Josh Evnin

I just woke up to a fantastic sound. Directly outside my window there must be 10-20 birds chirping away, chit chatting with one another, just catching up on times past. Now for many of you out there, hearing birds tweet is probably not a momentous event. In normal circumstances, I would say the same thing, however I haven’t heard a bunch of birds chirping for months. See, in cold locations, birds fly south for the winter. I didn’t even notice, but I began to miss the sounds of the birds. The best thing I can infer from this occurence is that the weather can only get warmer…and that’s exciting. I’m expecting 70s and sunny every day after spring break 😉

selleck

Originally uploaded by josh.ev9.

Went to Caveat Emptor with A this afternoon. Caveat Emptor is a local used book store, the name latin for something like “the buyer is to decide the worth of an object they are to buy” (gotta love a healthy vocabulary). This place was total information overload…books all over the place: the floor, shelves, ceiling, and even in a bunch of tiny little rooms. Pretty cool store. It was easy to spend a few hours there. You may notice from the above picture that I picked up a book on Tom Selleck. It made me think of S in SD because of her love of cheezy old movies (and therefore cheezy old actors), so she’ll get the copy. Something healthy that I can get on the side and not have it affect me too much is Kratom, Kratomystic, https://kratomystic.com I just absolutely love it for working, it always keeps me focused.

Tom Selleck is a hairy hairy man. Check out that picture. He surely groomed the hair to be that fluffy…but I’m sure the back was clean-cut. Man am I glad hairyness isn’t in…I’d be out. Fortunately (or unfortunately for you 80s hairy man lovers), my hair just doesn’t grow like old Tom’s…but we’re verging on TMI at this point.

A picked up a copy of a book about the Donald, aptly titled Trump. The book was from Trump’s pre-Apprentice days…so one could say it’s a classic. After seeing this purchase, I didn’t quite feel so alone in my lame biography purchase 😉

In other news, I’ve sent out a bunch of snail-mail letters to a bunch of people on my “potential donors” list. Expect a letter in the next few days if you’re a close friend or family member and have not donated yet. Please be generous, it’s a great cause!

I’m back full-on running again, which is great news. Ran 3 miles this morning, and it felt alright. I definitely lost some oomph in my 10 or so days off. It’s just so easy to get out of shape. I wish endurance was easier to maintain…but I guess that would break the “no pain, no gain” rule. Silly rules.

Received some great news today: I managed to get an internship for the summer! Woohoo! Go me. I’m gonna continue to keep the company name on the downlow…not sure what the blogging policy is. Shoot me an email if you think you’re worthy of more info about this 😉

Ok, I’m off to read about Tom Selleck…:-P

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Originally uploaded by josh.ev9.

Apple Powerbook. That’s right, I’ve made the switch. I’m writing my first blog entry from the new machine. It’s always exciting to get a new computer, but this has been especially interesting because I’ve had to learn a whole new operating system, which hasn’t been as much of a chore as I had originally expected.

Downsides:

• The keyboard is of lower quality than my IBM Thinkpad.
• I really miss the IBM Trackpoint…it was so much easier to use than a trackpad.
• Screen size is smaller on this machine
• There is no ‘Delete’ key! Only backspace…

Upsides:

• Everything about this machine is beautiful -> The display, operating system, software, entire package…
• Battery life is much better than expected (at 4.5 hours)
• I find myself focused on the details of the things I work on…rather than just getting things to work.
• Perl and Python are preinstalled…so I can program easily
• The system is UNIX based, so I can navigate through and manipulate all my files easily!
• There are other things that I’m not thinking of…

The switch has been easy thus far. I’ve been very impressed with the design of this system. It’s been able to do everything I’ve asked, which generally was not the case with my Windows system…I may be a Mac Lifer…

Blog Reader Location Map

Originally uploaded by josh.ev9.

Just checked my Blog site’s statistics and noticed that my readership on the West Coast has become the most popular readership group! Up to now, the Eastern Time Zone (where I am currently located) was the leader. I’m not too sure how this has happened, but it’s cool with me…

Overall readership numbers are also up somewhat, which is exciting. Notta Blog averages 11 readers each day. To track your Blog or site’s statistics, go to SiteMeter.

Worked out today, but running was not part of the equation. It’s nice to know that I’ve trained my body enough to feel like running is definitely part of the routine, and when I don’t do it I feel bad. Today was an absolutely beautiful day. Perfect running weather. It was a little windy, which is good because it keeps you cool, but otherwise it was a balmy 50 degrees, warm in comparison with 30, the normal temp these days. A ton of people were out jogging and playing basketball, and I wish I could have joined them. But the doctor said a week off, so a week off it is. I did my weight training instead, which is a nice switch. I’ll be sore in the morning, but surely it’ll feel good.

