I am almost done with Chinese Class. Started in January 14 weeks. Feels like more.

The class in the beginner and intermediate Mandarin class at the Confucius Institute. I got the class and the book for under 150 dollars. Well worth the money.  I can not speak Mandarin. I was taught some basics. In the class I also learned a bunch of ways to study when I class is over.

An interesting part of the story is numbers of people. Day one of the class. There were like 10 people I would say. End of beginner class maybe three. Day one of intermediate class like 7 or 8, getting to the end 4(including me). Of other three students.  One of them their girl friend majored in Chinese, and is planning on moving there. One of the their wife lived in Taiwan, and could speak fluently. One his parents are Chinese, but did not teach him Mandarin. They taught him a different dialect, like Shanghainese or something. I feel like I did(am doing) well.

My plan when the class ends is to use Rosetta Stone for 2 hours a day on Tuesday and Thursday. Listen to language classes on my walk. I will also be using Memrise and ChineseSkill on my phone. Maybe in two years I will be able to speak. I was also told some of the trick when you are learning is you have to try and sing the language. Sounds like a brand new way to be annoying.

I had this strange blog post about the cupid undie run. I am not sure if I am going to post it.

Still learning Chinese. This is hard.

I am also now working on updating my RHCE. Found a good book online.

I have two more things that need to be sowed.

I got sick for like 2 weeks. Rare. I need to get back into working out and meditating.

Will completed.

Still need to learn:

Learn Compound Bow: http://www.lifetimearchery.com/lessons.html has a sunday class.

Make my own Runes: I have the wood and circular saw. When it gets warm.

Weigh less then 215

Plant 1 fig tree and 2 Persimmon trees: When it warm

Added to list:

Learn to navigate by stars. I have a buddy that may be able to help.

Start a fire with a bow fire thing: same buddy

I think I may start a monthly comedy improv group. Just to play the games not for doing shows.

I decided to add a doing my will and getting it all official and notarized to my resolution list. I got that done in multiple parts.

Part 1: Get will making software.

Part 2: Fill out oddly strange feeling will making software and print.

Part 3: Bring all this stuff to Credit Union. Cost (Free).

Part 4: Were to put this thing. So the people in the will, will know were it is when I die. Cause it will be very hard to tell them. I am guessing the filing cabinet. I will update if I decided to change this location.

Still working on Resolutions:

Learn Chinese: Went to my first Chinese class. I also got Rosetta stone, after one of my classmates stated they did it for 30 mins a day for 2 years. Had not done anything Chinese related in 10 months, could still speak pretty well.

I also started watching a kids language learning cartoon. It kind of boring if you just watch it. It you sing along like kids do when they watch shows. I think it may help, and its fun.

Learn Compound Bow: http://www.lifetimearchery.com/lessons.html has a sunday class.

Learn to Sow: I have fixed 2 things. Not well but fixed. I found a couple more things I will be trying with.

Meditate 3 times a week. Been doing this with a good pod cast.

Workout in morning 3 times a week: Also been pretty good about this.

Blog at least 1 time a month. Doing now.

Make my own Runes: I have the wood and circular saw. When it gets warm.

Weigh less then 215

Plant 1 fig tree and 2 Persimmon trees: When it warm

Build my buddy Dave’s RHCE study server. This is more for me as it will help me study for the recert.
I am not building my own little low power system for studying. I reset noip, and put a hole in the firewall.

Get Will Done

New Years Resolution lots of people do them, and its kind of stupid. I normally fail myself. I am going to try again. Its really just a good start time for things. Really I should do this at the start of each months. How am I doing in my resolutions. Yay! first resolution. I am also told that if you make it public, you have a better chance. Even though this is more of a private blog. Its kind of like a yell at my self. Maybe someday someone will read it and then read more to see how I did:

This is a little late coming as I spent the first week of the year in Westford.

Resolutions:

Learn Chinese: I have signed for a 18 week class that should start on Monday, Snow permitting.

Learn Compound Bow: http://www.lifetimearchery.com/lessons.html has a sunday class.

Learn to Sow: I have new sowing machine. I need to learn to use it.

Meditate 3 times a week

Workout in morning 3 times a week: Did it today. Even in the Snow.

Blog at least 1 time a month.

Make my own Runes: I have the wood and circular saw. When it gets warm.

Weigh less then 215

Plant 1 fig tree and 2 Persimmon trees: When it warm

Build my buddy Dave’s RHCE study server. This is more for me as it will help me study for the recert.

This is kind of a follow up on my girlfriends cat. I dont normally play games(well games that dont give me a reward). After Fang left I started playing all kinds of phone games, really any game. I really just wanted to play any game. Today it stopped.

