Monday, December 17, 2007

Exams Done!

Yep... they're done. Here's what I thought of each:

COMM107 - B. I thought I had a pretty solid performance here. I think that I knew most of the material there - especially the short answers - but not enough to get the A. Could jump depending on some guesses.
MATH111 - B+. Again, another solid job, but I am still concerned for the possibility of a few slip-ups throughout. Solid job and also could jump to an A.
HIST156 - Anywhere from D to B. Very worried about possible incorrect definitions, but also confident on overall performance. This one could make or break the grade for the course.
JOUR181 - B. Didn't study enough to ensure an A, but also did study enough to make sure I didn't make the numerous mistakes. This one clinches the course as it is I believe 95% of the overall grade.

So... we shall see...

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Politics and Yesterday's Storm

Well I was going to go more conservative than Capital Weather and say we would not get much freezing precipitation at all, so I lose on that one. But if I had said that it would have been a nice prediction. The storm impact of two flakes was off and so was the road impact... the roads were fine in the metro area, and I'm not sure about north and west of here. Give me a C+.

Also, I took a politics test. Here are the results:




You are a

Social Moderate
(55% permissive)

and an...

Economic Liberal
(30% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Democrat (30e/55s)




Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Final Guess (3:00 PM)

Okay, well here it goes... the guess that I will be taking... and I think that I'm going to take a page out of Capital Weather's book. Here it is, the timeline:

5:00 PM Sa - 9:00 PM Sa - Snow, sleet, and freezing rain develop... areas south and east maybe a changeover?
9:00 PM Sa - 12:00 AM Su - DC Metro area and south experiences change to rain.
12:00 AM Su - 4:00 AM Su - Heavy precipitation. Warm air cuts north to continue changeover
4:00 AM Su - 9:00 AM Su - Rain.
9:00 AM Su - 12:00 PM Su - Any remaining rain exits to the north and east.

Taking another page out of their book:

Storm Impact: I'm giving this two flakes, just because of the possibility that significant icing could occur in our north and west suburbs.
Travel Impact: Forget the airplanes... I'm going to go with road conditions. Two and a half cars, because of the way these morons around here drive.
School Chances (Monday): One apple. You're going to school... face it.
Next Storm Chance: Dec. 20th is the next day showing up on the GFS for a chance of any type of precipitation. Best guess now would be rain.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Not Getting Excited for The Weekend Storm

One word: rain. The NWS is hyping up the system coming in this weekend and it's not going to be as cold as they say. I can see it now, hoping for an inch of snow and ice and getting the short end of the stick yet again. DC, enjoy that clipper we had a week or two ago, because it may well be the last big one we see this winter. I know it's early but when this pattern keeps up, you can kind of see where this is going. I've had it with DC's winters.

The Struggles Continue. We are Burning Late Night Oil As We Speak

STUDYING IS GOING NOWHERE... TRYING A DIFFERENT TACTIC THAT I LEARNED ABOUT EARLIER IN MY ENGLISH PAPER... IT IS 4:45 AM AND I AM BEYOND TIRED... I'VE ALL BUT GIVEN UP... WINTER STORM WATCH SATURDAY TO SUNDAY...

Figure I'd switch directions. An idea was proposed by Gallup... basically you should work on your strengths rather than working on your weaknesses so you can play to your strengths. I am a strong writer... 

History Grade Waning with Snow Chances for the Weekend

And just after midnight I start studying for history... the exam is at 8 with a breakfast at 7 am. I have four Sobes remaining in my fridge. I will spread those out over the night so I can stay awake and study to the best of my ability. We'll see... maybe I will do a clutch move for the fourth time in the past two days. Yesterday (Thurs) I pulled clutch moves thrice... on two exams and a paper. Both exams mattered a lot, and I destroyed them... in a good way. The paper was due before Friday and I finished it at 11:45 pm. These clutch performances hopefully continue tomorrow with my History exam. It's going to be difficult but I'll try my best.

As for snow chances this weekend, do not count on them. Best shot is for a miracle to happen, but I think we'll go mix to rain to mix or snow. Not that much to worry about, but as usual, I'll keep an eye out on it all. After all, the dusting to one inch forecast for the clipper turned out to be five inches here in College Park. Who knows?

