In other news, I ship out on the 18th for football… Life is about to get real interesting. Hopefully I can keep up with everything that is going on, both online and offline.

I never really thought my graduation would be something emotional or heart wrenching, but I was wrong… at least slightly. While I couldn’t let myself shed a tear, I did feel a pang during the “Class Reflections” in which a kid I’ve known since kindergarten, another from 3rd grade, and the last from 5th, got up in the gym (silly rain forced us inside) and recalled some interesting and exciting  memories from over the years. The sole reason I didn’t let a tear go is because I had to give a speech right after them; having the MVP of the football team cry while talking about the class gift to the school would be quite a sight.

Now guess what I did right after graduation? I definitely didn’t stick around for the reception. And I didn’t go to any graduation parties. I went home, changed, and then left for Omaha Burke to compete in the State Track Meet. I didn’t do so well… I finished 22nd of 25. In the long run, that was an improvement, given the fact I came in rated at 25th of 25. However, it also came on my second worst day of the season. My best  of the year would have pushed me to 16th, and a school record would be 13th. Overall, I’m just glad I got to compete in the event. It’s truly spectacular and I can see how people really enjoy it.

After all this, it finally dawned on me that I graduated and I’m in the summer now. I finally have time to myself and can progress with getting things done. I’ve begun to compile a to-do list, hoping I might accomplish something. So far it’s not too ridiculous, given til August 19th. If I can get it all done, I’ll call it a good summer, especially if I do end up getting a job.

Well, that’s all for today. I just wanted to keep you guys updated a bit… you know, try and use my blog.

To begin things, my senior year is finally winding down. My last day of school is this Friday (the 15th). It’s also a half day because of Prom. Track season is winding down with Districts on the 14th. If I have a good day, I may make state in both discus and shotput. It’ll be a great experience, but a little hectic… state track takes place over two days (22nd and 23rd). Among those days, I have Honors Day (where they recognize honors for the whole school) on the 22nd and Graduation on the 23rd.

In other news, I have officially matriculated to MIT. I had been fairly certain I would for quite a while, but after I visited MIT during Campus Preview Weekend (CPW… the C might have been College, can’t remember), I had decided that it was the right fit for me. I loved the campus, the atmosphere, and, of course,  my fellow pre-frosh. I’m definitely looking forward to that this fall. I’ll be heading out a bit before most of the other freshmen so I can play football. I’m contemplating doing track there as well. I figure I can give it a try my freshman year when everything is either Pass-No Record or A,B,C-No Record as far as grades go. We’ll see how that goes when I get there though. I might not be good enough or I might be amazing. You never know.

Anyways, that’s just kinda a brief update on my life. I’ll hopefully start blogging more soon… hopefully. >.< I do hope to write briefly about my experience with the Omaha World Herald’s All-Academic Program. That was an interesting experience that I’d like to share.

Anyways, only one small update from my life to mention: I got in early to MIT. I found out about nearly two weeks ago and just now got around to blogging about it… figures, doesn’t it? But yeah, I was really excited to say the least. Definitely did not do much sleeping that week, despite the fact we had finals. Oh well, who cares about sleep anyway?

And to finish up… merry Christmas to those who celebrate it! And happy holidays to those who don’t! Let’s hope for a fun and interesting New Year celebration while we’re at it.

Go! Download now! (Well, once the 25 minutes have passed…)

Anyways, on my way home, it was snowing. I passed 3 cars that had ran off the road and got stuck in ditches. 3 cars in ditches in a stretch of 60 blocks (about 5 miles) is rather insane for such a light snow too. Though, the roads were rather slick.

The first one was half-way out of the ditch and was done by the time I could have stopped, otherwise I’d have stopped, but the other two I stopped to help. I’ll say one thing: fresh snow sucks to get a grip in. I swear I’m going to bring along my football cleats next time so I can grip the ground. The first one was just an unlucky teen (well, 19 or so.) Took four guys, but we got the car pushed out of the ditch almost right away.

