Five years later

brian christ

brian christ

“There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”

-Hunter S. Thompson

Five years ago today, Brian died of a heroin overdose.  I didn’t know him for that long.  I hung out with him a number of times for about a year or two, but he always struck me as a good guy.  Not just a regular good guy, but a good nerdy guy.  This is why I wrote up www.brianchrist.com as a sort of e-memorial.  I was a young novice web programmer at the time and felt like I needed to do something, anything, in order to mentally process his passing.  I wasn’t a stranger to death at the time, but when someone your own age dies (especially when they’re young), I think it serves as a wake up call.

So funneling all those feelings and emotions into work energy, I basically rushed out the most simplistic database-driven form posting app without much thought to architecture.  Five years later, it is still basically the same exact page with a few minor additions along the way.  It’s an interesting situation when you become emotionally involved with one of your side programming projects.  Any time I think I should change something on the site, I worry that people will misinterpret my extra efforts into the site as some kind of disrespect to the memory of Brian.  Maybe I’m just over analyzing all this stuff.  If anyone else out there has anything to say on the subject of e-memorials or just any input at all, I’d definitely appreciate it.  For now, I will continue to keep the site up in remembrance of Brian and wish him well wherever he is now.

Back to School

It feels weird being on campus again hurrying to class amidst the sea of students, adjusting to the ebb and flow of bodies.  In truth, I love the school life.  There’s something about the excitement of learning new subjects and sharing radical ideas based on theory and powered by ferocious intellect.  I’m going back for my master’s in comp sci, but this first algorithms class is a killer.  There’s no programming.  Just pure math and theory.  In the first day of class, we went over an entire undergraduate education’s worth of math in under 2 hours.  I am not kidding.  The basics of Calculus I, Calculus II, Matrix Algebra, Discrete Mathematics, and Statistics were all covered.  I’ll be the first to admit that my brayne hurted for quite some time afterward.  Hopefully it doesn’t take long to get back in the groove of things.

Think before you speak

poster

There is a campaign going on over here to stop people from using the word “gay” in a derogatory fashion. I think this is one of the more noble causes of the day so I am fully supporting them. I already started doing this back in college but it amazes me how few people out there have made the effort.  While the artwork and style are a poor attempt at reflecting the urban artistic spirit, at least it will get some people to start thinking about this issue.

In other news, SDRE is coming to town soon for their reunion tour!  I’m trying to get tix, but we’ll see if I’m successful or not.  Wish me luck!

endless summer

This summer has been pretty awesome so far. I’ve been trying to enjoy it as much as I can before grad school starts. Road trips to MD and day trips to DC have been some of the high points of the season. Otakon was also a blast. There’s only a little bit left! Hopefully I get to hit up the beach soon. I’ll try and post some pics up here soon.

viva la revolucion

just got back from partying at the french embassy of all places. sarah took me out there to meet some of her german cohorts and it was an amazing day for an outdoor dance party :) “SAVAN” – “what’s up” in french slang. “JUIZ” – “bye” in german. gotta love being in a giant melting pot of cultures and people.

on the path

So I’m not really up for writing long blog posts lately, but I feel like I will soon. Not much going on right now. Getting ready for school, otakon, and the rest of my life :) hopefully i’ll write more soon.

Greener Pastures

I’ve just been accepted into grad school at mason where I’ll be getting my master’s in CompSci.  If you know me, you know that I’ve been sitting on my ass for a long time when it comes to this, so today is pretty awesome.  I’ll be signing up for classes soon and I can’t wait to go back to school =)  I guess this means I’ll be getting my netbook sooner than expected too!

Not quite dead yet

I haven’t really been in a blogging mood as of late which explains the recent drought of posts.  I’ve been focusing on getting in my application to gradschool and rediscovering my personal life.  I’ll try and write more starting this week, but motivation is hard to come by.