62.5%

Final exams were Wednesday and Thursday. They were supposed to occur just before winter break, but the end of the semester got pushed back two weeks because we lost two weeks to Hurricane Wilma. And also, since we’re making up days like crazy, one of the exam days had to be a full day instead of the usual half day. So on Wednesday, instead of having 1st and 2nd block exams and then going home, we had the 1st block exam, regular 2nd block, regular 3rd block, and the 4th block exam. (If they had two exams in the morning and regular classes in the afternoon, people would leave early.) Anyway, here’s the obligatory and ubiquitous review of the exams I took, for anyone who cares.

• Spanish (1st block): A multiple choice test, with some writing at the end. Pretty easy.
  As a side note, my 10th and final year of Spanish has finally ended. (In memoriam of my knowledge of Spanish, 1996-2006.)
• English (4th block): Writing an SAT-style essay, writing an essay about a dynamic character from something we’ve read, and a crossword puzzle featuring many of our 100 vocabulary words. The crossword puzzle was easy.
• AP Euro (2nd block): Not actually a final exam — the class runs for the whole year — and not cumulative either. It was pretty much a short (50 multiple choice questions) test on the chapters we’ve done in the past week. Some questions were kind of tricky, but #50 was a freebie.
• Chemistry (3rd block): More multiple choice fun, along with some math. No writing, actually. It was pretty easy, but that’s because I studied the stuff I forgot.

So, it’s been four whole semesters since I noted that I had spent 12.5% (1 semester) of my high-school schooling. Hard to believe, but it’s true. The next semester awaits, but first we have a looong weekend. There was no school today (as usual), Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and Tuesday is a planning day for the teachers (because even when you change teacher planning days to school days to make up for hurricane days, you still need to have planning days).

Anyway, I must answer Ask Jordon.

Peter: How did you get the code for http://www.theworldofstuff.com/blah? Is it a PHP version of Wpoison?

Nope, but it’s obviously pretty similar. It’s a PHP script called honeypot.

Peter: Do you know anything I can use to track what sites visitors come from to get to a site?

If you can have a look at your access logs, that would be the best thing. You could then download a tool to analyze them and spit out pretty graphs. I tried that, but the logs quickly grew too huge to be kept on the server. I’d recommend Extreme Tracking, which I’ve used since the beginning.

Here’s how The Beatles Changed Everything. It’s true. I can even think of more things that they didn’t mention.

How about some 360-degree aerial panoramas?

One year ago: “Besides Brussels sprouts, I genuinely cannot think of something I hate and would try to avoid more than writing an essay or a paper.”
Two years ago: “In other news, today’s my half-birthday. That’s right, I’m 14½ today.”

Freedom

There’s something I need to say. It’s something I’ve been hiding to many people for fear of rejection. But I can’t keep it in any longer, because doing so would hurt others and myself. So here it is: I am a nonreligious atheist. The nonreligious part means that I don’t subscribe to any religious or supernatural belief. The atheist part means that I believe that gods don’t exist.

Why would I come to this decision? I have many reasons, but the main one is this: Many religions have existed to explain the unknown. Most are incompatible with each other, and all are unprovable. It makes sense to conclude that science, an alternate answer to “Why?” that, by definition, can be proved, is right. I’d rather find a meaning to life on earth using logic, critical thinking, rationality, and knowledge, than have people hand me a mythological answer, written by guys in tents in a desert thousands of years ago, that no longer holds itself up.

This is obviously a far cry from my Roman Catholic upbringing, but it didn’t happen overnight. After I left a Catholic school and started high school, I gained a few more freedoms. I immediately realized that at a public school, I had the legal right not to say the Pledge of Allegiance, which acknowledges that the United States is a “nation under God.” I felt that people who didn’t believe in God shouldn’t have to acknowledge his existence, so I myself didn’t say the Pledge.

Over a year ago, in Programming I, my friends and I would discuss such weighty issues as the existence of God. Justin and David would say he existed. Gilbert and Brian would say he didn’t. Believing that both views had merit, I would defend the side that was losing. Although I had no qualms about praying or going to church, the dominoes of my faith were set up to fall.

