Laundry (yes, it's as thrilling as it sounds)

Today was another busy day. I filled the car with gas, dumped my mileage statistics to a spreadsheet, got my first electric bill (yay), and did laundry (for the first time, I might add). Okay, let's dig in.

Yes, you heard right, I did laundry for the first time ever. It wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped, but I learned a number of interesting things. First, I've got enough clothes to do two full loads simultaneously (one dark, and one light). Second, it takes me around 3 weeks to get to that point. Third, it takes 35 minutes to wash, 55 minutes to dry, and about a half-hour to put everything away, bringing us to a grand total of 2 hours laundry time every three weeks (not bad, eh?). This is assuming that no one else is using the laundry room, since I can run both loads at the same time otherwise.

In other news today, I received my first power bill from Pacific Power. The billing comes to $19.40 for about half a month of energy usage (17 days). In all, I used 181 kwh of energy (lighting, appliances, and laptop, I don't use heat). How does this compare to some of you out there? I don't really have a good point of comparison.

Also, I filled the car this afternoon, so I won't have to do it tomorrow on my way to church. As mentioned before, I tabulated all the mileage information into a spreadsheet (graphs below). To summarize, the mileage has been consistent over the years, and it looks like commuting up 99W twice a week will yield around 38 MPG. I've been averaging around 360 miles a week since I moved down here (though it will probably drop a bit over time), so you're looking at around $30/week for gas (assuming $3/gallon). I'd like to see that average drop a bit, but we'll see how things change over the summer.

On Kmart and Whiteboards...

Well, it's the end of a crazy finals week. This also marks the official start of my summer "vacation", though, what with work and all, I'll be plenty busy. One of my goals is to study statistics in preparation for a digital communication class next semester. The other is to do some hardcore programming, as I'm not getting any of that at work.

Today was an interesting day, all told. I found out some interesting facts. First, a 4'x6' whiteboard doesn't fit in a Toyota Corolla, as much as I'd like it too. Second, Kmart isn't a good place to find incidentals (in my case, fingernail clippers). Not to say that they don't stock those items, it's just kind of like finding a speck of pepper in a salt shaker (...in my defense, it was either that horrible analogy or the mother of all clichés... can you say needle and haystack?).

About the whiteboard. I know they all look alike, but apparently there are big differences. While browsing at Staples, I noticed that some whiteboards had a 10 year warranty and others had a 50 year warranty. It seems that the materials are the key. The lower-cost whiteboards use a substance called Melamine (a resin composed of cyanamide and formaldehyde). The higher-cost whiteboards use a porcelain ceramic-on-steel coating. The difference is that Melamine is somewhat porous, so ghosting (left-over ink stains) occurs easily. Porcelain is essentially glass, so is not pourous, and consequently doesn't suffer from ghosting. In fact, you can even use permanent marker on a ceramic-steel whiteboard, and it will just rub right off. Another interesting thing about ceramic-steel whiteboards is that they're usually magnetic, so they can do double-duty as a bulletin board.

Well, that's probably more info than you ever wanted to know, but I found it interesting.

About the hardcore programming. Over the next six months I'll be developing a RTS game for the Windows Phone 7 platform. Stay tuned.

Finals are over

Now that finals are over, I can start relaxing and writing more candidly (if you want to bail out, now's the time). Okay, warning over, let's dive into the report.

As you might have already guessed, I had my final today for MA528. The exam was two hours long and consisted of six questions. I'd repeat some of the questions here, but they consist of symbols that don't exist on a 101-key keyboard. Frankly, I'm a little frightened sitting here thinking back on the experience. My gut feel is that the exam went well, but then I've felt good about exams on which I scored a C+. Basically, I need a 90%+ score to end up with a B+, which is necessary to bring my GPA up to a 3.0, which is necessary to avoid retaking classes next semester, which is necessary to convince me that continuing in grad school is a good idea. Make sense? So, no pressure... I just probably won't sleep for the next week.

Returning home, I went over to Les Schwab to get new tires for the car. Hearing about the $500 price tag for new tires nearly gave me a heart attack, but I went ahead and got them. They've got a 70,000 mile warranty, so I shouldn't need replacements for awhile. The interesting thing was that I didn't pay a premium for these tires. Sure, they cost more, but relative to their warranty, they only cost about 1% more than the run-of-the-mill 40,000 mile tires. Now for a new paint job...

After tires, I went to Fred Meyer and stocked up for the next week. That 10-pound bag of potatoes is going to last awhile.

On a side note, I miss those little amenities of home that you never think about until you need them. Right now I could use a good pair of fingernail clippers, and, of course, I've forgotten to pick them up on 5/5 of my last grocery excursions. I think my odds of winning the lottery are better.