Good night, Maryland. Maybe another update as I burn the midnight oil.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

December 15th-16th

There is the possibility of you-know-what... here's the potential as I see it in the early morning hours of Tuesday... as I should be studying, this is what I'm doing...


The area north of the northern yellow line is most likely going to see all snow. This is a confidence line. That is the area where I believe will not have to worry about a changeover. The area south of the southern yellow line (the other confidence line) will most likely be all rain. In between is where it gets confusing and is the area that needs time to analyze what will fall there. It's going to be a tough forecast there. Could be snow, could be rain. The area I have outlined in light blue is MY forecast area for getting all snow (or mostly snow). The area in pink will get snow, ice, and possibly rain in my forecast. And the area in green is my forecast for rain. Now as the computer models have been shaky, I've outlined some potential areas too. The dashed blue section is where there is a possibility for heavy snow. The dashed red area is where there is a possibility for sleet and freezing rain to make for tough travel.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Midday Thursday, and I'm Not Thinking Arby's

I'm thinking snow! We've got light snow in College Park and it's well below freezing. Problem: snow isn't sticking too well to the roads and sidewalks. But as the snow keeps falling, I think the "stickiness" will improve. Dry slot coming in... that should fill in over the next few hours and I think some more snow will fall later on today. Overnight if snow continues, roads could be a problem... morning commute could get interesting. Maybe UMD will choose to open after 10 am tomorrow... but I doubt it. My guess is there will be lots of delays. Expect light snow to taper this evening... probably after dark sometime. Longterm looks warm for a week... then cold.

Sorry for all the weather related posts, but if we've got snow, I'm writing about it.

Enjoy the snow, Maryland!

Videoblogging and a flurry of excitement

I was thinking today as I was making my slideshow for tomorrow's presentation, I wondered... how easy would it be to video blog when I have something to say about the weather or what have you (that way you could shutter out my dorkiness). I'll be exploring that option over the next few days and we'll see what comes of it. Maybe I'll post a video blog or something.

Snow is going to start sometime tomorrow morning and continue on through the evening. My guess right now is 1-2 inches with the potential for a bust and a surprise. Depends on how much moisture makes it over the mountains. Then after that we'll enter a warm (and possibly dry) pattern through mid-month. Hopefully that will change just in time for Christmas... hopefully Christmas is white!

Goodnight, Maryland, and wear those pajamas inside out!

Monday, December 3, 2007

Disrespect, My ASS

So I'm the target of controversy this week for putting up a "controversial" Facebook photo of one of my teams winning a game. Okay, so I'm partly a Bills fan, and they beat the Skins after Sean Taylor was killed. So I'm going to be happy because one of MY teams won for once. Let's get this straight...

I RESPECTED THE MAN AND THE GREAT FOOTBALL PLAYER THAT SEAN TAYLOR WAS... REST IN PEACE #21

So after the game apparently I held it over everyone's head by wearing Bills stuff and putting up a picture of the game winning field goal. Christ, people, I can't like a team now? Why is it when someone says or does something it is wrong? Do folks honestly think that I was being disrespectful for liking a damn team? So I took down the "offensive" picture, which did not depict Sean Taylor or anything like that. All it showed was the Bills celebrating after a win. That's it. Nothing showing any disrespect towards Sean Taylor. Now my question is this. If this would have happened to my favorite team, the Titans, and the Skins would've beat them by one... I know exactly what I'd be facing right now. It would be hoots and hollers from all the Skins fans... including the ass hat I ran into the other night. That is another reason that I was happy the Bills won, because that asshole deserves a loss after what he did. That incident could be considered assault, and he's lucky some bigger people weren't with us when it would've happened. Because he would've gotten his shit fucked up. But anyway, folks, do not hate me or get pissed at me for liking a certain team. Jesus Christ, can't I just be my own person?

Early Monday

High winds and power outages later today! Bring 'em, I got four classes to get through!

Other than that, I have nothing really to say. I'm hoping the upsets and the karma to evil football franchises can continue, with hopefully the New England Patriots losing later on today to the Baltimore Ravens. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of the Ravens, I absolutely despise the Pats and want to see them go down. What would also be a nice turn of events would be the Pats running up the score and a Raven laying a hit on Brady causing him to be injured. He'd really deserve it for the cheating and the running up the score.

