Blog of R'kik D'nec

So, I'm sure that most of you have seen the infamous "Fireballs in Hitchcock" video. If so, what follows isn't really anything new, but it's still fun to brag about doing for yourself. Tonight was my last IV small group and to celebrate, we were supposed to go out for gelato, but ended up going across the street to Giant Eagle and just getting a ton of ice cream. We proceeded to Matt Crane's house and just hung out for awhile. The conversation turned to whether or not segregating the first year students into freshmen only dorms is a good idea. The theory was put forth that it creates a more rowdy environment, and someone mentioned the fireball video. At this point, Matt Crane jumps up and says, "I've got some 151, let's do it!" Matt runs to the kitchen and grabs his new bottle of Brugal 151, (the harsher Dominican equivalent of Bacardi 151) a cup, and a lighter. Everyone proceeds outside and watches as Matt attempts to spray his first fireball. The first few attempts were unsuccessful, with Matt spraying out a huge stream of rum and putting out the flame. It turns out that the best strategy is to mist out the rum with a lot of air. When Matt finally got it it was awesome and everybody cheered. Unfortunately, after a few tries, his mouth got numb and he wasn't able to mist properly anymore. Hence, Matt Rubik and I stepped up to the challenge of getting the exploit on film. I practiced quite a few times with water first and had a bit of a hard time getting the misting technique down. I finally got it though, and made a fireball on my second try with the 151. It was awesome and definitely something that I'd like to try again. You can see the results below, or on my Yahoo photo album if the pictures don't come up. If you want to see the videos, stop by or let me know and I'll send them to you. Enjoy!





Current Mood: Tense but good
Currently listening to: Good News For People Who Love Bad News by Modest Mouse and Self-Titled EP by Caraway
Last movie I saw: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
One line review: Not as good as seeing it on the big screen, but still a funny and thought provoking movie.
On a scale of 0-5 sucks (0 being the best): 1.5 sucks

This was just too funny to pass up, I had to make a post about it. As many of you know, I've been a TA for Engineering 145 this semester. Yesterday was my last recitation section that I had to lead. Every week we give the students a quiz in recitation, and yesterday I asked them to write some comments on their quiz evaluating me as a TA. Most were pretty positive, which was good. One girl wrote "I think you were a good SI leader. Um GOOD JOB. I think you look like the guy in the short film "Nikki Dial in the kitchen" (it's on the server) Have a great summer!" So I thought, OK, that's sort of strange, and set it aside so I could look up the movie later. When I got back to the dorm, I went on DC++, found the movie, and started it up. It turns out that this "short film" is actually an 8 minute clip of hardcore porn. As I'm sure you're wondering, I'll come out and tell you. Yeah, he does look a little bit like me, but not really. So anyway, I'm just not sure what to think at all. It's so random that it's hard to believe. Keep in mind, this is the same girl who earlier in the semester had a question about the class and looked up my AIM name on facebook. Not only did she instant message her question, but she also took time to read through my profile and comment on the song lyrics. So I'm a little freaked out, but I just had to laugh at the whole situation. I really do think it's hilarious. I'm still not sure if I should say anything to her. Jon's recommendation was to send her an email saying "Thanks for the film suggestion, I really enjoyed it. Do you want to get together sometime and watch it together?" I think that would be pretty funny, but I'm scared of what sort of response I would get. It's these kinds of things that make life interesting. (In case you're still wondering, no, I haven't done any "acting" on the side)

Current Mood: Dazed
Currently listening to: Guero by Beck
Last movie I saw: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
One line review: Interesting style and mix of genres, but not as funny as I would have liked it to be.
On a scale of 0-5 sucks (0 being the best): 2.5 sucks

