User Profile

First off, by demand (popular or unpopular), is a photo of myself, found here.

Also, I think this might be needed:
In case of disappearance:
1. Remain calm. Do not panic.
2. Look through my last few entries for information to my whereabouts. Keywords like "Thanksgiving break," "Christmas break," "spring break," and "summer break," will provide a definite clue.
2a. When I go home on breaks, I go home to dial-up which my parents limit. I don't usually update very often--if at all--during breaks.
3. Also look for mention of a purchase of a new computer game, or discussion of one I have recently taken up again. It is possible that I spend my evenings playing this game instead of blogging.
4. If those items fail, check for foreseeable technical problems, e.g. I mention I'm going to upgrade my operating system. (Fedora Core might be mentioned in this context.)
5. Check recent emotion/music data on my entries. If I use "busy," "working," "exhausted," etc. a lot, I may be under some stress from schoolwork.
6. If these things fail, nudge/poke/e-mail/IM/bother me.

Okay, rather than ramble about myself, since there's enough drivel in my blog as it is, I'm gonna try to answer a few questions here. Starting with

Abbreviations
CC—Christ College, the honors college at my university; I dropped out of CC in December 2005
CC 110, CC 115, CC 205—previous CC classes
CCFP—the CC freshman production, a play put on by all 80 of us in November 2004
CS—Computer Science, my major and favorite field of study
CS 157, CS 158—previous CS courses that taught me almost nothing
CS 257—mid-level CS course which was still rather boring
CS 365—a course teaching OpenGL using C, which made it doubly challenging
CyanChat—not an abbreviation per se, but I want to point out that this is never abbreviated as CC; CC always refers to Christ College
HD—hard drive (see "Technicalia" below)
ISO—not sure what it stands for, but they're usually 700 MB files that I burn onto CD-R's to get software like Linux
LotR—Lord of the Rings, both the books and the movies
MC—MystCommunity, a message board about the Myst series that I joined in February 2002 (link)
NJO—the Star Wars: New Jedi Order novel series
TO—The Outpost, a message board centered around the creative arts that I helped decorate (link)
SW—Star Wars, both the books and the movies
UU—Untìl Uru, the resurrected shadow of Uru Live
VUCA—Valparaiso University Center for the Arts, a building on campus; pronounced "VOO-kuh"

Dramatis Personae
Aliases
LinguistApprentice—me, the author/whiner of this blog; my full screenname
LingApp—also me; my abbreviated screenname
Linguist—also me; usually used in quotations to replace my real first name
Apprentice—also me; usually used in quotations to replace my real last name
Family
Mom—my (biological) mother
Dad—my (biological) father
Brother—my brother who is three years younger than me; some say we're close enough to be almost clones, except I have glasses and horrendous acne
Aunt—my father's older sister; lives in the same town as we do
Uncle—married to Aunt; see above
Friends
Larry—a fellow nerd/geek; great personality, sense of humor, and evil laugh (physics major)
Aaron—a fellow nerd/geek currently rooming with Larry; he's got a tricked-out CPU and a near-obsession with cesium (engineering?)
Andrew—another "dinner companion," if you will; Catholic, through which he met his girlfriend (meteorology major)
Jeremy—Andrew's roommate; awesome deadpan delivery, likes guns and hunting
KC—a girl I developed a crush on at one point; also the only girl I actually (almost) had the guts to approach; she turned me down (see memories, ca. fall 2005)
Other
roommate (2004-2005)—the guy I room with; he's about three feet taller than me and plays baseball
roommate (Fall 2005)—self-proclaimed jock, frat member; we don't talk much, and he's ethically better than my old roomie from what I've seen (does, however, chew tobacco and get underage-drunk at his fraternity on weekends)
roommate (two-day)—Had this guy for two days before he moved to a Compass Pointe apartment with friends. Didn't really get to know him.
roommate (Spring 2006)—nobody for a month, but now Wade after asking around desperately to find someone else besides that Ezra kid (who, I'd heard, smokes pot); luckily Wade and I get along okay
roommate (2006-2007)—see Larry
various professors—people who teach my classes

Environs
'Berg—see "Wehrenberg"
Gellersen—Gellersen Engineering and Mathematics Center; where all my CS courses are and stuff; also home to gemnet, a subnetwork of the campus network
Mueller—home to (or "lair of") Christ College (pronounced "MULL-er")
Union—also "student union;" houses Jester's, the main campus eatery
Wehrenberg—residence hall for 05-07; has too many locks, but AC in every room (also has a connected cafeteria)

Technicalia
Desktop (main system)
Dell Dimension E310
processor—2.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 (HT)
disk drive—80 GB; 51GB for Windows, 15GB for Linux, 4GB for Neverwinter Nights (under Linux), 1GB each for swap and a "laboratory" partition
RAM—512 MB
optical drive—CD-RW/DVD-ROM
screen—17-inch flatpanel, 1280x1024
graphics card—nVidia GeForce FX 5200, 128 MB (built by EVGA)
OS—Windows XP Professional SP2; Fedora Core 7 Linux; Linux From Scratch 6.1.1
Laptop (retired)
Dell Inspiron 4150 laptop
processor—2.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4 mobile
disk drive—30 GB; [too lazy to look up partitioning]
RAM—512 MB
optical drive—CD-RW/DVD-ROM
screen—1024x768 (standard screen; size unknown)
OS—Windows XP Professional SP2; Fedora Core 4 Linux
Neutral Items (usually attached to main system)
printer—Lexmark Z52, dual-cartridge color/black'n'white (no color cartridge); nicknamed "Z52 Bomber"
external hard drive—120 GB USB hard drive, Maxtor; nicknamed "Great Zero"
USB hub—nifty device that takes one USB port and gives four more (on laptop)
memory key (retired)—a 16 MB USB removable drive that Dad bundled in with my laptop when ordering the computer
memory key—a 256 MB USB removable drive currently in my pocket; got it for my birthday in 2005
memory key bandolier—Ha! I wish...
Software
Firefox—world's best browser, 'nuff said
Gaim—now Pidgin (see below)
GIMP, The—excellent free image editor
Java—a cross-platform programming language that I like to use; has GUI capabilities built in (link)
Internet Explorer—world's worst browser, 'nuff said (more like "Internet Deplorer")
Linux—my secondary-but-preferred operating system; a continual source of technical puzzles and tricks
Pidgin—all-in-one free instant-messaging client
Python—a programming language that I like to use; came with Linux (link)
Campus Utilities
emerald—one of two Sun Unix servers currently running in Gellersen
garnet—one of two Sun Unix servers currently running in Gellersen
orthoclase—used to be the connect-to server for Gellersen; now gone to the Big Network in the Sky

The above info last updated 24 June 2007

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