richlayers

I'm just going to start talking and we'll see how far I get before I run out of energy and fall asleep. Since it's been a while since I had, you know, a real update.

Let's see. I hardly even know where to begin.

Oh, yeah.

NEAR AND FAR IS BACK! After our month long break during which I didn't get as much done as I should (sorry, Aaron, I wuv you!), there is a brand new, totally awesome comic, which you need to go check out right now! Get our page hits up! Back with a fury and all!

Last Tuesday, June 2, I went to my great aunt and uncle's to celebrate my great grandmother Bonnie's 102nd birthday party. We had barbecue and cake and she got a lot of cards and some flowers. I must say, she's looking pretty well for a centenarian:



(Picture by Mom.)

...

I'm still in school. All summer. I got a 2 week break and then it was back to classes for speedbuilding, which I am finding frustrating and difficult. I wouldn't hesitate to say that I'm annoyed and discouraged with the whole thing. I KNOW that I just have to keep practicing and I can do just fine at it. But it's frustrating to practice when I know I suck, and I can't get better without practicing....

So basically, it's a long slog. Nothing really new to report, except that I'm spending a lot of time with that, my realtime technology class, and legal terminology. Which ... I guess ... even though this is what I want to do... none of those classes are particularly what I'd call fun and enjoyable. Is THIS what college was SUPPOSED to be like?! Is THIS why I can't use my degree for anything?!

...

Weddings, weddings, everywhere.

May 30th my long-time dear friend Elizabeth got married to her sweetheart Nathan. They tied the knot at his parents' place in Bethany, MO. It was a really nice service, during which I stood at the front and wished my heels weren't sinking into the ground. The pastor did work a Princess Bride marriage reference in, though, so I think it was worth it! Well, for me, I mean. It was definitely worth it for Elizabeth and Nathan.

This is my favorite picture of me and her, from after the ceremony:



Then June 6th, my long ago ex, Michael, and his mini-Michaele, tied the knot just outside of Fredonia. Boy it was nice to only have to go half as far to see my college crowd. They had a really pretty location by the water, lots of flowers, bumblebees buzzed around the bridesmaids.... Got to introduce Chris to some more of my old crowd and it was just a good chance to talk and catch up with a bunch of people.

The last two weekends in June will be taken up with more weddingly-activities, these times for my friend Heather. Only one more bouquet toss to dodge!

...

That's pretty much it. Or at least all I can think about now that it's time for me to go to sleep.... I haven't been online a LOT, but I seem to manage to throw a few updates out to twitter and/or facebook. So that's that.

Peace!

So Chris got me started on Folding at home, which I think is really awesome. Basically it's one of those distributed computing programs that runs in the background... Michael used to run something like SETI at home I think. This one is about protein folding, and the research could help with curing/understanding diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and others.

For a way more coherent and full explanation, check it out here:

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Main

A kind of neat aspect of this project is that you can team up with friends, and semi-compete with other people running the program. Here is my team:

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=159490

Although I haven't actually submitted any work yet, so my name isn't on there. But IT WILL BE. OH IT WILL. And... I think you can join it, too? I'll have to look into that though.