Kopaka's Ice Engineering

Just taking a few moments from what I really should be doing with the Huntwyck maps to give a quick civics lesson. Kids: remind your parents to vote. Vote yourself, once you get registered. Repeat every November, or don't ever complain about your elected officials. Saturday, September 30, there is a special election in Louisiana. Filling the Secreteary of State and Commissioner of Insurance (a notorious position in the state government: 3 of the last 4 have served or are serving jail sentences for fraud), and 13 constitutional amendments. Today, I voted absentee, er..."participated in Early Voting". Why? I will be home that weekend, and I'm sure not going to drive a 450 mile round trip just to vote on some amendments. Some quick facts: Louisiana is notorious for amending its state constitution. The Constitution drafted in 1921 was amended more than 600 times before the entire document was scrapped in favor of a new, fresh constitution in 1974. Since then, approximately 200 amendments have been proposed. Voter turnout for amendments has been as high as 55.2% and as low as 18.7%. 18.7% That means 10% of the registered voters (not the entire voting-age population) determined the course the state's constitution would take, until another amendment (if one did come up) addressed it. 1 person decided for 9 others. Do you want to be the 1 or one of the 9? Vote. Or don't complain when the election doesn't go the way you want it to. -KIE P.S. GN and/or Tomiku and/or Makutaman654 and/or Lady K: What do you and/or your parents say about the amendments? I voted 6 yes, 6 no, and left #4 alone.

In my Geology class in college, a 69 was a "C", and a 40 was a passing grade. -KIE

Another word for "basic" (as in the opposite of "acidic") is "caustic". -KIE, who fondly remembers chemlab in college, not high school

Careful, Spitty. Leave Makaru unchecked, and he'll start putting the Toronto Argonauts or some other obscure CFL team on par with the Steelers. -KIE

Was alcohol involved in any of the deaths, xccj? -KIE

197½ lb., 24.5% body fat It's been over a week since I've posted, and with good reason: HUNTWYCK IS DRIVING ME UP THE FREAKIN' WALL. Don't believe me? There are shoeprints on the wall beneath my 2005 Astros NL Champion pennant. I can take a picture tomorrow. There, now that I have that out of my system, time to recap the last 5 days... The 2006 ASCE/ACI Louisiana Civil Engineering Conference and Trade Show was, well, a bust in my book. Several steps back from the last conference I attended 3 weeks prior. Oh yeah, it was all well and good to get out of the office and away from the "drainage project in St. Tammany that Just Won't Go Away." But sitting (or standing) in a ballroom, listening to some VP of a firm being everything but a Corps [of Engineers, US Army] apologist for an hour gets old quickly. Heck, the best seminar I sat in on was on the "Airports of Tomorrow", and that wasn't even put on by someone from down here. I'm just glad that, as an EI (no, that's not "Engineer of Ice", that's Engineer Intern, a not-yet-licensed engineer), I have no PDH (Professional Development Hours i.e. continuing education) requirements to meet. Side note: Guys and gals, once you get in college and beyond, be wary of tables with "free stuff", be it a T-shirt with a credit card application, a koozy with an Army logo, or light-up rubber balls with the logo of a company at a job fair: make certain it occurs to you why they have free stuff at that table. Why they need free stuff at that table. Why you might be better off if you didn't go to said table just for the free stuff. The worst of it was the luncheon Thursday: I had gotten some kind of pecan-crusted fish. Now, any of you that have ever shelled pecans (be it with a nutcracker around Christmas time, or under the tree itself) know that there are two halves to a pecan, joined by a small bridge at the top, and below that bridge is a wafer of bark-ish layers separating the twin nutmeats. It's always a challenge to get a whole pecan, because I like slipping that wafer out. But that bitter wafer is not pecan. Or at least doesn't taste like pecan. Or maybe it does, but not the pecan nut worth eating. Well.....they didn't remove the wafer before chopping up the pecans for the fish. It tasted like wood. Terrible. Absolutely terrible. Friday's lunch (New York strip) was much better, but that fish was epicly bad. Speaking of pecans, expect a recipe for a better dish using pecans in a few weeks. Speaking of food, I got one of those Sicilian Lasagna pizzas from Pizza Hut. Fleh. Ricotta cheese does not belong on a chain-produced pizza, end of story. Saturday was a big day, as it was Michael & Brandy's (my little brother and his fiancée's) wedding shower. Out in the middle of nowhere, outside Napoleonville. (If you read this, Tomiku, it's on 401, where that bank is on the corner before the light coming from Thibodaux.) After 10 months in Klotzville, I'm too familiar with Assumption Parish, really. It was a combo-wedding shower and LSU party. LSU lost to Auburn, 7-3 under auspicious circumstances. I hope it doesn't bode poorly for the wedding, but I'm glad I'm not playing football for Tulane (LSU's next opponent) Sunday, and yesterday, the Moss Bluff Cruisers lost to the Monte Carlo Mudhens, 46-35, the lowest-scoring matchup in the league. The Cruisers are now 0-2, and in grave danger of opening up the season 0-5. There's a reason why my first team's name was Exercise in Futility.... Over the weekend, the phones went down at work, so I didn't get the chance to cut this here yesterday and post. So, on with more posting! Had the Dragon with Phoenix (spicy chicken and shrimp, with white rice) from Fu Star for dinner tonight. Had too much phoenix (chicken) and not enough dragon (shrimp). But hey, $10 for a second meals' worth, you live & learn. And that's about all I had. But, I give you, courtesy of The Onion, more zany email. Consider it a reward for making it all the way to the end. I've changed my homepage. It's something interesting. It's something Omi has promised to take up my invitation on. Whenever you're ready, Omi. Please. -KIE, who needs to find someone with red-eye reduction software so he can update his staff picture...B6's camera makes him look like Satan incarnate. Well, without the stereotypical red skin, horns, and trident.

