I brought my hole punch to school today, in a Office Depot bag. I had only one class, and there was another project due, so I brang it so I could put any last minute stuff into the binder. The class started and we turned in all our project binders. We went through class all boring, as usual. People were falling asleep left and right. When class ended, I left, but I forgot to bring my hole punch in a bag! I went to the engineering library to work on this leftover homework that’s due tomorrow. An hour or so goes by until I remember that I had left it. I go back to the classroom, and it’s gone. I went to the Math Lab, the Math Department Office, and then the classroom again to see if anybody had picked it up or something. I was so mad at that time because that hole punch is an antique, and can’t be bought anywhere. I went to the instructor’s office, to see if he picked it up or something, but he wasn’t there. Many minutes went by until Younes came by and unlocked Vince’s office. He had picked up my hole punch, so I left him a note saying that I picked it up and I left.

This morning I was woken up by the sounds of sirens at 2:19am. I must have heard about seven or eight police cars zooming along Marlow Road. At one time, I heard a fire engine with its siren on. His siren shouldn’t have been on at that hour…

Then I went to the post office today, and I saw ANOTHER cop car. It was marked but going the opposite direction.

Tonight, I decided that I wanted to go to Office Depot to compare these two chairs that I bought yesterday with a different model. The ones I bought yesterday are “defective” because they don’t go high enough. The whole conspiracy started when I left the Office Depot in Santa Rosa and started heading south on Santa Rosa Ave. I go all the way down, past the Days Inn, past the adult bookstore, past Friedman’s Home Improvement store and start going on the freeway to southbound 101. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a Sonoma County Sheriff car pull out of the new trucker gas station. I thought nothing of it until I remembered that I didn’t use my blinker when I got on the onramp to the freeway. I saw him get on and start to follow me onto the freeway.

There are two exits in Rohnert Park, the city that the Wal*Mart I was going in resides. The first exit is really close to the Wal*Mart. The second exit would make me double back to the Wal*Mart. Since I was all wigged out, I took the second exit, with hopes of trying to lose the cop. I think I was pretty successful because on the first exit’s onramp, a bunch of cars were merging in. I exit at the second exit, and I start to double back to the Wal*Mart. I wanted to go to that Wal*Mart because the one that I went to last night didn’t have what I wanted. There wasn’t anybody following me that was related to law enforcement because I can recognize most cars by either their taillights or headlights. Cop cars are the easiest to identify because they’re all Ford Crown Victoria’s. I finally get to the Wal*Mart parking lot and park my car. When I exit the car, I see the same sheriff cruising through the parking lot. I’m thinking, how did he know! I saw him drive behind the aisle where I parked, but I was already far away from the car, and almost entering the store through the garden centre. I get in, and try to lose myself in the multitude of crowds. I head to the sporting goods department, but again, like the other store, this store only had a bunch of ammo and air rifles. Darn. I decide to kill some time and go look at some flashlights, because I can never have too many LED flashlights.

Since I didn’t purchase anything, I exit the store through the garden centre. I look towards the main entrance to the store, and who do I see? I see the same sheriff car just sitting at the main entrance/exit of the store. He was probably thinking I would buy something and exit out of the main entrance. I get to the car, and look towards the idling cop car. I was thinking, why would he choose such a crappy spot to try and spy on my car. I start my car and start heading out of the parking lot, using the exit that would take me the longest time to get home. I didn’t want to “return to the scene of the ‘crime'”. While I was waiting to exit at the driveway, I see a black unmarked police car pull in. Jeeze, there must be something big going on in that parking lot.

The road that decided to take home was dark, windy, and narrow. Again, nobody was following me. I get halfway home and I see a marked Santa Rosa Police Department car in the oncoming left turn lane. I stared out my rear-view mirror to make sure he didn’t make a U-turn. He didn’t. He just made a standard left turn into a residential area. I FINALLY get home, and guess who’s waiting for me at my house?

………………………

Nobody.