Last year on Palm Sunday (March 20) I was asked to do a reading or something at the mass. When I was done and I had gotten back to my seat, someone — it doesn’t matter who — said to me, “You forgot to reverence the altar.” I thought to myself, “Why would I do that?” It started the chain reaction: it got me thinking about the seemingly strange things that religious people do. After a lot of consideration, I had serious doubts about the rationality of religion in general.

Then, at the youth group mass on April 24, a guest priest was going on about how great Catholics were, in his opinion. “We Catholics are the best,” he kept saying. His main bit of evidence, I think, was that Catholic relief organizations get to disasters before any others. Not only did I doubt that, but I noted his haughtiness. That experience knocked down the last domino. From that moment I decided that I could not believe in any religion.

After that I hid my decision from almost everyone. But I became increasingly agitated and I didn’t like going to church anymore. I couldn’t get anything out of it, and I could no longer live a lie. So the truth has now been told. In fact, I told my parents last night. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. As I was uttering the words, I actually felt like I was trapped in a nightmare. They took it calmly, but I think they were distressed, and rightly so. They say it’s just a phase, but it’s been a number of months already. Anyway, it’s better than being kicked out of the house.

Let me make some more things clear. I am not going to be evil; I’m still going to apply the morals I’ve learned in life because I know that what is harmful to society is bad, and what is not is okay. I have no ill will against any individuals in my former religious sphere, namely my former schoolmates, members of my family’s church, or friends from the youth group. I respect people who adhere to religious beliefs; I just don’t think highly of the beliefs to which they cling. I agree to disagree. If more religious people come to understand more nonreligious people, then atheists may finally get a break from being the most openly hated group in America, and that can only be a good thing.

People who will talk about this might say, “Jordon has quite literally lost his religion.” But now, having liberated my mind from the confines of a religion, I am free. So I’d prefer to say that I’ve gained the freedom to think. I can wonder about things. I can accept new ideas. And hopefully, this fresh degree of open-mindedness will make me a better person. If we’re going to make the world a better place, then it’s living on earth, not an afterlife, that we have to be concerned about. Let’s have fun, be good to each other, and live like this is all we’ve got.

Welcome to Miami

On Friday, Kevin presented the idea of taking my sister and me on a day out in distant Miami. We were to check out the downtown area and perhaps Metrozoo. We would rely solely on public transportation to get us there and back. And, of course, Kevin would be accompanied by responsible adults, viz. his aunt and his grandmother.

On Saturday, Kevin’s plans for the rest of the weekend opened up, so we planned for Sunday. Our party ended up consisting of Kevin, Kevin’s aunt, me, my sister, Lisa, Kevin’s sister Brittany (sp?), and Brittany’s friend Lauren. On Sunday morning at 9:30, we caught the Tri-Rail, the tri-county commuter rail line. For part of the trip we had to get off and take a bus because they were working on the tracks. Finally our train made it to the Metro-Rail, Miami-Dade County’s elevated rail system. Luckily, it’s free if you have a Tri-Rail ticket. After going south a bit more, Miami came into view and we stopped downtown. We then proceeded to yet another transit system, the Metromover, a free, automated monorail-type thing that goes around the downtown-type area. That took us to the Bayfront area, where we finally got off.

I thought it might be cold, but I didn’t bring a sweater on the chance that it would be warm and I would be stuck carrying around a sweater. As it turned out, it was fairly warm, with a cool breeze that got warmer throughout the day. It was already approaching lunchtime, so we had lunch at Bayfront Park. They had a mall-type place there, with a food court and everything. After that, we strolled among the buildings, basically checking out shops and things like that (well, dollar stores, really). There was this one department store called La Época that we spent slightly more than a few minutes in, though.

By this time we had figured that we wouldn’t go to the zoo because it was way too far out west, and it would take most of the day to get through. So, having seen much of the heart of Miami, the more shopping-oriented people in the group wanted to take the Metrorail all the way down to the Dadeland Mall, so we did. We went to a Target there and then decided that that was enough because Kevin and I really weren’t enjoying something that we could always do back home and even then sometimes got bored with anyway. (But Kevin did like how the signs in the store were in both English and Spanish, being a Spanish speaker himself.)