I ate my egg roll. Aren't you proud of me? So apparently Mark is either "Mermaid" or "Ariel". JP is "Gosling", Jon is "Chia Pet" and I'm "Snuffalupagus". Random times in the suite tonight. Things are going good, as far as they can go, I suppose. A week from today is my last day of class as an undergraduate Aerospace Engineering major. The more I think about it and the closer it gets, the more graduation scares the crap out of me. I'm realizing that I have no direction and no future. I've always had some sort of concept of where I should be ending up. Through grade school it was my goal to get to middle school. In middle school, I was trying to get to high school, and in high school I always knew I was headed towards college. Now for the past 4 (or more) years, I've been expecting to head on out to a fulfilling, well paying job. The fact that I'm not is deeply disturbing. I'm sure I've talked before about how I get upset when my plans don't work out. This is a pretty freaking big disruption, if you ask me. The fact is, I want to try and control and plan every single aspect of my life. If I'm not in control, then I feel as if I have nothing. So yeah, facing graduation head on I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm scared. I'm scared, but I'm not unhappy. The more I think about it, the more I'm liking the idea of going back to school. A second degree in industrial design would be cool. Law school is an idea I've flirted with before and could be interesting. I'm not sure I'd want to continue in engineering, but doing some sort of research in robotics might be fun. As I was relating my options to Matt tonight, he summed it up by saying, "So basically you're pretty open to anything." I guess I am. I think that I'm going to continue looking for jobs that interest me and I could get right now. Hopefully something that pays well (I'm guessing I'll need at least 40K to pay my bills), and preferably something not in Cleveland or western New York. California would be awesome. Staying near home does have it's advantages though. Columbus might be a good place to live. I could visit my brother a lot and I could always swing up to Cleveland to catch up with Case folks. I do think I'd like to get away though. I'd love to travel this summer. The problem is money though. It would be awesome to visit Europe or go back to the Caribbean. If not now, when? Anyway, another random idea I got was starting my own business. The problems with that, though, are of course what sort of business I would start and where I would get the capital. Then there's always the military. Get college bills out of the way and work on cool Air Force stuff. The only downside is boot camp, a few years of being locked in to something, and the possibility of getting killed. Infinite possibilities, no idea where to start. Something will work out, right? That's what I've been telling myself all along. If it doesn't, what's the worst that could happen? I declare bankruptcy and live with my parents while working at Home Depot/WalMart/Tops??? Here's hoping it doesn't come to that. On a somewhat related note, while talking to my parents yesterday, my mom made some comment about how I haven't really put a lot of effort into my job search and that when I really tried that I wouldn't have any trouble finding a job. I know she meant to be encouraging, but there's a fine line between encouragement and looking down on me. While it's always true that I could put more effort into the job search, it's not like I haven't tried. I have. Besides, I'm not even sure I would want any job that I could get. Instead of jumping into the first thing that comes along, I should seize this opportunity to evaluate my life and decide what I really want. Anyway, right now I just have to focus on getting through the next two weeks. Then I can spend all the time I want thinking about my future. What about my future outside my professional life you ask? Well, I can't say that there have really been any developments on that front. I mean, there's still the issue of leaving in 3 weeks never to return. Why start anything now when it's doomed to fall apart in less than a month? I suppose I just use that as an excuse though. As Jon pointed out, it's not like I'll be doing anything this summer. I can always come visit Cleveland anytime I want. I guess this is a situation where I'm just scared and I am unhappy. I'm unhappy with myself for being such a coward and not wanting to take any risks. Taking risks with my career is one thing, but taking risks with people is quite another. I guess I'm just looking for some kind of support here. A little pat on the back and a "You can do it, Phil!". After all, I'll be gone in 3 weeks and any potential humiliation will be erased. What do I have to lose? Only all respect for and confidence in myself for the next year or more. *Sigh* You can never win if you never play. *Gulp*

Current Mood: Devious
Currently listening to: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols by The Sex Pistols and The Ramones by The Ramones
Last movie I saw: Emma (1996)
One line review: Pretty much a "chick flick", didn't really enjoy it that much.
On a scale of 0-5 sucks (0 being the best): 3.5 sucks

Last night I had the best 10 minutes of my weekend. It's a shame "those moments" are so fleeting and meaningless. In fact, it's really pathetic that I get so excited over such things. Here I go being all ambiguous again. Unrelated... In case you were wondering, I had my car looked at and the transmission appears to be fine. My mom pointed out that just having snow and ice packed around the engine and transmission could have been causing problems last Sunday. I do need a new wheel and a couple of new tires though. The wheel had to be ordered and should be coming in this week. All in all it should cost around 320 bucks. Could have been worse. This weekend has been so relaxing and enjoyable. All day Friday and Saturday I didn't do any work. Friday night we went out to Karma on Coventry for JP's birthday. It was good Indian food, but really expensive. Last night I went bowling with FCA, which was a lot of fun. (109 and 137 if you were curious) Today I studied a bit for my test coming up on Tuesday and just chilled the rest of the time. Looks like we'll be making milkshakes and having people over later on which should be fun. Still no new leads on job stuff. I'm starting to accept that come May 16th I'll be moving back home. Where I go from there, though, is uncertain. Yesterday I started looking up some stuff on art/design schools. I requested an information packet from Academy of Art University in San Francisco. One of the things I've been thinking about is getting a degree in industrial design or transportation design. I think designing the aesthetics of cars would be a pretty cool job. Like I've said before, I went into engineering thinking that would be part of what I would be doing. Instead engineering is only designing how things work while industrial design is designing what they look like. Who knew. Anyway this will probably just end up being another one of my crazy half baked ideas that I never have the guts to follow through on. Here's hoping one of these days I actually get a good idea that I can follow through with. For now I'm just glad that I'm taking all the uncertainty fairly well and not getting really depressed/angry over everything. It'll all work out for the best in the end. I just have to keep telling myself that.....