Goodnight, Maryland!

Sunday, December 2, 2007

A Slight Flub... 6 pm Sunday

Forecast was a little off... it did start as snow/sleet/freezing rain, but it didn't do as much as I thought. I thought I'd wake up to maybe a light dusting and some ice on tree limbs, but that never panned out. We'll see rain the rest of the way, and boring with that. High winds tomorrow and part of Tuesday... then Tuesday night the snow comes in with the clipper. Maybe a bit of rain first, but changing to snow with light accumulations continuing through Wednesday.

First off, that was a great win by the Titans to get right back into the playoff race. Jacksonville lost and Cleveland is down, which helps a lot. Also, the Bills upset the Skins which made me a happy camper considering the asshole of a Skins fan I ran into last night. He deserved everything and karma has come full circle and is really hitting me well right now. Of course there was yesterday's football game with the idiot who called me a bad QB and then threw a poor pass that was picked off, followed by me joking about him to a group of football players who laughed at said joke. If my phone was not broken, I would be feeling pretty darn amazing right now... hell, I already am feeling pretty great right now, but a working phone would make things 100%. I'm at 90 or so right now. I don't really want to ask for more karma because that would be selfish. Thank you, God, for these wonderful turn of events. The way things are going right now, I should sail right into Christmas Break.

Sunday Comments

Well, it did sleet last night. Rain today. Very high winds tomorrow. Snow Wednesday. That's it... GO TITANS!!!

Friday, November 30, 2007

I'm Getting a Bit Discouraged

Okay, so it's past midnight and I'm still not done with that English paper, but after looking at the latest model guidance, I'm getting discouraged. I do not think that it will be as warm as they show, but they've been showing that consistently, so I am getting worried. But what is interesting, and what excites me, is that after this storm, even if we get nothing, we appear to be going into a cold and stormy pattern, which is great. The thing is, if these models keep showing something down the pipeline, eventually something is going to come. The question is where, and with the cold air expected, maybe we'll get some snow around here. I'm sticking with the original forecast... starting out as snow or sleet, then transitioning to a mix, and then finally all rain, with the possibility (not probability but possibility) that it switches back over to snow. It all depends on how things fall together. I'd love to see everything stack up perfectly, but I just don't see that happening. Too many ifs. Next update tomorrow... hopefully morning, but I wouldn't put my bets on it.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Storm Mode

Had to go back into dork mode with this post... we are officially in storm mode in Washington, DC...

Really? Storm off the coast of California, trough coming in to the Western U.S., cold air present in the Mid-Atlantic... Everything is coming together for a weekend storm. Exact timing, track, and intensity, as well as how much cold air is present in our area at the onset of the storm, will determine what type of precipitation falls when. My guess as of 7:00 pm Thursday is that it starts out as snow and/or sleet, changes to rain for a while, and then as the secondary storm forms off the East Coast, the precipitation may change back over to frozen variety. That is the guess now. If the storm is stronger and/or goes further north, there will be more warm air and thusly less frozen precipitation. However, if the storm stays weaker and/or pulls to the south, there will be more cold air, and hopefully more frozen-variety precipitation. I'll stay on the situation and come out with a better prediction either later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Few Late November Thoughts

I'm getting desperate for snow after last winter's bust... and after seeing snow in Buffalo, I am ready!

Went for a swim this evening and realized that I am very out of shape. My plan, along with refusing to skip any more classes until the end of the semester, is to swim every single day. Today it was a 500 free warmup, 100 fly, and 200 IM. All of these were tough and had me on a few minutes of rest time. I will keep working on this set until I can do it without breaks. We'll head back to the pool tomorrow for another workout. But I was glad to finally swim after such a long break since July. I will keep plugging away.

Thought I'd post just before bed. Good night Maryland (oh, and Virginia, too!)

Monday, November 19, 2007

First Entry

Okay, so we'll try it out here at Blogger. We'll see how this works, after trying out the less-professional Xanga for a few years. Now I'm trying this... and like I said we'll see how it goes. I'll post my musings here (as per the name of the site) and you can respond to them. In fact, please post comments, etc. in the comment space. Or whatever it is called. See... I'm just getting used to this website.