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...is much like Qdoba at 2pm except the patrons are drunk.

I just wish I had a picture from last night.

This was my favorite ride at Universal Studios, Orlando. I can understand why they are closing it since it takes its theme from movies that came out in the late 80's early 90's. So many younger people may not think it is that cool.

I remember riding it when there was nothing there except the main park. My mom, brother and myself visited the park before they had built all of the other things like islands of adventure and city walk.

Part of what I really liked was the way they built up the experience. The story was Biff has stolen one of the time traveling DeLoreans to wreak havoc throughout time. From the moment you get in line it starts building this story. When you get inside you are put in a room with 7 other people filled with replica memorabilia from the films. A video of Doc tells you that he is going to let you test out the new 8 passenger DeLorian to go chase after Biff. In order to get him back you have to hit him with your car.

The door opens into a garage and you see a realistic looking DeLorian sitting there. They do an excellent job of making you think it is just you and your group. When the ride starts the DeLorian lifts up out of the garage where you see a huge screen. The car moves with the actions on the screen. If you look to your left or right in the car you can see the others. At the end it brings you back into the garage.

Images from the ride http://www.giveneyestosee.com/bttf/

Brief article about the closing http://www.wesh.com/news/11453443/detail.html

I have had a lot going on recently. Today I received my second internship offer, interviewed with two more companies and turned down one internship. I am really flattered be being pursued by so many companies. One of the companies seems to be stepping up their process since they now know I have an offer on the table.

On the other hand my brother left for Iraq today. When I talked to my mom this afternoon and she told me he called her before he got on the plane. We thought he was leaving tomorrow but maybe he wasn't sure or maybe they were running on Iraq time.

It is sort of a strange feeling. This is my only sibling. I think it makes my mom feel good that I have so many good things going on right now so I think that helps. Plus we are looking forward to our trip to San Francisco at the beginning of May.

I know having him over there will make me more conscious of what is going on in Iraq.

I have been really busy and not able to post the past few days so this is going to be a conglomeration of a bunch of stuff.

The next five weeks are going to be hectic. Looking at the schedule for my classes I think it is going to be a bit like the first month of last semester. I think we have at least one thing due every week for the next 5 weeks. Then I leave for CHI on April 28th.

Little 5 is coming up and people are getting really excited about it. I want to go to a few parties and possibly to a race. I think I am going to end up going to the women's race since I was offered a free VIP ticket to the event.

My friends had a big cook out on Saturday since it has been so nice here. We had a lot of fun and if you have Facebook I posted a bunch of photos taken by a few different people. That night I went to Indy with a friend to see a concert. It turned out to be a really great show. It was funny watching some of the drunk guys dance.

Today I did the JustBe presentation for A110. JustBe is a presentation designed to get more people interested in computing. A110 is an introductory computer science class that many students take. I really enjoyed talking to those students and I think we actually reached a few of them with our presentation.

After doing that presentation the professor career route sort of pulls at me a little more. Doing a masters for me was my way of seeing if I might want to go further as well as getting the advanced degree I wanted. I am hoping to get an AI position for next year where I can teach an undergrad lab so I can figure out if I do want to teach. Hopefully it will work out. I don't think I will go straight to the PhD since I am in so much debt and I'd like to get some more industry experience but it has jumped back into things to think about.

Upon deeper reflection this evening I realized that the thing I really like to do is help people. That seems to be a constant theme in just about everything I do. I try to inspire those who are close to me to go for what they want to do and not give up. I know I helped one person I used to be very close to who was thinking about giving up on his dream but was inspired by me pursuing mine to keep going. That made me feel like I made some sort of impact in his life.

One of the things I really liked to do when I was working was the training workshops where I taught new hires to use the content management system. I was always happy when people started to finally get the system. It was fairly complex and usually took 6 months to a year to really be able to do anything beyond the basics.

On the internship front I now have five companies currently considering me. I have three interviews this week so that has messed with my schedule a bit. I am looking forward to the interviews and hopefully getting an offer or two.

My posting may get really light through the end of the semester since I have a lot of stuff going on along with school.

My internship search experience has been interesting. In mid February I spent almost a whole weekend looking for internships and applying. I can't even count now the number of places I applied to. Since then there has been a small trickle of internships coming over the HCI listserv, CHI Jobs listserv and a job alert I set up with Indeed.