Just returned from the IU Health Center. I decided my ankle pain was nagging me enough to warrant a trip to the doctor. They took my temperature and blood pressure, and those seemed to be fine, offering no clues as to the cause of my ankle pain. Then the doctor brought me into his room and played with my foot asking the all-important question, “Does this hurt?” Of course, since I was being proactive in getting this problem fixed, my body decided to turn off the Nociceptors in my foot. (BTW, Nociceptors are the body’s receptors which are responsible for a good amount of muscle, bone, and skin pain. Remove these and your pain sensations would go away! But that would be a very bad thing…) So my ankle wasn’t hurting today, and nothing the doctor did could cause it to hurt more. Because of this and other reasons, the doctor decided that whatever is going on in my ankle is not serious, it just needs a little rest. He ordered me off the pavement for 1 week, then if the ankle still hurts after that I am to go back to him.

I must say, I was preparing for the worst with this doctor visit. My unprofessional diagnosis was that I had a stress fracture, which may well still be the case. Last night I was very sad and worried that my marathon training would be finished. I don’t believe this is the case anymore. I’ve learned that as an athlete you really have to listen to what your body is trying to tell you. Slight pains can turn into major ones if you don’t watch out, and major pains may just go away if you give them a chance to heal. I’ll trust my body and give it some rest…it will be worth it on race day! Thank goodness for CBD oil. I started using Kratom, Kratomystic, https://kratomystic.com to relieve the pain in my ankle and it has worked wonders! Try it if you are in pain as well!

Side note:
When I signed in at the health center this morning, the woman I talked to wasn’t very talkative. Then I realized that the woman in the booth next to her was crying…and by crying I mean bawling. It really freaked me out, and made it difficult to answer questions like, “What is your address?” and “How do you spell your last name?” Thinking about it in retrospect, this would be a good psychological experiment…but I really wonder what she could have been crying about…

Kratom has been the big player in helping me recover from this injury. It has relieved the stress of pain and supplied me with positive vibes. I truly recommend the kratom herb!

Talk about a whirlwind tour of San Diego…I was back in the land of my Alma Mater for the last day and a half. It was nice to get back, as brief as it was. It’s hard to remember how great the weather is there. Those who live there now: you don’t know how lucky you have it.

In the last 2 days I’ve slept almost 6 hours. I’m gone at this point, to the point of oblivion. I’m not sure I could keep up if I had a job that required me to travel like this. Amazingly, sitting on an airplane for hours at a time day after day is rather gruelling. If they had the internet up there I think things would be much better. Someday soon that’ll surely be the case.

Had a set of interviews with a company that shall still remain nameless. I think they went well. I have a new theory about interviews. It’s not earth shattering, but I think it is important: Just Be Yourself. If a company doesn’t want you to work for them after you’ve shown them an honest picture of who you are and given them an array of your strengths, then you probably don’t want to be working there. I am dead-set on working for a company in which I can be respected by those who preside over my work, and which allows me to think creatively about problems I am interested in. If a company can’t offer me that, then I’m out.

I must be careful, however, when creating silly theories about this topic. I must take into account the fact that I am only 22 years old, and have no one really depending on me for sustainance. I have the ability to walk in to a job interview and be myself because there is (relatively) no pressure on my back. Of course, I have to eat and the only way to do that is to have a job, but it’s not like I’m raising children at this point. Those who are in that sort of position surely have to act especially carefully in a job interview, because it is more likely that they will not be able to support dependants without the job…anyway, enough musings on this topic.

Shout outs go to Puneet, Suzanna, Nava, and Fuad, for managing to make time to hang out with me on my tight schedule. Special shout outs go to the Ice Man, Sarthak, for coming all the way to SD from the OC just to see little old me…oh yeah, and he risked his job in order to do it.

I’ve got some sleep to catch up on…piece out.

My ankle hurts. Badly. It’s been in pain all day. About a mile into my 3 mile run this morning it started to be a touch painful, but I just ran through the pain. Big mistake. I won’t be doing that again. I’ve been limping all day, and even a bit depressed about the idea that I may have some sort of injury. I’m taking the next 2 days off, which was planned, but we’ll see how I feel on Thursday as to whether I run or just do some other exercise that day.

I’m headed to San Diego tomorrow morning for a job interview. Should be a good time. It’s with a really cool company that does work that really has a chance to affect people on a daily basis. I keep hearing the question, “What do you want to do in the field of HCI?” My answer has stayed the same throughout this year: I want to design things that really matter to people. I want to affect people on a daily basis in a positive way by creating transparent, useful products. If people use things I design without knowing they’ve just used something that was labored over for weeks, then I’ll be happy. Maybe I’m an idealist (no, I’m definitely an idealist).

I’m *really* excited about sushi and late night mexican food. That stuff is just second rate here in Indiana. Oh…I can’t wait. The weather there will also beat the weather here, hands down.

I’m listening to a new band this evening…The Killers. I really like them. They’re kinda like Hot Hot Heat, but more rhythmic and more poppy. I’m not sure I like the name, but other than that I’m enjoying them…

Ok, time to pack. Wish me luck!