So after that, we went back up to downtown Miami. I suggested that we go to Southwest Eighth Street, better known as the semi-famous Calle Ocho. The main reason, though, was that I love roads almost as much as Kevin loves cities, and I wanted to take pictures of the ends of US 41 and US 441, which both end at that street. (441 and 41 and intersect with Calle Ocho together. At that point, 41 turns east along Calle Ocho, while 441 ends at the intersection. 41 continues for a few miles until it reaches US 1.) Our party walked quite a few blocks “so Jordon could get his sign picture” (namely, the end of 441). Then we wanted to go back east toward the nearest Metromover station, but we were too tired, so we took a bus. Somehow they let us all get on for free, I guess because we were confused and annoying tourists. As we got back to the rail station, I noticed that the end of US 41 was in sight, so I went ahead and snapped it as well.

So, we got to the nearest Metromover station, but it wasn’t living up to its name. Specifically, the doors were open for people to go in/out, but it was stuck. Someone found out it would be an hour to get all the Metromover trains running again. So we went back to the Metrorail station a block away and had to wait a while for the next train. We could see by that time that the Metromover was working again, but we stuck to the Metrorail. It was kind of an interesting station. Brickell Station, it was. When trains stopped there, they played the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth over the speakers. On the street below was a garden dedicated to Ludwig van Beethoven. And across the street, perpendicular to the station and one block south of Calle Ocho, was a street named Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Street.

Anyway, we took the train downtown, mainly because my sister, the Starbucks fiend, had seen a small Starbucks that she wanted to go to. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try it out also. I had a mocha Frappuccino and a mint brownie bar or something. It was actually pretty good. I had previously had a negative experience at Starbucks when I had ordered a coffee that tasted like coffee. My sister advised me to have something different, like the mocha Frappuccinos she guzzles down at home, so I did. After that we sort of wandered by some condos and saw where the river enters the city. By then it was getting to be sundown.

We had a little more time to spend in the city before we had to make the 7:30 Tri-Rail northbound. Brittany said she was hungry and wanted to go to a Burger King toward the end of Calle Ocho. So we went there. Even though I heart Burger King, I wasn’t hungry in the least, thanks to Starbucks. So we stayed there for a little while and took the Metrorail back to the Tri-Rail/Metrorail station, where we were 20 minutes early. On the Tri-Rail, we didn’t have to take a bus for some reason. When we finally got off near home, we got off from the third floor of the car as fast as we could, but it wasn’t enough, and the door closed on Lauren’s arm. The train even started moving, and this guy was trying to open the doors. But then the train stopped, and Lauren could get out. And that was pretty much it.

From the Tri-Rail station to downtown Miami and back, we managed to use public transportation exclusively. Since we took advantage of the Metrorail (free with a Tri-Rail ticket), the Metromover (always free), and the Metrobus (free if you act like you don’t know what you’re doing), how much did it cost for a round trip all the way to Miami? Thanks to discounts and the fact that it was Sunday, the Tri-Rail round trip ticket cost only $2.

This next link may disturb some people, so if you’re really sickened by the sight of violence and guts, move on. It’s the Zapruder film of the John F. Kennedy assassination, but it’s been stabilized to remove the shakiness of the camera. Have a look (Quicktime, at least 1024×768).

Swanksigns is a site that makes fun of weird signs.

Pain of the day

Last night, Kevin took my sister and me to Pain du Jour, a French bakery/restaurant. We were the only people there (besides the one lady behind the counter) for a while while we ate. Kevin and my sister had paninis, and I had a ham and Swiss cheese crepe and a croissant.