For a while I heard nothing but starting around the end of February first week of March I started getting e-mails. The first company I talked to was out of Minnesota they seemed to really like me but ended up having the funding pulled for their internship program. Then another company e-mailed me out of the blue after I had talked to them in the fall at the career fair. I didn't think it would go anywhere but it did. I interviewed with the them and I am currently waiting to hear back.

I had a interview with a really great usability firm in Boston that I was pretty sure I was a long shot on. I was just flattered to be interviewed when some other people I know were not.

I had sent out a few resumes around the beginning of January and had heard nothing in return. I decided to follow up on both of them. One lead to a no and then later a question of whether I would be interested in a position that did some programming. I asked for some more information and heard nothing in return. The other lead to a phone interview and the promise of a decision next week.

I had gotten to the point where I thought I was down to two internship possibilities when I was contacted tonight by another company to set up an interview for next week.

Needless to say it has been interesting and has given me a few options in three states.

Now the question is, where will I be in May?

Today was the official start of spring. I don't think I have ever been so happy to see spring as I have been this year. The winter was long and hard for me. A few days when it was in the teens and twenties I though I was going to freeze to death. Thankfully that is behind me for now.

A real spring after winter is really sort of an amazing site. On my travels today I saw flowers popping up out of the ground that only a few weeks ago was covered in snow. The tree outside my window has the beginnings of leaves on it. The weather is not bad still a little chilly for my taste but much better than it was.

I enjoyed walking downtown today to the Buskirk-Chumley where I had a group meeting this morning. We stopped by the new noodle place to pick up lunch and then headed to Informatics to hang out before class. The new noodle place is quite good by the way, very vegetarian friendly since anything can have tofu in it.

Tonight after class I saw people playing soccer on the field across from Informatics, people running, throwing Frisbees, footballs and baseballs. It was really a nice day to be outside walking around.

Last week a 13 of my Informatics friends and a few others rented a cabin in Pigeon Forge Tennessee. The group ended up being mainly guys which was interesting to say the least.

We were there for 5 nights. It was a lot of fun. The cabin we rented was really nice. The bottom floor had a pool table, foosball table and air hockey table. The second floor had the big tv, all floors had a tv, the stainless steel kitchen and a bedroom. The top floor had another bed, a loft with two futon mats and the hot tub. Here is the website if you are interested in pictures of the cabin.

During the day we hiked a few different trails in the Smoky Mountains park. At night we made dinner and drinks, played games, watched movies, hung out in the hot tub among other things. We have a lot of fun stories none of which I will share here. :)

The trip was a lot of fun. I have posted all of my good pictures on my photos page. The one photo on here is a picture of me on the Alum Cave Bluffs.

The main focus of the news casts tonight was the 3rd anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. I remember when it started. I had almost been out of school for a year and was working for a newspaper in Lakeland, FL. Everyone in the newsroom knew we were going to war it was just a matter of when. I remember my boss telling me to keep an eye on the news and be prepared to come in to the office when war broke out.

I remember sitting on the floor of my bedroom where I had my small TV and watching the bombs fall on Baghdad. I called my boss and asked him if I needed to come in. He said no but the next day would be busy and it was.

Now on this anniversary I am thinking about my brother who is leaving for his first tour of Iraq next week. He is a second lieutenant in the Marines and has told my mom that he will be on a secure base outside of Baghdad but that still doesn't keep me from worrying. After he leaves I am probably going to be glued to the news.

It is sort of a strange feeling.

I spotted this on a message board today. It is pretty funny and yes they do rip on my beloved Albert. Here are a few of my favorites.

18. University of Nebraska's Lil' Red (Big 12)

I envision Lil' Red as Big Boy's jealous, bitter younger brother, who tried to open his own chain of restaurants but failed, and is now reduced to shooting Slim Jims and children's coloring menus out of a t-shirt cannon to fans during Nebraska games.

Florida had an inflatable alligator called Ollie that was really freaky looking. I still don't know if it was a person or a robot under that inflatable outfit. It was really odd because he would sort of jerk around the field. He walked like a robot but that could also be because he had no appendages. I don't know if he is still around.

    
12. Saint Louis University's Billiken (Atlantic 10)

According to Wikipedia, a billiken is:

a charm doll created by an American art teacher and illustrator, Ms. Florence Pretz of Kansas City, Missouri, who is said to have seen the mysterious figure in a dream. In 1908 she patented the Billiken, who was elf-like with pointed ears, a mischievous smile, and a tuft a hair on his pointed head.