………………………

I quickly parked the car on the driveway, opened the garage door, and got inside. I wanted to make it look like nothing happened before they decided to launch a full sweep of the area. Nothing’s happened, but then again, it’s only been like 20 minutes since I parked…

Last night I told Chris that I’d be at Best Buy’s line for Friday’s sales at 5 or 5:30am. He called me at 5:45am, and woke me up. I told him that he woke me up and he started freaking out because our “team” wasn’t together. I went back to sleep and woke up at 7:30am. I then headed over to Best Buy and bought Man on Fire and The Day After Tomorrow in Widescreen DVD with 5.1 DTS surround sound. I snuck into the “digital photography only” line and paid. That line was very short compared to the main checkout line, which was snaking around a quarter of the store.

Then I headed over to CompUSA to do a return/rebuy on my video card. I got the rebates, and I’m going to send them out tomorrow. I finished all my Black Friday shopping before lunch, whereas in past years, I wouldn’t finish until maybe 1pm or 2pm.

I also then watched The Day After Tomorrow later in the afternoon. It’s a good movie.

My TV tuner video card works very well in the TV department, and in the gaming department. In Half-Life 2, with my old card, 30 FPS was considered good with a maximum of about 70. With my new video card, 30 is bad, and it goes way up to 70-100+ FPS!

Today, I went to TAP Plastics to get some resin material for the stupid Materials class at school. That stuff smells so much. Tomorrow, we hope to be able to polish and etch the solid resin cast and look at the structure of the solder under a microscope.

Right now, I’m listening to Jay-Z and Linkin Park’s new album, Collision Course. The songs on it are very good. I like the collaboration very much. The songs are mixed up with the lyics well.

I still want to experiment with my peltier. It’s sitting right in front of me. I just need a power supply that can handle 15A with 15V. Maybe I should get the smaller peltier on ebay because this one is just too powerful for me. Even though it’s only about 2″ x 2″, it broke a power supply. The high pressure smoke escaped from the power supply, thus rendering it useless. I have another power supply, but it’s only rated for 3A. I used it, but the peltier wasn’t getting very hot or cold. I want to make some ice on it or something.

I sent back my research materials on Monday back to Research International. They must have spent a fortune on all the 2lb packages since they were all shipped with FedEx 2-day air! Soon I’ll get my cash incentive.

In other news, I finally bought a new video card today at CompUSA for ONLY $250 + taxes. The card is an ATI All-In-Wonder 9600XT with 128mb of ram with DirectX 9.0 capabilities. I know this card will go on sale on Black Friday, so I’ll price match it later instead of waking up at 4am to try and get the card. The last time I tried to get a video card, I woke up early, and rushed in and didn’t end up getting one. Forunately, that sale at Best Buy was on two days, and on the next day, Saturday, they got more in stock. The CompUSA sale this year is also two days, but I don’t want to take any chances. I want to see Half-Life 2 in its full graphics.

There, I blogged…

I’m back from the field trip, and it was just like Paramatech. They had these massive plastic pressing machines and all that loud equipment. Under that one warehouse, they must have had like $10 million! Well, I found out that Labcon made plastic pipette tubes for the medical industry. All the parts are made inside that factory, about three million pieces a day. We all got a few samples of their plastic stuff. When the guy took them out of the machine, he instantly contaminated them, so it was either the garbage, or give a bunch out to everybody. He decided to give us all a bunch of stuff. They made those little snapping test tubes that they use on CSI and neat equipment like that.

On the drive back, everybody was going slow. Slow people were in the fast lane, and I had to pass a bunch of people on the right lane. There was this one stupid woman who was trying to get on the freeway. She was in the onramp/offramp to the freeway, since you could exit on that same lane. Apparently she wanted to get on, but since she didn’t have her signal on, I didn’t know. I start passing her, and she slows down, a bunch, because she was at the end of the lane, right before the exit. My passenger said he saw her give out an expression like “Woah!” Then her signal appeared, but by then, I was way past her. She was so dumb.