After that we went to downtown Ft. Lauderdale to check things out. Kevin hearts tall buildings, transportation, airports, and anything else related to cities. It was kind of a bad night to take a stroll because it was really cold, but that was okay. We went around to check out the Main Library (which, to our chagrin, was closed for the night) and Las Olas Boulevard. Las Olas isn’t as glamorous or long as it’s made out to be. Well, the glamorous part isn’t very long. We also went to Huizenga Plaza, which has a bandstand, some grass, and a fountain that you can control. I don’t go down to Ft. Lauderdale much, so it was interesting to step into Scotto‘s old haunts. I kept saying “Scotto saw a movie here” or “Scotto took a picture over there” or “Scotto likes to abbreviate the name of this museum” to the point that Kevin and my sister got annoyed.

After that, we went to a Dunkin’ Donuts so Kevin could have a fruit smoothie and my sister could have hot chocolate.

I think everybody has an idea for a movie inside of them. I have an idea of how mine will be. Well, I have the ending, anyway. It’s all stage directions, no dialogue.

That gives me an interesting idea. Have three people write a beginning, middle, and end of a story. Then get someone to link the beginning to the middle, and someone else to link the middle in the end. Finally, have another person look at the whole thing and edit it for continuity. That, I think, would be pretty cool.

Lost something? Found something? Get it listed on the Internet Lost and Found.

It’s not often that an article relating to currency collecting makes the news, but there’s a story right now about a $20 bill that somehow got a fruit sticker stuck on it between the second and third prints. (The back of a bill is printed first, followed by the front, and then the serial numbers and Treasury seal on the front.) It’s expected to sell for thousands of dollars.

One year ago: “Wait, this is Health class. Piece of celery. Eww.”
Two years ago: “In desperate need of a pointless yet entertaining game?”

Pensando en el futuro (Pensanta pri la estonteco)

A few days ago I was thinking about what career I want to go into. Well, the notion of being an English teacher sort of hit me. A teacher? Me? I didn’t know why I felt I should be a teacher. They’re underpaid, overworked, underappreciated, and also underpaid. I would have to take lots of English classes (reading boring books) and lots of teaching classes (learning how to teach). I don’t particularly like teaching things to people anyway. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head, though.

Finally, I realized what it was all about. I wanted to be a teacher because then I would never have to leave school and join the “real world.” I could stay behind, in my own little world, forever. If you ask me, that’s the sign of a wimpy subconscious screaming for help. So I basically need to face my fear of getting a real job, or else I’m going to be lounging around the house (or apartment) grading papers when I’m forty and going to bed at eight o’clock. Did I mention I wouldn’t have a lot of money? I have to think of some good options.

In the tiny world of good things, it turns out that the No S Diet has continued to take some weight off me somewhere. In fact, I lost another 7 lbs. last month, for a total of 16 lbs. in 2 months. I wonder when I’ll have no more weight to lose? Hopefully it will be whenever I’ve made the diet’s points of eating fewer and healthier foods into a habit.

One thing I specifically requested as a Christmas gift was a calendar. In years past I had gotten Beatles calendars, along with Beatles T-shirts and Beatles everything. On Christmas 2004 I got a scroll-type calendar from a Chinese restaurant, showing all the days of the year and everything. I didn’t get a monthly calendar where you can fill things in for the days, so my dad got a NASCAR one for me from his work. It wasn’t till the end of November that I realized that all the pictures were of the same guy.

For 2006 calendars I’ve managed to pull in a better haul. I got another Chinese calendar (from the same restaurant) and a calendar of concept cars, which are at least interesting and cool to look at. If I felt like buying my own, I would probably go for something else, but the ones I have now will do just fine. Does anybody have a new calendar that’s interesting?

Have you ever caught yourself saying, “You know the movie I’m talking about, right? The one with the guy… with the hair?” Maybe What Was That Movie can help.

MemoryWiki is a wiki of people’s memories. For example, you can read about what it was like for other people to run away from home, witness the University of Texas Tower Shooting, or play basketball with Barack Obama.

Look at that wall

A lot of changes went into effect yesterday, namely: it’s a new year, this computer is in a different corner of the room, one of the walls of the room is now red (my parents can’t stop passing by and saying “Look at that wall”), TWoS has a new design, and I got WordPress 2.0 (the admin side of which looks snazzier than ever). Just a couple days ago it was 2005, and I was sitting at this computer, in this white room, facing the old wall I had been facing for eight years, and updating this old-looking but familiar site with an old-looking but familiar version of WordPress.