Thus, Saint Louis University took it upon themselves to pick a mascot that is based on some hippy art teacher's acid trip. It looks like Bat Boy.

    
4. Xavier Univerity's Blue Blob (Atlantic 10)

The Blue Blob looks like what an alcoholic single dad would craft for his son for a Halloween or school pageant costume. "Look son, it's the Cookie Monster!" No, it's not. It's the personification of a failed father.

Plenty more here http://www.drivl.com/posts/view/738

I tried Googling for the Hoosier mascot but all I found was the rock that is at the football stadium. I read that the athletic director tried to come up with a mascot but I didn't find any mention of what they came up with. Unfortunately I didn't get to any football or basketball games this year so I wasn't able to see for myself.

I loved this show when it was on Fox. It was my favorite thing to watch on Sunday nights.

MSN is slowly posting the episodes of this great show. We watched a few of them in the cabin last week.

Here is the link if you are interested in a great time waster. http://arresteddevelopment.msn.com/

A company called Empora based out of Austria has created a cell phone that is targeted to the 50+ market. The Life phone is very basic the features include calls, text messaging and an address book. Something very basic that should be easy to use.

A few of the special things about this phone are the large red button on the back that when pressed calls one of the emergency numbers, a high contrast screen, large buttons and a speaker.

This sounds like a good design making things less complicated. I am not sure if 50+ is the market though. My parents both fall into this category and they are fairly capable with technology. Probably the market is more of the 60-65+ but I guess it varies by the capabilities of the user. I could also see people who wanted a simple phone with not a lot of features being drawn to this phone.

This would be a great device for my grandmothers if they also pared it with a really cheap cell plan or a pay as you go plan where the minutes wouldn't expire. This way they could have an emergency phone to carry with them and not have to worry about contracts and minutes.

BBC Article

Another blog let me know that Times Select is now free for students and faculty with a .edu e-mail address. This service is normally about $50 per year.

Times select is essentially access to columnists, NYTimes online archives, customized e-mail alerts among other things. See here for a full list.

The trouble starts after you have submitted and verified your university address.

The verification link takes you to this page. Can you figure out quickly how to create an account?

I have a NYT account but it doesn't use my .edu address. At first I thought about logging in using that account but that wouldn't make sense. The box on the left says "Upgrade to Times Select". I don't think I want to do that since I already have free Times Select I think. The button on the left says upgrade and not register so I am not sure what to do. I check my verification e-mail for a password but I don't see one. I spend a little more time staring at it and then decide to just click the login button on the right. Hoping for a good error message.

This time I get some helpful red text that tells me to register by clicking on the button on the left. I then see in small gray type "Not a NYTimes.com member yet?". Now I understand what to do and was able to register for the service.

I created a registration system based off of the NYTimes.com design a few years ago so I know it wasn't this confusing previously.

The key things wrong here are: labeling the button upgrade instead of register, making upgrade to Times Select the largest things on the left and overshadowing the only hint that you should use this link to register.

How this could be fixed: go back to having people register and then make your Times Select pitch on the registration page, another option is to make it smaller than the "Not a NYTimes.com member yet?" text.

I wonder if anyone else has run into this issue.

Trees are starting to get new leaves. Flowers are sprouting up from the ground. The days are not as cold as they were. It is starting to look like spring around here. We are going to get a small cold snap over the next few days but hopefully the cold is coming to an end.

I have lots from spring break but I need to collect the photos and write up post about it. Hopefully tomorrow.

I am off to the mountains for a few days with a group of Informatics students and friends. It should be a lot of fun. I doubt we will have internet access so I probably won't post but I know we will have tons of things to do.

So it is internship season from what I can tell. Most companies seem to be making up their minds regarding internships. I had a good interview with American Family Insurance in Madison, Wisconsin but the ended up pulling the money from their internship program. I had a phone interview this morning with one company and I have an in person interview with another company next week.

I still have a bunch of applications out that I am going to follow up on over break since it sounds like people are going to start making offers soon. It would be nice to have my internship secured by the end of the month so I can make my summer plans.

I bought a MacBook in January. I have spent a lot of time trying to learn the Mac OS. Sometimes it has really frustrated me but after working with it for about 2 months I am starting to get the hang of it.

