Happy Birthday www.timbaird.com!

Currently listening to: Coheed & Cambria - Welcome Home

timbaird.com is now 2 years old.

There's a change in the air...

Currently listening to: Coheed & Cambria - Keeping the Blade

I feel a change in the air.

This morning while coming in to town for work, I drove by a cop on 290 going about 90 mph. He didn't come after me.
I then ran into another cop about 2 miles down the road and feared that perhaps he had radio-ed ahead to have someone else get me. That officer drove behind me for about 1/4 mile and then turned off on another street.

I think my luck is starting to come back. Or begin. One or the other.

Check back later

Currently listening to: My Chemical Romance - You know what they do to guys like us in prison

I have some stuff going on in my life that I don't really feel like typing about. It'll probably be a few days.

Check back later, please.

The Chronic of Narnia

Currently listening to: Me, yawning

two NO six NO twelve, BAKER'S DOZEN!

Pardon my french, but this is the fucking funniest thing that I've seen in forever. MikeD sent this to me to cheer me up, and it definitely worked.

Watch it. Atleast twice.

Ugh

Currently listening to: Coheed & Cambria - Keeping the Blade

So MikeD told me many months ago that if we were ever both single concurrently, that we'd ride around in the Acclaim to Fame together, with my gun, and pick up ladies. Because, as we all know, women love hot cars and fire arms.

Well, put some gas in the tank Mike, and I'll load the mags.

It took me a long time to come to this conclusion, but, I suppose it'll be better in the end. I wanted to make it work, but, it didn't really seem possible given our likes/dislikes and life styles. Atleast Kristin felt the same way, so, everything went remarkably smoother than I expected. Ugh.

Damn you financial reasoning!

Currently listening to: Eisley - Marvelous Things

So I took another look at the Wagner pre-owned section this morning. This has become a daily ritual of mine, because I'm impatient, a baby about this whole "lets save up some more money first, Tim" policy that I've enacted, and the fact that they're pretty slick about updating the cars on the lot, so, it always has what's there.

They now have up a 2002 Black manual A6, 2.7 turbo for under $23k. That's nuts. It's less than the others I'm looking at, has more ponies under the hood, and, it has black leather interior. That's hot.

I wish that I didn't think things through so thoroughly and that I was more impatient, and less responsible. Because that thing would be mine. Today. Regardless of the fact that I still consistently stall manual cars while under my control.

Why I love my sister

Currently listening to: Beastie Boys - Check it Out

I'm at my dad's house the other day, eating christmas cookies when Stacy walks by:

Me: These cookies are good, did you make them?
Stacy: Are they burnt?
M: No
S: Then probably not.
M: Sally's?
S: Probably. I burn everything I bake.

The innocence of young'ins

Currently listening to: Big D & the Kids Table - 5 Kids Down

Last night as the work day was winding down and we're all getting ready to leave, Angel, Vickers, and I were talking about cars. Angel mentioned to Vickers that the car I wanted was at Wagner...

Angel: Vickers, did Tim tell you about the car?
Vickers: What car?
Me: The car I want is over at the dealership. But I probably won't buy it now.
Vickers: What car are you getting?
Me: An A4.
Vickers: Is that a Scion?
Angel & Me: (laughing)

Oh kids. So cute when they're young and unknowledgeable.

Financial Dilemma of the Year Award

Currently Listening to: Coheed & Cambria - The Suffering

The FDY goes to the Audi A4, and it's purchase by yours truly.

If you know me, you know that I've had my eye on an A4 since before I even owned the Nubira. The Nubira, as loyal of a car as she has been, was purchased with the intent of only a few years use. At most, I planned on buying a new one as soon as I finished my ME masters degree. However, my current plan (um, well, the current plan before about 10am this morning) was to buy an A4 sometime this spring/summer after I get my tax refund check.

But! If you were to look at the Wagner Audi website, you'll notice that in the pre-owned section, they have a 2003 A4 1.8T, and it's dark blue. My color of choice is, in order of awesomeness, black, blue, or silver. It's about $1k more than I'd like, but that could be talked down. I also have enough saved for downpayment to make the montly finance payments just a hair below the max that I would allow myself to dish out for 5 years straight.

Arg. What to do ... what to do ...

Terminado!

Currently listening to: Coheed & Cambria - Welcome Home

I'M DONE!

After a ton of working at nights during the past week and getting about 3 hours of sleep each night from monday-sunday, I'm done with my course-work for MFE 594. It was an experimental course and was never taught before, therefore the workload was kinda guessed upon. Guessed upon in a bad way.

Our paper for this project was 100 pages. The only thing to ever top that was my 200 page MQP. Our presentation, to the surprise of the audience (and us) was 70 slides. We talked for an hour before being told to end it. We were asked to finish immediately on slide 69. Apparently he didn't believe us when we said there was only one more slide to go, and that slide said "Thank you. Questions or Comments?"

But, all in all, I enjoyed the class. It was pretty interesting and I learned alot about different kinds of advanced manufacturing processes, particularly UltraSonic Impact Grinding.

Also, I'm not 1/2 way done with my ME master's degree. I have 6 courses to go (15 credits total). I should be done exactly 2 years from now. But, I think at some point I'll take out some loans and do more than one course at a time to speed things up. We'll see though. I've been enjoying (as much as you can say that...) paying out of pocket and not adding to the current loan debt. But, it'll probably pay off in the end to get more debt now in order to get a higher pay check sooner, which will then help me pay off said debt anyways.