I am trying to figure out why I wanted to play a game to begin with. I know I go through cycles. Today as it ended. I think I like to play games when something happens I can not control or fix. Games have rules. Life does not really have the set rules or limits. I also can not hit the reset button in a game. In life you really could just leave your house walk off, and change your entire world. Maybe good maybe bad but once you do this your stuck. I also started playing a phone game when my dad passed. I think it had dragons in it.

Life is way more interesting. Now I am searching there has got to be a fun way to learn languages. This may be my next post. I did Duolingo is was fun I may start that again.

My girlfriend’s cat was put to sleep Sept 9th. After doing this we went to a bar. There was a strange energy. It was the day after this guy named Jamie’s 44th birthday. He said no one had remembered his birthday. Not it 13 year old daughter, ex wife, or anyone at work or friends. He was out drinking on a Friday night to celebrate his birthday. Jamie bought be me a spicy bloody mary. He had been doing his job for a couple of years and he wanted to do something different. He had a friend from work he had known 10 years that was having his first kid, he had been married 1.5 years. Just seemed odd like the world was trying to tell me something.

That weekend we went to do the Virginia Creeper trail. Just been thinking about the cat(Fang). I guess my brain started to remember all the pets I cared about that died. Popcorn(also called stupie), Jac(also called squeaky), and Gertrude. I also thought a lot about my dad.

Just a rant on “radical self reliance”. I went to a burn and overheard some burners saying “That guy asked for water, like it was his first burn”. I thought wow you did not give him water. I then saw all these signs saying practice  “radical self reliance”. What does that mean:

Radical: very different from the usual or traditional : extreme

Self-Reliance:reliance on one’s own efforts and abilities

Humm… So I need water. I ran out of water. You have water. Radical Self-Reliance. I have a been training in Martial Arts a good deal of my life. You are on drugs. I ask for water, you do not assist. I need to drink water to live. You are sleeping in a tent in the woods. I am not your friend. You have multiple people in your tent, I know how to start a fire. I will practice radical self-reliance and stay alive. Your water will become my water. This is why I dont go to burns anymore. You want radical self-reliance that is what I just said it was.

I did not see it as a peaceful happy hippie place. What I saw was a bunch of hipsters getting together to show off. It appeared to be very clickly.

So burners remove that term “radical self-reliance”, or someone might take it seriously. The meaning could also be “I do what I want when I want”. Which goes down a really fun path with a bunch of drugged out hipsters. I am not your friend.

I was speaking to a buddy. I asked what he was up to. He told me the basics.

Then he said he liked doing this one thing so much he could barely sleep. He was so excited about this even in his life. He could not sleep. Then he would wake up at like 5am in the morning and spend the day doing this activity. I was happy for him, but then… Why the fuck dont I have have something that makes me that excited. Yes there are things I like to do. I am sometimes excited. I cant remember that last time I was so excited. I could not sleep cause I was getting to do something the next day. I have been stressed about a test, but I dont call that a happy excited.

I have been looking for an ebike I like for a couple of months. I took a ride a Trek E-Bike yesterday. Woot. This thing is nice. It is also 3k dollars. I am not going through the justification process to I can buy it for myself.

Part of this is justification is getting rid of something. I am going to get ride of my old 1985 Honda shadow. I will be getting a 500$ tax deduction(or more). I am a little sad to get rid of it even though I wont be fixing it. Just losing some of the memories.

Windows XP End of Life

It is a sad day. I have installed WinXP for what I think will be the last time. I did the registry hack so you could get 5 more years of support. The end result. Things just did not work correctly.

Why is it a sad day. I have installed WinXP(95/98 as well) for a lot of people. So it is saying goodbye to all these things. I had many a friend that would destroy there systems. I would then clean them up and fix them.

It was a good OS.  Well no it was a crappy OS. It was good compared to humm nothing really. I liked the Windows 95 and 98 better. Both were faster, and lighter. Its minimum CPU was a 386DX or higher processor and 4 MB of memory. So newer CPUs able to handle the OS part easier. Win 7 requires a minimum one 1ghz and 1 GB of memory. Somehow in my mind it should be doing the exact same thing as Win 95. You want additional hardware support sure, it should not be required. So a duel core 2.4ghz with 2 GB of memory. Will run slower then a single core 1ghz with 500 GB on Win 95(or even XP).

So now I look at the Windows 7 I am installing. Going really slow. It goes slow on an 8 core with 6 gb of memory. Could you imagine that system running Win 95. It would smoke. Yes I know Win 95 would not support it. It did not even have duel core support. If it did it would be fast. Really fast. Win 7 is slow. You can get a system that will run it fast. It is still slow, or maybe it just feels slow. I am sure if I spent the time. I could tweak it. I wont be the one using it. When I was done with most Win XP installs it felt faster for a little while.

I would install Linux on the system if I was going to use it. Since that I could get running at a decent speed. Yes the GUIs on that are getting heaver. There are light weight options being made. That you choose to install heaver crap. You are not forced to have it.

Oh well. First BLOG post done. Will keep trying to add more.