What is funny to me is that when I pull out my Mac laptop people automatically assume I am one of the fanatical Mac people. I have had people ask me questions about how to do something on Mac and I often don't know much more than they do.

I am not a huge Mac fan, I actually still prefer Windows but I am warming to the Mac OS. I knew I wanted to buy a laptop after a friend had loaned me one and I found it really helpful to have on campus with me. I looked at the MacBook with the student discount compared to a comparably speced Gateway sans discount and the difference was only a few hundred in the direction of the MacBook.

Gateway was the only Windows laptop brand I was considering. I know Dell has a student discount but I am not a big fan of their laptops. I had one where I worked that was brand new when I got it. After having that machine for about a year it turned into a horrible machine.

I decided on the MacBook because I can run both Windows and OS X on my laptop.

After 2 months there are still things I prefer to do on Windows than on Mac. Plus most of my software investment is on the Windows side. My desktop is a windows machine and I use it primarily when I am at home. When I am on campus or other places I use the Mac OS.

At this point in time for web development I still prefer the way that Windows operates and how the programs I like to use work under Windows.

The Mac is not bad and I am giving it a pretty fair shot. I have tried a few of the programs I like to use on the Mac and have not liked the way that they work in the Mac realm.

It is still funny to me to be automatically assumed that I am a huge Machead because I carry a MacBook.

I was just sitting here reading something online when all of the sudden the weather alert signal comes over the radio. I listened for the announcer to explain what was going on but they don't say anything just static. Next thing I know the tornado sirens are going off on campus. I was immediately frightened. I rushed to get dressed grab a jacket and run downstairs to the basement of my building. The whole while I am absolutely terrified. I heard other people still in their apartments in the building and I was the only one in the basement. I stayed in the basement for a little while. Then I came up out of the basement and stood in the foyer for a little looking at the sky. I saw people just going about their daily lives no one seemed that upset. I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing so I try to call a friend who had helped me with these things in the past but it doesn't seem like my phone was working so I don't know if he picked up or not. I came back up to my apartment and turned the radio back on and a second weather alert came across saying it was just a test.

I wish I would have known that in the first place so I wouldn't have gotten so upset.

We have tornadoes in Florida but we don't have the elaborate warning sirens etc. Hurricanes are our main plague and you usually know those well in advance.

I thought this was interesting. Kingston has designed a mouse that they are targeting specifically to the female market. They are donating money to the Heart Association's Go Red for Women campaign which is nice but it has nothing to do with the mouse. At first I thought they were donating a portion of the profits from this mouse to that cause but that doesn't seem to be the case.

It is apparently designed to fit a woman's hand. I haven't had problems with unisex mice but maybe that is just me. There are things that do need to be designed specifically for women. Sometimes I think they take the designed for a woman thing too far. Do women really need a separate mouse? Anybody else have any thoughts?

More here

I am sure everyone has gotten at least one of the Nigerian scam e-mails. If you haven't essentially what you get is an e-mail from some, lawyer, government official etc. asking you to help them move some money out of the country. They say they got your address from a trusted source and promise to share some of the wealth with you. All you have to do is send them a few thousand dollars to help them out and then you each share in the wealth.

The one I got today was actually pretty creative.

"I am Fook Weng, an attorney at law.A deceased client of mine, by name Mr Andrew McAtee, who here in after shall be referred to as my client, died as the result of a heart-related condition on the 11 November 2001. His heart condition was due to the death of all the members of his family in the Gulf Air Flight Crashes in Persian Gulf Near Bahrain Aired August 23, 2000 - 2:50 p.m. ET as reported on: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0008/23/bn.08.html

I have contacted you to assist in distributing the money left behind by my client before it is confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this deposit valued at $17 million dollars is lodged. This bank has issued me a notice to contact the next of kin, or the account will be confiscated.

My proposition to you is to seek your consent to present you as the next-of-kin and beneficiary of my named client, since you have the same last name, so that the proceeds of this account can be paid to you. Then we can share the amount on a mutually agreed-upon percentage. All legal documents to back up your claim as my client's next-of-kin will be provided.All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through.'

This will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from many breach of the law. If this business proposition offends your moral values,do accept my apology. I must use this opportunity to implore you to exercise the utmost indulgence to keep this matter extraordinary confidential, whatever your decision, while I await your prompt response.Please contact me at once to indicate your interest. I will like you to acknowledge the receipt of this e-mail as soon as possible via my private EMAIL:barristerfook_weng11@yahoo.com.my and treat with absolute confidentiality and sincerity.I look forward to your quick reply.