Current Mood: Relaxed
Currently listening to: Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones
Last movie I saw: Hamlet (2000)
One line review: Interesting concept but the "Olde English" made it hard to follow.
On a scale of 0-5 sucks (0 being the best): 2.5 sucks

So much has happened since I last updated. There's a million things I want to say, but I don't have the time to write it all. My trip to the Dominican Republic (2 different links) was incredible. Yeah, that's both bold and italic.... Great times with great people in great places. It was really awesome seeing a different culture. Santo Domingo was really cool and full of life and history. The beach at Cabarete was also great and our villa was amazing. Ask me in person and I'll tell you all about it. The last few weeks coming back to school have been tough. For one thing the weather sucks as evidenced by the freak blizzard that I got stranded in today. (2 feet of snow overnight...more on that later) Of course there's a ton of work to be done as well. In fact I'm putting some work off right now.... Finally I still have no idea where I'm going to be or what I'm going to be doing a month and a half from now. I've put in job applications to over a dozen positions at half a dozen companies, but so far the response has just been silence. I really wish I could at least get an interview or something. The fact that there's only 3 weeks of class left is really intimidating. I'm definitely starting to feel like I'm running out of time. It's going to get really hard to say goodbye. Even so, I still am feeling the need to start new relationships and try and cling on to some last little slice of college life. This has manifested itself in several ways. This weekend I attended an interfellowship retreat and met a lot of really cool new people. I feel bad that I probably won't get the chance to know them better. Speaking of the retreat, it was at this camp in the middle of nowhere, at least a mile down a dirt road. Today (April 3) there was 2 feet of snow on the ground when we woke up. I of course had been fooled by the springlike weather that we got late last week and had neglected to bring even a sweatshirt, so I was in only a long sleeve t-shirt. After digging my car out multiple times, (and even getting towed out of a snow drift by a tractor once) we finally got going back to Case. Somewhere along the way from the potholes and the crappy roads I got a flat tire, but didn't realize it. I was driving on my rim for at least a mile. Finally I stopped and put on the spare and managed to nurse my car back home. Unfortunately it looks like I may have some transmission problems as well, since at some points I could barely make it up some really shallow hills or even get started from a level stop. Anyway, at least I'm safe. I'll have to call around tomorrow and see what I have to do to get my car fixed. Anyway, another way in which I seem to be trying to start things so close to the end is this whole double date thingy. Rumors have it that I may have something lined up, but truth be told those might be slightly exaggerated. I mean, there are "people" I could ask but I don't know. It seems rather futile to try and start anything when in 2 months I could be across the country. Meanwhile, might Matt be scheming on his own with this whole secret admirer thing? Who knows. Odds are nothing will ever come of this whole multidate plan anyway. (Secretly I was counting on JP's timidity to hold things up so I wouldn't have to take a risk myself.) Anyway, I went home last weekend for Easter and it was really nice. Which, I guess, is good since I might be living there after graduation. How could I mention Easter without talking about Mark's eggs? Seriously, these things are unbelievable. Some of the best chocolate I've ever had. Period. In other news, I bought myself a PSP which is a sweet machine, but has been distracting me from work. Sadly, my impending graduation is not yet assured, and I do still have a lot to get done to pass my classes. Pray for me. God Bless.

Current Mood: Disbelief
Currently listening to: A Rush of Blood to the Head by Coldplay and All Ears, All Eyes, All the Time by Piebald
Last movie I saw: Blood Wedding
One line review: Strange yet beautiful, awesomely choreographed fight scene
On a scale of 0-5 sucks (0 being the best): 2.0 sucks