my gut was telling me one thing for sure. well it is and it says "stay here", but i know thats just because i tend to like to stay where im comfortable. ugh!!! but like i said, if i dont get an r.a. right away from TAMU they are out, so maybe i'll email them this week about that, just to get that unknown out of the way. i keep flip flopping in my head everyday. it will probably be alright where ever i end up but i want to pick the best one. also the fact that im interested in soo many things isnt helping. thats enough venting feelings for now.

2:07am: you ever get that feeling when you finish something and because you've dedicated so much time and intensity into that you are totally lost and confused when its over? well thats whats happening to all of us in the sioux nation right now. i can't believe they lost. they were probably the best team in college hockey this year and they lost to denver. they finished 5th in the wcha this year. i mean what the fuck? now i cant watch the frozen four or any of the games tomorrow or go to uscho.com for many months. ugh. i still cant grasp what has happened. getting shut out by denver a team we were 3-0-1 this year and the three wins were not even close. damnit damnit damnit.

1:53am: well today was going well before the sioux played denver. 2 1/2 hours later and a 1-0 loss to those bastards and a good day turned into a total waste. suprisingly enough i didnt punch anything or swear or anything like that. im still in a state of shock and total depression. i really really hope the gophers lose tomorrow, i hate them so much. there is nothing else to say. this totally sucks.

11:03am: FUCK THE GOPHERS!!!

12:27am: busy
sheesh its been a hellish week. i got that CSci program to partially work and handed that in Friday morning. over the weekend i got the summer app done and a rough cut of the extended abstract as well as worked out some problems with some of my code for senior project and beyond and started writing the proposal. turned in CSci written homework on Monday and wrote some more of the proposal took the synoptic II test Tuesday morning, i hope i did all right , im not really sure cause i only put in 3 hrs of studying. wrote more proposal on Tuesday along with studying for the CSci 384 test that was this afternoon. finished the rough draft of the proposal this evening and now im studying for my PDE test at 930 tomorrow morning. from there i get to go work on the proposal with Paul and then catch a 1:30 flight to college station, tx. that will be nice to get out of here, but it sure put a butt load of work on me over the last week. hell ive been super busy for a long time. example, i finally noticed tonight, march 10th that i hadn't switched my calendar from February yet. that is amazing. nothing interesting has happened since last week cause i've been so damn busy. the Sioux did clinch the wcha regular season title last Friday night. i was there so i got to see the trophy ceremony, which was really cool. that was it for the coolness. i spose saturday night was cool too, but it screwed me over for sunday, i.e. it made working very hard cause i was tired. i dont really want to explain it so im not. time to finish studyin for the bestest class in the world, PDE!

1:04am: today
Dr. Kerry Emanuel's talk was really really really interesting, quite amazing and had some revolutionary ideas in it. the biggest one is the idea that hurricanes are the "egg beater" that stirs the ocean, not the moon. the idea that hurricanes drive the thermohaline circulation and thus how much heat os transported by the ocean toward the poles is quite new. all the gcms out ther (global climate models) dont have this in there at all. there is supporting evidence that his idea is correct also but ill spare you of that. basically its really cool. he also went over his MPI or PI or whatever you want to call it. its basically an equation using the thermodynamic state of a hurricane to derive an estimate for its maximum potential intensity or potential intensity or whatever. cool idea there too. he also explained a few other things that were really really interesting. basically im very amazed by his hurricane knowledge alone and he has worked on atmospheric convection in general (has a book published) and data assimilation and who knows what else. sheesh what a smart guy. if i could be 1/4 as smart as him i would be amazed.

12:40am: good news bad news
first the bad news. ive still got a crap load of stuff to do and its gonna be a long 7 days, but i already knew that so its not terrible. i found out that we'll have one more program in perl before the break and in pde we got an 5 problem assignment. thats it for the bad stuff. now on to the good news. somehow today was mainly good. in cs260 (perl class) today we found out that the test will be pushed back to after spring break and we might get one more program before break. now i only have one test next thursday. in pde the assignment is due after we get back from break and i can take the test next thursday early. now i can catch that 215 flight from gfk and visit TAMU. i went to the dentist today and got my teeth all cleaned up. i found out that our radar retrevials of the polarimetric variables look good and ill be able to add some to my senior project. the interference is still there but were working on that. Dr. Kerry Emanuel is coming to speak tomorrow along with most of our grad students and some profs so that will be interesting to hear. in case you dont know Dr. Emanuel is one of the smartest atsc guys alive right now, and maybe ever. lastly and possibly the coolest news of the day is the fact that i WILL be getting an r.a. offer from OU. I got an email from Dr. Droegemeir this evening confirming that. this is gonna be a tough decision to make but it will be good where ever i go to grad school. thats about it i've gotta get up at 8 and dink with a new little thing p.k. and i made for the snow project cause its gonna be snowing in the morning.

12:27am: AHHHHH
too much to do still. everyday i feel like im farther behind. (recurring theme to journal entries? yes). im going to TAUM on the 11th, but i can leave no later than 2:15 pm and we have a PDE test till 145pm. so tomorrow i need to get that test moved to 930 am and skip synoptic II. then i get to rush to the other side of campus and take my perl midterm and then go home get my stuff and get to the airport. besides those 2 tests on thursday i have a test tuesday and wednesday so i dont know when i'll be able to revise my proposal that week, which by the way i have to write all the way this weekend, along with that application for my summer work and that pesky extened abstract. hopefully i can get that damn csci 384 program working tomorrow so i can start the extended abstract and start on the paper homework for csci 384 thats due monday. ugh. i officially got a t.a. offer from ou for 18 g's a year (1500 a month) plus tuition which is comparable to tamu's offer. i still need to talk to professor droegemeier about an r.a. if i cant get an r.a. from a school im not going there so ou might be out. its about time for sleep another long day awaits.

1:04am: time?
so many things to do and so little time. i really should have put in about a 15 hour day today, but alas i could only do 12 and then i went grocery shopping. gotta get the nasa proposal and the extended abstract done by march 10th because ill be at TAMU from the 11th to the 14th. yeah, i got an offer to go down there, not only that but get this my offer for going to school there is 1600 a month plus full tuition. that comes out to 19200 a year plus tuition. that will probably be the best offer of any of the schools unless i can get that nasa fellowship for staying here. that one will pay around the same. thats about all i have to report today. oh yeah i almost forgot, i now officially hate my pde book. it is a total waste of paper.