Best regards,
Barrister FookWeng"

I'd love to have part of the 17 million, it would pay off a lot of school debt but I know this is a scam. I actually read this one since it was addressed to me, name spelled right and it did have someone with my last name.

They are getting more creative with this scam.

All of this thinking about people from high school made me wonder what happened to my first boyfriend Joey Reinert. The last time I talked to him was in 2003. He wanted to be an actor and was doing all sorts of local small time productions. Today when I googled him he showed up in IMDB. Apparently he was in a real movie called The Celestine Prophecy which was released last year in the Netherlands and apparently had a small run in the US that opened on my birthday, ha. Now I want to reactivate my Netflix so I can see it.

I am happy to see him starting to live his dream. I wonder if he will remember he promised me he would take me to the Golden Globes.

Some of my Indian friends invited a bunch of us over for a celebration of Holi a spring festival. Apparently the tradition is to throw colors, colored powder, at other people along with water and other things. Since it was snowy and cold here I thought they were not going to throw colors.

When I came back to the party after going out to look for some of the people who were bringing food, I didn't want them to have to carry everything in the snow. I was greeted at the door by a smack of red color to my left cheek. It looked like I had been hit really hard. Apparently after more people got there they decided to get out the colors and have a small color fight. Everyone who walked in the door after that was greeted with colors. Hopefully one of them will post photos somewhere. Thanks Sindhia. Above is a picture of me right after being hit by the color.

They prepared a nice meal for everyone and introduced us to a few snacks which I unfortunately don't remember the names of. One of them involved taking a semolina puff, poking a hole in it, putting something like dried chickpeas in it and then dipping it in a sweet and then spicy sauce. It was pretty good. The photo is of me trying to put the whole thing together. The second thing they shared was a sweet milk type ball. I didn't care for it but appreciated the experience of trying it.

The only bad thing about having the color on my face was that I had promised a friend I would go see a movie with him so I felt weird showing up with this big red blotch on my face. I kind of smeared the color to make it not quite as obvious and then went to the movie. I explained what was going on when he got there even though it wasn't that obvious.

As I pulled into the parking lot of the theater it started to snow again and I got worried that it would snow so much that I wouldn't be able to get home. Thankfully it didn't and I was able to get home after the movie without much trouble.

BTW Zodiac, good movie.

*Update* The color came off of my face and hands with no problem. The only issue now is the stuff that got in my nose when someone put it on my face. I realized also that when the color was smeared it kind of looked like I was using sunless tanner and had done a really bad job of putting it on.

Yesterday was so nice most of the snow had melted it was a bit windy and not that cold. I took a trip out of town for they day since I really needed to get away from Bloomington for a little while. I was going to go today but I am glad I went yesterday since there is no way I would want to go that far in the snow.

I thought we were done with snow and then I wake up this morning and it is back. It was interesting for a little while but now I am really of sick of it now. I am supposed to be somewhere in a little under an hour and it has just started pouring snow from the sky. I am afraid to drive in the snow so I am worried about leaving. The last couple of times it snowed I just stayed in or called my friend to come and get me to take me where I needed to go but sadly I don't have that option anymore.

It just slowed up hopefully that burst of snow will be the last for today.

I hadn't used my MySpace account in a while until last weekend when I jumped on just out of curiosity. Somehow my notification of messages got turned off so I didn't know people were contacting me. One of my friends from high school had sent me a note in December that I didn't get. I felt bad and wrote back immediately apologizing.

My sorority little sister had sent me a note too but that one had only come in a few days earlier. I was very happy to hear from her since I had been thinking about her recently. I have been volunteering as a graduate adviser for IU chapter of the sorority I belong to. It has been fun and reminded me of when I was still in the house.

It is sort of odd starting to catch up with people from high school, we have our 10 year reunion in September. A lot of my friends are married, two of my friends just had babies in the past few months. Some of them went to college a few to graduate school. It is all so weird since the last time I saw most of them was graduation.

September will be interesting I'll make my plane and hotel reservations once I know my fall schedule.

For some reason my blog broke today. I put a new post in this morning and then started getting an SQL error. I ran a repair script from cPanel and that seemed to make it work again.

Hopefully this post won't break it. *crosses fingers*