Insanely busy

Currently listening to: Nothing (headache [this is becoming an unhealthy trend, eh?])

So lately I've been going nuts. Between all the school work that's been getting dumped on us, the hot jobs that have been springing up at work that need immediate and constant attention (to only find out afterwards that they weren't as hot as claimed...), I've been going insane.

However, this weekend rounded it out.
I went and took pics for Dakota at their show on friday night. Considering the snow storm that ended just a matter of hours before doors, there was still a decent crowd. I saw a bunch of people I hadn't in a while, so, it was refreshing.
Saturday night was the Stephen Lynch show. He was fantastic. Hilarious as always.
And last night we went down to URI for the Dane Cook show. About 80% of his stuff was all new, and I just saw him about 3 months ago, so, that's pretty good timewise to write/practice all that new material. I was pretty pumped. And even the old stuff, he found a way to jazz it up and make it slightly different.

Ugh, and then I stayed up till 3:30am last night finishing my homework. But, I went to bed knowing that everything for this course was done, sans presentation, which is about to begin in 1 hour and 18 minutes or so. Thankfully, I'm blasting off in a few to go eat, then look over my slides a few more times, and go get it over with. I'm pretty confident in my grades for this semester though, so, I think it'll all finish out pretty well.

I'm off for now. Wish me luck.

I can't wait for this semester to be over

Currently listening to: Nothing

So we're down to less than one week left now. We have our huge semester project report due on Monday, with an accompanying presentation during the last night of lecture.

However, if that doesn't seem crappy enough (I know, it's a week left, but try doing this stuff when you're working full time as well), we now have to have our paper turned in by Thursday night for revision prior to the actual submission.

And then last night, we get a homework assignment to do along side our current work.

And then, this morning, we receive an email for a homework assignment to do based on work we did 2 weeks ago. So, now we're up to 2 hw assignments, project report, and project presentation.

I just keep reminding myself of the free time I'll acquire in about 144 hours...

Oh Nubira, you silly Bitch

Currently listening to: Nothing

Oh geez. The Nubira's being awefully funny as of late.
She's been playing this little game with me. She'll make something stop working, or, work poorly, and then I go fix it! Hehe! What fun!

I can't actually complain, they've all been pretty minor things, so, I should really just shut my mouth, but they all occur within a few weeks after the previous issue being fixed, so, it's just a hair coincidental. I'm pretty sure she's doing this on purpose for some level of humor. In the past several months, this is what she's done:

1. iPod game. The iPod game was fun. I'd buy an accesory for my car to play my iPod, she'd let me use it for a few days, and then BAM! It would break.
I bought a tape adapter first. It played for about 3 weeks and I really liked it, despite all the wires hanging around. Then, to tell me who's boss, she self-destructs her own tape drive. That's determination right there.
Then I bought an iTrip. It worked pretty good for about 3 weeks as well, then the iTrip died. So I bought another radio thinger by Belkin. I brought it out to the parking lot of Best Buy, opened it up and tried to use it. The Nubian Princess didn't like this. She didn't even let the poor lil' guy work once. So, I brought it back in and got a replacement. It's been working now perfectly for about 2 weeks. I expect it to resign life within a week or so, based on history.

2. The Windshield Game. The windshield game was kinda cool. I got hit with a rock on the Pike about 2 months ago and got a little knick in the glass. Nothing really major, it's happened before and wasn't a problem. Well, then one morning I come out to go to work and "holy shit!" I have a big propagating crack in the windshield.
My insurance covered it, thankfully, and now I have a really, really clear windshield instead of the crappy one that originally came with the car. So, I called that one a win.

3. The Door Handle Game. This one isn't really funny. It's pretty annoying, actually. She likes to make the door handles not open sometimes. And it's not temperature dependent, either, as I expected. I thought that perhaps the lubrication was getting thick or frozen. But, nope. She did it during the summer, too. She's a riot. Thankfully, they've been pretty top notch for about a month now.

4. The Cam Shaft Sensor Game. Kinda funny. She likes to make her cam shaft sensor send out bad signals, yet still work fine. It's been like that for about a year. The engine runs perfectly, but it kept lighting up my Check Engine light periodically. I kept having it checked out, and everyone said it was fine. Well, I ended that game last night thanks to a day long trip to Diamond Chevrolet and $175. Take that, Nubira!

5. Wobbly Tire Game. This one is probably the least funny game. Upon purchase of my little darling, she had 4 different tires. I ride on a rubberized version of the Brady Bunch. But, it never bothered me. However, I noticed that one tire was balder than the rest, and that I should get new ones before it starts to snow too much. I had planned on doing this pre-xmas. However, yesterday, while working on my car, the guy at Diamond called up and was like "you have some steel showing on the back left tire". I replied "oh, yeah, I know, I'm getting new tires soon. Thanks, though". Apparently, it was worse than I thought initially. Last night I noticed my car running especially shitty, in terms of my car-to-ground contact situation. So, I planned on getting them fixed tonight. However, as I was coming down to the parking lot to leave this morning, already late I might add, I noticed the car riding a little low in one corner. Sure enough, there's the car sitting on a rim. Damn you tire! It blew out during the night, a big old hole in the bottom with steel threads sticking out everywhere. Oh well. I'll be riding on some new ones tonight!