Andrew woke us up at 10 in the morning, whining that he had made breakfast ("enough to feed an army") and that no one was up to eat it. Eyes half open, I sat myself down at the table for some french toast and orange juice. Unfortunately, Andrew is amazingly talented at making all foods taste exactly the same. But I wasn’t there for the food, and since I didn’t make any of it, I guess I can’t complain.

Before lunch, all of us got on a boat to get a quick survey of the lake and its surroundings. The weather was cool and slightly windy; a thick layer of clouds shadowed the sun. Kevin looked grumpy.

Lunch comprised of barbeque - chips, hot dogs, and hamburgers (yes, it all tasted the same).

After lunch, we went jet skiing 3-at-a-time (I wasn’t driving), and, within what seemed like only a few minutes, managed to tip the jet ski over at about 60 mph, causing as all to very painfully crash into the water. Our friends at a nearby boat drove by to check on us. We were all okay, though slightly stunned. I still have a sore neck and a bruise on my forehead. I decided to drive on the way back.

It was a very interesting experience. The controls are much less complicated than a car or a motorcycle - there is only an accelerator (controlled by hand, no brake), and a gear to shift between forward and reverse. The driver also wears a wristbrace that is attached to the jet ski. In the event that the driver falls off the jet ski, the wristbrace detaches and the vehicle will create an open circuit and turn off the engine.

We returned shortly, and I left again later that afternoon with Razza, who is much more experienced at jet skiing than any of us. We had a lot of fun, up until the moment that we realized we were lost (I am very good at getting lost). It took as a while, but after asking several people directions, we eventually made it back safely.

One observation that I made during this event is that people on the lake are extremely nice and helpful. Maybe this is because they are all old, rich, and retired, but whatever the reason, it is certainly a nice change from the attitudes encountered in the everyday city. One couple even offered us gas when they saw that we were low.

For dinner, we ordered pizza and watched Lord of the Rings on the projector that Andrew had brought before heading to bed.

I slept like a rock that night.

Woke up a little bit earlier than usual today to take a vacation to Wal-Mart (some people go to Disneyland, we go to Wal-Mart). On the way, dropped by the leasing office to pay rent for the month of September. The Georgia Power bill for this month has also been paid online.

At about 7 PM, a few us met at the College of Computing to carpool together to Lake Sinclair, to attend a weekend retreat for CS1322 teaching assistants.

It took us a while to get there as a result of several factors. The house by the lake, for instance, was in the middle of nowhere, and the roads signs were impossible to read on the unlighted roads. And having bad directions certainly didn’t improve the situation. Nevertheless, we were the first ones to arrive, and before long everyone was settled in.

Soon after, the remaining guests trickled in. We concluded the night by playing some ping pong and watching Office Space, the de facto computer programming movie of choice. We went to bed at 3 AM.

Woke up at 6:00 AM today to reach my 8:00 AM ECE2031 lab and beat the rush hour traffic. I ended up getting there around 7:00 AM, so I killed the rest of the hour by surfing the Internet in the ECE computer labs.

The first lab was fairly busy, although not excessively so. The three hours were spent helping students with their questions, and signing off their check-off sheets. The students had to complete several introductory exercise with the Altera MAX+PLUS II design software, mainly using the graphical schemetic and VHDL/Verilog editor.

One of my Corsair 256 MB XMS2400 memory stocks went bad today. The good news is that Corsair has a lifetime warranty - I’ll replace the bad RAM as soon as I get a chance.

I taught CS1322 recitation today with my new partner. The first lecture is always difficult, mainly because everyone is nervous, including the students. Some students tend to get bored too, as the introductory material is not very difficult at all. Despite all this, recitation went pretty smoothly. The students appeared to be more interested in learning this term compare to some of my previous classes.

Afterwards, we were invited to Saun’s house for a post-recitation party. Saun is a new CS1322 lecturer here at Georgia Tech. He graduated from the University of Georgia.

Anyway, I carpooled with my friend Bill and my TA partner, and after some interesting direction guessing (a story in itself), we finally arrived.

The party was a lot of fun. A rather large number of CS1322 TAs showed up. And there was free food and socializing. Andrew brought a Playstation along and we concluded the night with ice cream and video games.

Had a CS1322 TA meeting today, followed by Economics. When I got home, I re-compiled Mplayer to support the libavcodec.

After months of procrastination, I finally took the amateur radio club test at Georgia Tech. I only missed one question on the Technician-class exam! How exciting!

It’s Friday! The first week of classes are now done. Nicky, Adam, and I went to go see Triple X at AMC on Cobb Parkway. It was a refreshing change, although the movie itself was quite unimpressive. I also paid my Cingular phone bill.

I’m moved in. I drove over to Georgia Tech to write this message. This morning I made a quick run to Wal-Mart, and got a lamp, a shower curtain, and some basic bathroom supplies. Michael, the first of many roommates, will be arriving tonight.

I also drove around the neighborhood a little bit. There are lots of interesting places nearby. In particular, Hollywood Video is right down the street; I rented two movies, Ali and Vanilla Sky, from there yesterday. There is not much to do around the apartment without Internet access.

Today was the last day of work. Spent most of the evening packing my things. My dad and I are heading off to Atlanta tomorrow to move everything in to the new apartment.

I got a cell phone from Cingular today. The phone is a Nokia 3360. Went to eat some excellent chinese carry-out with my friend Ryan at China Star. We then returned to his house and watched El Mariachi and Men of Honor. Sent in the Datek internal account transfer forms.