Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel I - Stealing from Ben's Pictures                         (Thanks Ben)
Here's some random stuff I stole from avid (and good) photographer/Hillcrustacean Ben. This is Conway's "Tall Bike." That's not to be confused with his short bike, his off-road bike, or his "that one with the trailer" bike. He fabricated them himself out of older, less eccentric bicycles.
	You may have heard references made to D2sday on this website. Well, this is possibly the only picture in existence of the largest D2sday event... 22 Hillcrustaceans strong. It all started when the ECE/CS crowd and the everybody else crowd happened to be leaving for D2 (on Tuesday) at the same time. So we all decided to sit together. And this was the result: 6 straight tables of nonstop excitement... Honors Community-style.
Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel II - What's Left on Memory Cards
What would you do after finishing a grueling 3 hour exam? Fall asleep on somebody else's futon, of course. FUN FACT: none of the people in this picture live in this room.
	What would you do instead of studying for your exam? Why, draw on the afformentioned person's face with a dry erase marker, of course. And Jeremy's going to be an RA next year. For shame. And Greg... well, I suppose he'll be the same shoeless Steelers fan he was last year.
Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel III - Exam Breaks
Both as a tribute to the excitement (or lack thereof) in this semester's exam breaks and as a sign of how much I didn't feel like walking upstairs to get my camera, I only took pictures of one exam break. Tough noogies.
	Look closely at this cake: see how it says "RU '06" on it? Well, the RAs got this cake on sale... some Radford graduates forgot to pick it up on time.
Wait... wasn't this supposed to be an Exam Break, not an Exam Stop-Studying-Entirely. Oh well. Talking is good, I suppose.
	[The obligatory semi-candid picture with Peter in it.] Ohh, Sanda graduated! How sad. But Kevin (and Brad... and the out of frame Jeremy) will still be here next semester, ready to make me realize just how little math I know.
And Rick is (finally) moving out of the building! MacGyverthons just won't be the same anymore. Oh well. Here, he and his best man (for real - Rick is getting married in January) Brad play some mean spades.
	I was doing some last-minute filming for Techaanisqatsi and managed to catch this fairly cool (I think, anyway) time-lapse exposure of West Campus Drive.
Two Weeks' Notice
I decided to take advantage of my week and a half long break before I had to start work again to visit a few cool spots around Richmond. Here, I'm in the heart of downtown, on the southern side of Belle Island. Up until the 60s, there was a hydroelectric power plant complete with some short dams to power streetcars in Southside. On this side of the island, the dams are still holding and allow all of these giant rocks to be exposed, allowing you to "rock hop" all of the way across to the island. See a picture here. Sure, it looks kind of dull, but it's actually a fairly cool place, especially when some VCU students are playing some groovy bongo drum music up the river someplace and it's echoing all around and the sun is shining, and there's a slight breeze, and the sewage treatment plant downstream is turned off.
	We're getting fiber optic cables installed in our neighborhood. I don't know why, nobody has that good of a connection, but anyways, during the digging a contractor cut off our cable (TV, etc.). So while all of the involved parties bickered about who would need to do the permanent repairs, Comcast (I think) was nice enough to run this jury-rigged cable down our driveway and into a slightly underground plug that I'd never seen before. Problem solved. Well, I though it was funny. At least at the time.
Who knew we had such computer savvy cats?
	Maybe I'll get them to be guest contributors next month or something.
Aww, they just look so relaxed. Tsali (left) wanted to help catch some viruses while I ran the VT Symantec virus thing (or was just cold) and Sprocket (right) looks ridiculous as usual.
	In fact, check out these pictures of me right now... or, at least when I was writing this. It's as though I can't get away from these cats. Or maybe my laptop is just a cat magnet.
Sprocket makes it rather difficult to type things.
Workin' at the Car Wash... doo dee DEE DOO doo doo doo... Workin' at the Car Wash, Yeah.
	So I finally broke down and got a job this summer. No slacking, no summer camp - everything's different. Fortunately, everybody there's fairly casual and rather "interesting." Here I am working hard... or hardly working. Anyway, I'm working at a prominent central Virginia civil engineering consulting firm in the Site Planning and Engineering division.
I get to play connect the dots (make drawings from survey points), do landscaping plans, revise spec sheets, and a whole bunch of educational-type stuff. I'm learning a lot. Including how to use snack foods my mom gave me as paperweights.
	Plus, I get paid for it. And I get a computer with a really snazzy monitor and a much better processor than anything I have.
But then one day, as I was coming back from lunch, one of the IT guys mentionned casually to me, "So I hear that they're kicking you out." "WHA...?" I replied. Long story short, a new full time person was moving into the department, and as I would only be there for another month or so, they decided to make me a "drifter." Fortunately for me, this was also the same day that our department head was moving to Florida, so my temporary location is... the Site Planning and Engineering team leader's office. That is, until they hire somebody new. Which won't be any time soon.
	So check out my new pad! It is spacious, has one and a half times the desk space, and comes pre-furnished with authentic Tim Dean memoriabilia. So lots of tasteful/cheap paintings and sporty equipment and trophies (look for them on eBay... not my doing.)
Like this baseball. Add some permanent marker, and you've got a temporary replacement. These two quotes pretty much sum up Tim's job. But that's not to say that I haven't added my own personal touches. You can see the No Loafing sign in the background of the above picture, and there's a Demotivational Poster in the background of this photo.
	Plus, I get a window. Hence the lack of fluorescent lighting and my distracted gaze.
And at the end of the summer, my work decided to hold some sort of office party. They also had a contest using the same kits as the raingutter regatta event from my Cub Scouting days. One of my coworkers put the thing together with some spiffy outriggers and painted it Primer White. It wasn't anywhere near as outlandishly decorated as the other boats, however, it was very streamlined and Americas Cup-esque. So I managed to win the event. Yay. Actually, I was second, but the guy who beat me is the guy on the left of this picture, and as you can see if you look closely, he is carrying his boat in this shot. So boo yeah.

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