Ah well.

Reaction to the new TWoS 3.0 layout seems to be more toward the positive side, which is good. Bearing in mind some of the feedback I’ve gotten and some observations I’ve made, I’m going to record a general overview (for the me of the future and the you of today) on what to expect in TWoS 4.0: it’ll have the fun feel of TWoS 2.0 and the navigation design of TWoS 3.0 combined with the web standards adherence and universal accessibility of TWoS 5.0. (The mobile Internet is starting to proliferate, and I don’t want to get left behind.)

Today was the first day back from school after winter break. On December 23, I had gotten a $3 haircut at some cheesy Supercuts ripoff place called Great Clips. Anyway, reaction to the new haircut seems to be more toward the positive side, which is good. I got many comments on it, which must mean that everyone secretly hates my hair when it’s longer. That’s kind of a shame, because it means I could have been better-looking all this time if I had gotten my hair cut more often.

Some guy has set up a blog to chronicle his adventures in customizing his Squier Stagemaster, a rather cheap electric guitar. The Stagemaster Project should be worth reading over the following weeks or months as he tricks it out more and more.

Here’s a really good blonde joke.

New year, new layout, same great taste

I spent New Year’s Eve with my sister and Kevin at Lisa’s house. Her dad treated us to a meal of steak and some Philippine cuisine that was really good. Because it was an S day, I devoured my meal like a fiend. I ate an entire huge slab of steak, and a lot of some noodle-type thing, and a ton of egg-roll-type things. Later we sang karaoke and played Monopoly (like after the hurricane).

Then Lisa’s friend Katie came over. I knew that I knew her somehow, but I didn’t know from where. Actually, I had met her when Lisa took us out to The Cheesecake Factory a few months ago. During the last hour or so, Kevin mashed play on his iPod and hooked it up to the TV so the world could hear. Later we tuned to ABC to watch the ball drop in Times Square.

And so it became 2006. We went out by the pool to watch fireworks. It kind of made me sad. To me, counting down to the New Year is really romantic. I don’t know how that idea got into my head. You are supposed to kiss someone, though. Oh well. Maybe next year I’ll have someone to kiss.

After we wound things down, Kevin drove us home. I got to sleep at 1:00. I was still full from dinner.

And this morning, I’m sitting at my computer, which has been moved to the opposite wall of the room. Last night my parents finally had the computer desk and their new oversized chair trade places. They thought that the computer desk looked too ugly, so now you can’t see it when you walk into the house. (Well, it’s better than asking me to tidy it up.) Their intention is to paint the old computer wall (the new chair wall) a certain shade of red. I kind of like the computer being over here, except that the box is on the desk instead of the floor, and so the monitor’s moved to the side. I now have to turn my head to look at the screen. I mentioned it to my dad, but it’s not a priority to him. He wants to paint the other wall first.

As you see here, I’ve put up the new layout. This time I haven’t really done any other changes (to the content of the pages, I mean), but I’ve roughly categorized my non-blog pages, as you see. This design is a good change from the old green and blue I’ve always had. Instead of a random slogan, you get treated to a photo I’ve taken. I’ll change it every once in a while to keep things interesting. It may also reflect holidays and things like that. I hope you enjoy it.

Some people have been asking me what my New Year’s resolution is. I don’t really have one, but I guess it could be to continue with the No S Diet and to make it a subconscious habit. As for some of the stronger-willed and more determined, I’ve got a site for you: PledgeBank. Pledge to do something important (quit smoking, donate books to a library, give money to a charity, etc.), but only if a certain number of people agree to do the same by a specified time. The site is also available in Welsh, Spanish, Esperanto, Russian, and Ukrainian.

Happy New Year, everybody. May your 2006 be filled with fun, joy and love. And try not to think about the fact that school reopens tomorrow.

One year ago: “They probably picked New Year’s Day to get married so the guy would never forget their anniversary.”
Two years ago: “These immortal words were sung across the land as we all changed the channel to ABC for ten minutes to help Dick Clark celebrate his 200th New Year’s Eve.”