News Bite

Small update here -- I will be tinkering with my website on and off a bit, so things may be moving around. In the workings are:

-- A more thoroughly cleaned-up version of Journey to Dunheasa and Telcontar Restored
-- A separate section for the Geeksters series
-- Hopefully also a cleaned-up version of "Whispers From Afar"
-- (VERY much in the semi-distance future) A sequel to Telcontar... Who knows what THAT will involved given my most recent misadventures =)

Ear Worms

So... I've been woken up by a random loud noise (fire truck? ambulance? some other noisy siren-ed vehicle?) and I can't quite go back to sleep. There's a song that's severely stuck in my head for whatever reason... or at least a piece of a song. The sucky part: it's in a language that I can fake some knowledge of! Even worse: It's the kind of song that usually makes me cringe but I seem to have become desensitized to recently. I'll let you try to guess what the language is.

Here's the part that's stuck in my little brain:

Oriude ai fi, eu te voi gasi
Oriunde tu ai fi, eu te voi iubi
Oriunde-n noapte sau zi te voi gasi
In sinea mea cand voi iubi
Dulcea mea, amara mea...te voi gasi

Te voi iubi in noapte, sub cerul plin de stele
Ca-n visuile mele, cand te voi gasi
Te voi strange-n brate, ca-n ultima noapte
Mereu voi fi aproape, cand te voi...gasi...

Telcontar Restored Revision

I've just posted the second draft of Telcontar Restored. Read and enjoy!

November Update

It's been a while since I've last posted -- life has been pretty exciting ever since I started training heavily in compound bow and trying to get all my term projects nailed down. My most recent archery accomplishment was on Tuesday morning where I nailed all 4 arrows in the X-ring (arrow only needs to be tangent to the line) from 15 yards. I never got a perfect 20 with 4 X's -- I've had 20s with 1-2 X's, but never 4! I was extremely excited, especially considering I was having some trouble calibrating my sight earlier and my arrows are both over-weight and over-spined for me! The only complaint was that I was all by myself when it happened, but heck, at least I had my camera with me! I can only imagine what I can do with my Equalizer once I hit about 47-50 lbs draw weight, get properly spined arrows for it, and keep practicing... ;)

Besides shooting, I've been sneaking in some time writing. Telcontar is still being cleaned up after my initial posting but once I get to a new stopping point, I'll post an updated version. The third part is also in progress. I have no title as of yet, but let's just say it may be a very long time before Part 3 shows up because I've got so much on my plate with my research, proposals, and trying to survive classes along with my need to be outdoors.

Geeks at Last!

So I was hanging around with my traditional archery group and as it grew darker, one of my fellow archers reached into the back of his truck and pulled out a 6 D battery MagLite. He proudly declared "And this is my +10 wand of arrow finding." Next thing I knew, another fellow archer and I joined in about our Dungeons and Dragons adventures. Score! I finally found people who appreciate and still play Dungeons and Dragons! I also found out some other really cool stuff about my traditional shooting group:

-- Our fearless leader may be on the verge of discovering a new sea-lion virus. She was quite excited yesterday as she talked about the gels and other biochemical stuff that people do to identify viruses and their proteins. I'm definitely in good company!
-- Another archer showed quite a bit of enthusiasm about doing research on vertebrates with a focus on large mammals.
-- At least 1-2 other people in the gang work as biochemistry technicians of some sort.
-- Lots of references to Monty Python and Tolkien in the group.

I'm even more pumped up about this group than before now that I know that not only do we love traditional archery and nature, but also we're a really geeky bunch! I don't think I've seen a group of people this geeky since Caltech! People at school wonder why I'd rather hang out with archers of any sort, both traditional and compound. They're a whole lot more colorful and fun than the people who'd rather be drinking at a bar or sitting at some over-intellectual film without any combat scenes or the strange critters who think life revolves around TV!

As for the pictures, the arrows were shot from 30 yards on the Equalizer and the outlier was the result of me punching the trigger when I felt a mosquito trying to dig a well on the one spot I missed with the insect repellent. All in all, I scored 239/280 while shooting from the Hunter posts and 220/280 on the Field posts this morning. I think I did fairly well -- now that I've established a baseline, I'd like to see if I can break 250/280 consistently in those before the end of the semester =)