1) A representation of the Pythagorean theorem, where "A" and "B" are the lengths of the two sides of the triangle adjacent to the right angle, and "C" is the length of the hypoteneuse of said right triangle. 2) Not a clue, but last I played Metroid II (on the old GameBoy), I finished up SR388 in 2:03. 3) Not half as much as me. Nyaw! -KIE, who voted Angry Nid

I think it's because Turakii doesn't want to have the onus of defeating her mom in the finals. I didn't vote for someone in #15. I voted for someone else. -KIE

Tufi, HH, LevahkLah..... -KIE, who is not female

Oh...how much money does the lovely red-eyed Bohrok need for said masque? -KIE, with an innocent look

Yeah, well, I LOVE math. Not only does math play into my job a lot, but I took 3 extra math classes in college (and not easy ones, either), just because I wanted to! -KIE

Good God Almighty, I didn't realize Rayg's face looked that ridiculous when I snapped the pic. -KIE....Free the Band!

I got out in 2002, and I had a big thread in COT about it. Back when posts in COT counted to your total. -KIE

This week's a busy one, so this might be the only entry this week. Wrapping up stuff in St. Tammany parish: this Huntwyck watershed bit is becoming more trouble than it's worth....to me, anyway. How I yearn for the simpler days when I could just piddle with the sewer model all day. The Cruisers lost, 57-38. Jeff Wilkins and his 6 field goals, Terrell Owens and his 80 yards & a touchdown, and Byron Leftwich and his passing touchdown would've made a difference, but alas, all three rode pine. At least I'll have no quandry who to take at QB the next few weeks. Next up: the Cruisers hit the road to face perennial powerhouse Monte Carlo Mudhens, who spanked the Cookie Crunchers 77-58 last week. Dead money...right.... There's a convention this Thursday and Friday at the Pontchartrain Center: the 2006 Louisiana Civil Engineering Conference & Show. (The 2005 version was cancelled by Katrina.) This promises to be a good two and a half notches less interesting than BrickFest, but at least I get out of the office. Too bad my calves have been knotted up all week, making it hurt to walk. -KIE