However, the second was much more interesting. This girl, about 16 or 17, had no clue what in the heck to do. Me and one of the guys from the earlier incident stopped to help out. She was so confused about what to do. She had already called her parents, which is normal, however, she asked if she was supposed to call the police. I don’t even think the police could handle that many calls if you were supposed to call. Anyways she wanted to wait until her parents got their to move the truck. So, I stuck around in my car just to help out. About 25 minutes later, her parents finally arrived… the same time a guy pulled up in a Dodge Ram Heavy Duty (a pickup truck). So, needless to say, I didn’t have to help push the car out. It got pulled out no problem by the Dodge.

So yeah, snow sucks. Learn to drive in it first before going out. Oh, and snow’s got nothing on two-wheel drive! (’cause my four-wheel drive is broken…)

So, what’s been going on these past 6 months? School, school, school, and football. That pretty much sums it up. Between getting up for school at 6:30 in the morning, then not getting home until 7 to 7:30 afterwards, I was completely beat this year. Not to mention I had maxed out the amount of classes I’m taking. That never helps. But it all paid off. I earned second team all-district defense recognition and honorable mention all-Omaha (city I live in) defense. So, working that much paid off.

As far as my “internet life” goes, I’ve decided to get a little project up and finally going. Clear Sight RPG is finally back in the works. For those interested, more info can be found here on it. I hope to get it released or at least in beta by the end of winter/Christmas break… will I be able to? Hell if I know. But I truly hope so.

Another project I’ve been working on is a complete recode of SZ’s coding, for all three skins. So far, I’ve got v0 and v1 done, and am in the works with v2. I’ve cut out more then 12kb of total file size for v0 and v1. My next step is to try a suggestion of Dreggie’s that would result in loading all the scripting before loading any of the board by placing the codes to load in the global header. I figure it’s worth a try since it appears to work at another site he tried it at. Another thing I’m going to do is set a no-expire header so that users don’t have to re-download the coding all the time. (I may also do a 14 day or so one for images.) This would increase loading time again, and the coding can be told to redownload by appending a different number to the end of the string. Possibly the file version or something.

Well, that’s all for this entry. Hopefully I’ll keep using my blog and get you guys another entry out sometime in the near future. Oh, and new poll for you guys. =P

Today I decided I should add a few plugins to my blog since they’re handy. The first plugins I added was a stats tracker plugin. Why not? I then went to add a polls plugin. Figured it couldn’t hurt. I need to integrate it into the template soon… but that’s an easy task. Next was a post ratings mod, which looks nice and works fine from what I can see. I think I’ll keep it, even if it doesn’t get much use. =P The last two plugins were a plugin that added a link to the “Print” page in case you wanted to print something for some god forsaken reason and a plugin that displays relative dates. They’re nothing too special, but I like ‘em. =P

Next up, gonna mention my (oh so boring) finals. Two of my finals are already over, one being what is considered the hardest final you can ever take at my school. Glad it’s done, because I’m almost positive I failed… but I needed a 43% to keep an A in that class (Chemistry), so yay. Next final was my Spanish final, for which I didn’t study at all. There’s typically a large curve (well, there is on the Chemistry final too,) and I didn’t do too poorly, so I should be fine. Tomorrow’s the AP European History final (James, I’ll be IMing you shortly… =P) and the Analysis/Pre-calc final. I have an easy final for Analysis because everyone else in the class, ‘cept Molly and I, can test out of it. Quite disappointing really, but it’s easy none the less. Wednesday’s English, which I need a 39% or so on. The lowest you can get is 63% (literally). So, I think I’m safe.

That’s it for now. I’m just looking forward to the summer and finishing SZv3 and a few other projects like CSRPG. Wait, what? I didn’t say anything.

I received five awards between these two events. At the Activities Banquet I earned my varsity letter in football and my varsity letter in track. I also was recognized as “Lifter of the Year”/”Most Outstanding Lifter” for weight lifting. Then, today at Honors’ Day I was one of two kids in my grade to earn “Headmaster’s List Summa Cum Laude” which is awards to students who have all A’s in every quarter. I also was accepted into the NHS today. That made my day.

Anyways, just a simple update I guess. I plan to start posting things relating to coding soon. We’ll see.