Monday, April 28, 2008

I have a 7 foot giraffe. My old one is 5 foot. (long story, tell ya later)

Today I tried about 100 times (not exaggerating) to free mount it and succeeded once. Once.

THIS MEANS IT CAN BE DONE!!!

For the record, I can free mount the 5 footer in my sleep.

(a giraffe is a tall unicycle)

Posted by Dreqan @ 09:04 PM PST Link | 3 People give a shit!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

I can now solve my rubik's cube by memory. Yay. While poking around I found this video. It's hilarious. IT FEATURES JESUS! Good music too. They use slightly more complicated algorithms than I do, especially at the end.

Posted by Dreqan @ 09:26 PM PST Link | 19 People give a shit!

Saturday, April 19, 2008

I've decided to try to make by brain smarter by learning the Rubik's Cube. I got one yesterday and am about 60% done memorizing the algorithms needed to solve it "beginner style." I can solve it consistently now, but I need to look at a cheat sheet to remember the longer 7 and 8 step algorithms. Ideally I'll begin to understand how the algorithms work and then memorizing them won't be so hard, but... eh... This damn thing is really complicated. I'm not sure if I'll invest much time in learning the intermediate and advanced algorithms needed for "speed cubing." I think I can get fast enough with my current algorithms to solve it in under a minute with practice, and that's good enough for me. While I feel like the cube is something I should know how to do, I don't feel like I need to be an expert at it. You can't be a "jack of all trades" and also be an expert at everything you do. To be fluent in many skills and an expert in a few - that's my goal.

I do hope to be able to explain how all the algorithms work that I do end up memorizing, eventually. Solving the cube with memorized steps and not knowing why those steps work doesn't seem any more impressive to me than following map or a cookbook. To my credit, about 40% of algorithms I use now I came up with my on my own (even though they are standard), but even with that I'm solving the cube in a certain order (top cross, middle corners, etc) which was definitely something I looked up. I think with time some answers will jump out at me.

Posted by Dreqan @ 11:55 PM PST Link | 10 People give a shit!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

I don't have much time, so...

A short list of why my commute is better than yours:

Part 1: The Obvious
1. Mine is by bicycle - or Unicycle on Wednesdays (9 miles)
2. 60% of it is on a wooded bike path by a stream, and 40% is on a residential road setup for biking

Part 2: What you don't know
1. I have to duck to keep from being hit by flying ducks. (ha!)
2. Lately, I've routinely been distracted and made late by ducklings and goslings (yea spring!)
3. A few months ago I was waysided by two bald eagles hanging out in a tree above the path.
4. Today (an average day) on the way home I stopped several times and hung out with tons of Canadian Geese and other geese varieties, assorted duck varieties, Sea Gulls, Coots, Heron, some weird seabird that can dive 60 feet under water, and some type of aquatic mammal, either a River Otter or a Nutriea.
5. A few days ago I encountered a pet parrot hanging out in a throng of ducks and geese going "DUCK! DUCK! QUACK! QUACK!" --- It was excited.
6. These water fowl have been present even in the middle of winter.
7. It takes me as long to drive (due to a longer route) as it does to bike.
8. It gives me reasons to make lists!

Part 3: The Negatives
1. I don't mind braking for ducks and geese, by I do mind breaking for people wearing headphones who can't hear enough to get out of my damn way.

Oh well, it's still better than stoplights!

Posted by Dreqan @ 09:05 PM PST Link | 23 People give a shit!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Slow news day.

Checkout Phlogging.

Posted by Dreqan @ 09:30 PM PST Link | 19 People give a shit!

Yay! GMJ made the paper again. (Third time?) This time as part of a writeup about our upcoming show with Earth DescenDance at One Family Gathering. The article isn't specifically about that show, I suppose, but it is related. That show will be a three day hippie festival in the desert, and ED is headlining it with a long drawn out skit/fireshow/dance thingy. GMJ is heavily involved with the exception of Mark; who can't make the time commitment because he has a babymaphone due in May.

Anyways, this is the article. I was featured and (more or less) accurately quoted in the article. I was never accurately quoted the several times that I was in the ISU Daily relating to Chegg, so being quoted correctly here is really nice. Here is an excerpt (slightly edited for Google):

[My Name], whose group, The GreyMatter Jugglers, performs with Earth DescenDance as well as on its own, agrees that working with fire adds a different and potentially dangerous element to a performance.

"When you juggle fire, and you're throwing it back and forth, you have to really trust the other person," said **, a special education teacher at [school name removed] High School by day. "I have been on fire quite a bit."

Just a couple of weeks ago, "I had all the facial hair burned off one side of my face from passing a torch back and forth. You need to respect the fire, but you can't be scared of it. If you see your leg on fire or smell your hair burning, you have to be able to keep calm."

It's true. I did burn off a sideburn, cheek hair, and part of my beard juggling at Moab. High winds and beer may have been a factor. However, Brian throwing a fucking torch at my face was probably a bigger factor.

Posted by Dreqan @ 09:29 PM PST Link | 14 People give a shit!

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Today I gambled and lost...

No, I did not crap my pants. Worse.

I decided that since I got all my taxes back last year that owing $300+ must be a mistake. So, I went to H&R were we got our complicated taxes done last year to have them fix the mistake. But, turns out I was right. Not only do I owe over $300, but now I gotta pay H&R too. Damn. It seems I make just enough money to be taxed to hell, but not enough money to feel like I make any damn money.

I did ride my coker to work today. It took about an hour to get there. Normally it takes me about 30min by bike. Not bad. The ride home was also fun, but now my butt hurts. I don't know how those fuckers do RAGBRAI on those crazy things.

Ooh, a highlight. A car screamed "QUEER BAIT!" out the window at me on the way home. I haven't heard that one since the late 90's.

Posted by Dreqan @ 08:46 PM PST Link | 20 People give a shit!

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

This is going to be longer than it should and contain swearing. All you kids should stop fucking reading.

First, Phlogging is Fun - I'm addicted to sending pictures from my phone onto the internet. It's fullsize is something like 1500xsomeothernumber. There are moab pics up, juggling pics, and pics of your mom doing nasty thing to my ass. No, not really that, actually.

One day people who will potentially hire me are going to find this page, probably because I talk about GMJ waaay to much on it. Fuck it, I'll worry about that some day other than today. (Mark, stop showing your (our) bosses this page :) ) It's not like I've posted anything bad in awhile, but my archives are pretty offensive to normal people, I suppose.

Speaking of offensive, - no, wait, not yet - Firstly, I got a Coker at Moab. I also did my best riding, ever, at Moab. It was awesome. I killed that shit. And I bought a coker for uber cheap. (it's ok to use "uber" on the internet, just not in real life) A coker, for those of you who don't know, it a 36" unicycle that it adequate for commuting and biking across Iowa. Tomorrow I will ride mine to work.

Now, speaking of offensive, I spent 2 hours doing my taxes to learn that I *GASP* OWE MONEY! $350 all together! FUCK THAT! Qehn and I combined made under 40k and we only claimed 1 or 0 on our w-4's. No one who claims 1 pays fucking taxes, especially if they barely make any money. Last year I got all of it fucking back. I'm going to have to have a professional look at it, I guess.

Also speaking of offensive (click more for more)

Read More

Posted by Dreqan @ 08:54 PM PST Link | 5 People give a shit!