Update from The Front

I'll make this fairly brief, as I'm cramming for my MA528 final tomorrow.

As I mentioned in a prior note, at work I have access to a 5,000 megapixel printer. So, today at lunch I drove over to a city park, took a bunch of photos, and hightailed it back to HP for stitching. It took about an hour for Photoshop to merge all the photos into one colossal image file (1 GB to be exact). Thrilled, I loaded it onto my USB drive, and inserted it into the photo kiosk, only to see the following error: "Sorry, we don't allow pictures over 60 megapixels". Great, just great.

Let me get this straight. HP has assembled a truly impressive array of printing technology, capable of printing pictures at 5,000 megapixels, and they chose a 60 megapixel software limit? Understand this, I do not. It makes about as much sense as putting a 1,000 horsepower engine in a race car, then installing a 10 MPH speedometer. I may be a mere mortal test engineer, but I'm going to find out why this embarrassing limit was instituted, if it kills me.

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Since I spaced posting an update last night, I'll do my best to recap yesterday's activities. First, I woke up, then studied. At noon, I ate lunch, then studied. Late afternoon, I ate dinner, studied, then went to bed. There, now we're caught up-to-date. ;-)

Tonight I visited a new church, Westminster Presbyterian Church, about 2.5 miles north from my apartment. The pastor reminds me of Arnold Schwarzenegger, both in build and speech, but that was about the most alarming part of my visit. In fact, one could argue that the resemblance helps result in an authoritative delivery of the Scriptures. Of course, the content of the message was solid as well. The passage was from Luke 13:10-17, on the topic of legalism. My notes were as follows:

1. Jesus Christ's ministry on earth was to set free those held captive by Satan, effectively reversing their state of bondage.The year of Jubilee and the Sabbath were two institutions that symbolized this ministry of reversal (the year of Jubilee saw the return of goods to their original owners, the Sabbath saw rest from the typical pattern of work during the week).
   
2. Because of the above points, the four instances of Jesus performing miracles on the Sabbath serve as special pictures of His earthly ministry. This particular miracle involved releasing a woman bent over due to an unclean spirit.
   
3. In touching the woman, Jesus effectively claimed her from Satan's 18-year old grasp. The interesting thing is that this miracle, unlike most, was unsolicited, and the woman's faith was never mentioned. This shows an example of how God's mercy often extends to those who have not asked for it, and may in fact be hostile towards him. The "natural" blessings of rain, greenery, and sunshine are other examples of (ofttimes) unsolicited mercy.
   
4. The takeaway is that we as Christians should be just as free with our compassion towards those suffering from satanic oppression, whether solicited or not. Furthermore, if Jesus was so responsive towards one who didn't ask for His help, how much more responsive is He towards those who do?
   
5. Despite this miraculous healing, the ruler of the synagogue did not rejoice with the woman, instead pointing out that she should not have been healed on the Sabbath. In return, Jesus called him a hypocrite, pointing out that even animals are cared for during the sabbath.
   
6. The ruler of the synagogue was indeed a hypocrite. All he saw was a violation of rabbinical law. There were 49 actions explicitly forbidden (by the pharisees) to be performed on the Sabbath, healing was one of these. However, caring for animals was not explicitly forbidden in these laws (pointed out by Jesus). The result was a system of laws that valued animals higher than man (sound familiar?). These laws were effectively used by Satan to oppress people, and Jesus's ardent opposition to the religious establishment was meant to reverse this oppression.
   
7. The takeaway is that misdirected zeal (legalism) is one of the most destructive forces in the church. We need God to deliver us from our pet peeves that cause us to be hypocrites who aid Satan's cause.

The message was followed by a 15 minute question and answer time, in a teaching setting. The pastor taught from an ESV Bible, had a strong but easy-to-understand accent, and used an expository style of teaching. Hymns were sung exclusively, accompanied by an acoustical guitar (a piano was also on stage). The pastor mentioned during the Q/A time that he prefers this style of worship, though he admits he couldn't provide a theological argument against CCM styles. His wording was that he finds most CCM styles "hideous". The congregation is quite small. About 120 people worship on Sunday mornings, and around 80 worship Sunday evening. There is a considerable (for the size) college-age group, which isn't all that surprising, given theproximity to OSU. They have bi-weekly home groups and men's fellowship, all in Corvallis.

I think I'll try attending WPC on Sunday evening for a few weeks, just to see how things go. I'll try to broach the topic of infant baptism with the pastor, though after tonight's sermon on legalism, I'm somewhat reluctant to do so. The main Presbyterian argument in favor of infant baptism essentially equates circumcision with baptism. Their full argument is here.