Actually, it's spelled Cæsar... Alt+0230 & the letter 'a.' -KIE

That's probably correct, Makaru. Gasoline is typically 50%-70% higher in Canada than it is in the U.S., primarily because of additional Canadian federal taxes on the fuel. -KIE

Ecclesiastes 3. For everything, a time and a season. Well spoken. -KIE

Convention holds that 5 minutes for a graduate assistant, 10 minutes for a professor, 15 minutes for a Ph.D. If the facilitator of the class is not present during that time, class is assumed cancelled. Convention, but that was not policy at McNeese. If the teacher shows up after that deadline and no one is there, everyone is considered absent. -KIE, who unsuccessfully tried to skip class twice during 5 years of undegrad classes, but the teacher skipped the same days so they didn't count....so KIE quit trying to skip class

And means if T were still on staff, there'd be a wager between he and BR. -KIE

CFL Rocky Top, oh Rocky Top...you'll always be second in the SEC.... Who is ATM? -KIE

That's V'Ger's array from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, isn't it, Bink? -KIE

This evening, former LSU and Michigan State head coach Nick Saban takes the Miami Dolphins to Pittsburgh to play the Super Bowl XL champion Steelers. In other words, the NFL season starts tonight. And with it, countless offices, pubs, and bars become distracted for the next 4 months. Why? Two words: Fantasy Football. My office is not immune. Nay, far from it. The Moss Bluff Cruisers host a "team" from Kenner whose name I can't type with a straight face. "But KIE!" you no doubt inquire, "how can you have a team without a draft?" Well, I didn't attend the draft this year. I asked a friend on the church softball team, who also happens to be a big fantasy sports enthusiast and the associate pastor of FBC Kenner, to be my proxy at the draft at the nearby pub. (Preacher at a bar, wow would that make a scandalous headline...). Why didn't I go myself? Well, see the draft was at 1 PM Friday, August 25th. 90 minutes earlier, I'd boarded a plane bound for Washington, D.C., for Brickfest. LAST YEAR I had the number 1 pick in the draft, but the draft was to take place the day after Katrina ended up making landfall. (Don't get me started....) This year, the Cruisers were drafting 11th....out of 12. Fleh. And in this league, the big 3 went 1-5-6: 2, 3 & 4 were rookie players that each drafted quarterbacks, and none of them were Peyton Manning (QB, IND): Hasselbeck (SEA), Brady (NE), and Delhomme (CAR) went 2-3-4, and Peyton went 8th. The regulars are no doubt licking their chops at the prospect of really cashing in this year ($100 entry fee, money is distributed to the winners, I consider it the price of playing and am not expecting to win anything.) If anyone should want to root on the Cruisers, here is the starting lineup for week 1: QB: Trent Green (KC) RB: Edgerin James (ARZ) WR: Andre Johnson (HOU) WR: Roy Williams (DET) TE: Anthony Gonzalez (KC) K: Josh Scobee (JAX) DST: Dallas Cowboys And the bench: QB: Byron Leftwich (JAX) RB: Clinton Portis (WSH) Questionable for Week 1 RB: LenDale White (TEN) Questionable for Week 1 WR: Terrell Owens (DAL) TE: Antonio Gates (SD) K: Jeff Wilkins (STL) DST: New York Giants If anyone has any good reasons why I should start T.O. over Tony Gonzalez or one of the other two wide receivers, let me know before the game starts tonight. Otherwise, please root on the first 7 I listed Sunday for me, please? Unless you're a Lions fan, where rooting means pulling for the other team just to make the GM look stupid. -KIE P.S. Mind you, I'm not half as big on the NFL as I am about college ball. I'm only doing fantasy for the sense of comraderie. And because I apparently have more money than sense. Still.

Correction: "All your time are belonging to us" -KIE

If it means getting a staff discount at the hotel where BF is being held, heck yeah, we'll get ya through it again. -KIE

The one. The only. Billy Madison. -KIE