Growing into my (relatively) old age, I’ve realized books are boring and lack any interest while magically sucking the enthusiasm out of me on contact. That’s my opinion on the larger scale of books, and I catch heat from many teachers for that, but regarding the other small percentage, I seem to become consumed into the pages of the cover floating in the cold, deep-blue sea – bullets whizzing by my head like rain.

Let’s be honest here, I have a small attention span for non-technological things. If a book lacks action and suspense or goes into too much detail, my mind, in an act of self-preservation, switches gears and begins thinking about the first noise or object in sight. If a reasonable and nice teacher did exist, perhaps the wonderful result of some bio-engineered science experiment, they’d present me with books that’d captivate me with action, while holding a knife to my throat for just a tad of suspense.

Never being introduced to my definition of “good” writing, my literature wouldn’t even be worthy to hold your squeaky, unstable kitchen table stable. My writing always seemed to remind me of that cliché phrase “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” not in the way you’d expect either, that single cliché phrase was better than my entire piece of writing.

It wasn’t until I had a small series, well two, teachers who introduced me and supported my lacking endeavors to find my literary voice that my writings started gaining lives of their own. Mrs. Fennessy, that gray-headed witch she was, must have thought I was Hansel at her gingerbread house thinking she could just “eat me up.” I had her just one year; she retired; nonetheless, that was the hottest year of that school. She kept me in that boiling kettle until she thought I was “ready.” The second teacher, a typical busy-bodied superwoman, Mrs. Mather, during my senor high school year, understood my lack of literary personality and a major need for a variety of viewpoints. Throughout that last year of middle school, my writing improved radically becoming a style of which this piece endorses.

I will definitely profit off my personal literary development during my times of redundant, mentally stressful actions to make money for the American government, also known as an occupation to the larger population. Software engineers are not battling the English language as much as the unfortunate journalists; however, we software engineers are largely required to document our source code and the burning, evil, bureaucratic paperwork. Granted, employers do not encourage a substantial amount of personality in any type of writing, such as people hired for administration positions; nonetheless, individuality harmonizes a warm, fuzzy feeling for the uninterested readers.

Everyday new technological advances, aimed at easing the lives of millions, are developed. Recent publicly-accepted evolutions such as Paypal and Online-Banking make financial planning and management quick and easy. Computers offer additional services such as entertainment, shown best with recent phenomenon, YouTube, allowing community members to share videos with friends and family. It is inventions similar to these that conveniently enhance our personal standard of living.

Personal profit is not the only benefit to come via this technological era. Businesses such as FedEx and UPS are offering paid on-online shipment tracking. While other companies are finding that they don’t even need to own property to develop a business, all they need is a website and consumers. E-bay, Amazon, and similar sites have made a business out of just selling services or products via the web; some even offer to supply the consumer with the cheapest place to purchase from. This ability currently is taken for granted; lower expenses provide us more comfort in our lives and helps raise the focal point of businesses.

Online services and companies are not the only ones using technology to their advantage; think about your kitchen. Your stove, microwave, and coffee-brewer are all there because of technology. Cell-phones, automobiles, even lights use energy and depend on technology. Without this technology, the nation will confront a major relapse in productivity and the standard of living will decrease exponentially.

Being so dependent on technology, the nation will severely suffer from any major technological catastrophe. If the nation ever had a major power-failure, how would we recover? We would be unable to call our families and loved-ones; the ability to purchase any item at any store would be gone. The best solution we would have is to wait, and hope our power would recover so we may continue with life. Currently most major retail chains and a percentage of home-owners own a backup power generator to combat a short power-outage. These methouds are quite suitable for black-outs ranging from secounds to a few days; however, these alternative power sources become expensive for extended periods of time.

Power is not the only woe on the “back-burner” for many computer users; one single virus, engineered correctly, has the power to cripple the entire technology era. A virus, according to Merriam-Webster, is defined as “a computer program that is usually hidden within another seemingly innocuous program and that produces copies of itself and inserts them into other programs and usually performs a malicious action (as destroying data).” If such a virus was engineered with care, infiltrating any networked and numerous off-line machines will be possible; even the ability to stealthfully manipulate government data.

As technology advances, security auditors play a game of “catch-up,” releasing security patches and strong security systems along with their accompanying protocols. Technology will never be truly safe; the best precaution any consumer can take is learning how to properly setup firewalls and routers to protect and monitor their networks’ traffic. The more secure the nation becomes in technology, the easier we can live our lives, as the threat to the modern inventions contracts.

Without hesitation, I jumped up from my black office chair and ran down the wooden stairs to the first floor of the house. It was then I realized I was holding my breath, letting my imagination run wild. I had to take a few seconds to breathe, leaning on the cedar wall that held up the pictures of my two half-brothers and me, before continuing. Regaining my breath, I opened the door to the makeshift, non-railed stairs that protruded from the basement. I had seen, at the bottom of the stairs to the right, fragments of what had happened moments before. Upon examination of the dark-shaded cement floor, I spotted the shattered remains of what was once a tall forest-green coffee-mug and this kind-of dark red substance - blood. With my curiosity and worry magnifying, I bolted down the stairs, falling into the wall in front of me. Regaining balance, I looked around the basement for someone - something - that would tell if the person whose blood was on the floor was still relatively well.

First, I saw my mother, then the phone in her hand. “… He… stairs… arm…” These were the only words she said that I could make out through this hysteria. This was followed by my father screaming in pain on the other side of the basement. Realizing I wouldn’t get much information out of her, I went searching for my father.

Unable to see him due to the stairs and the wall in my way, I slowly walked toward his voice. Creeping along the cold cement floor to the dark red carpet lining my way toward the direction of his voice, I saw him. My father was reaching into a tin can that he had used for storage. He appeared to be searching for something; for what , was another question entering my thoughts. “He is trying to hurt himself,” my mother struggled to tell whoever she was speaking with though her tears and her crying. She must have heard my father’s scream of pain. “I’m looking for my wallet!” my father exclaimed, his intentions to raise his voice that loud must have been so whoever was talking to my mother could hear.

“Dave, I’m going upstairs…” My father had noticed me and started talking, speaking in an unusually-low voice, trying to remain calm. “I need you to follow me, and watch me until the cops come here. I need you to tell the cops that you have been watching me since the accident.” The cops? What is happening here? Without even time to think I noticed myself nodding, following my father slowly up the stairs, to the right, into our living room. There was absolutely no sunlight and my father had forgotten to turn on the light, thus I was not able to make out his physical condition. It was at this time that I closed my eyes for a brief second and tried to make sense of the few fragments I had of what had just taken place.

My mother had fallen; she said something about her arm. The blood! Was it her blood? The mug, it was shattered… Did it cut her? Why did my father need his wallet? What had happened? Why were the cops coming? I couldn’t work up the nerve to ask him anything, he had this look on his face; this was the first time I had seen this look. I could not tell if this was the look of fear, or the look of nervousness, but I could tell it would be best to hold off from questions. There I sat, wondering and watching my father, letting curiosity getting the best of me as I waited for the next series of events.

From red to blue, the room began to oscillate; the police were here. Gradually, I rose from my position on our faded-blue chair, walking to the front-door to let the authorities enter. “Where is the wife?” one officer asked me. “In the basement, the stairs are right over there.” I pointed, taking notice of the paramedics that had also entered the house. “Now where is the husband?” the same officer questioned. “He is in here, follow me. I have been with him ever since I heard the crash.” I stated, still not knowing what the crash was or why they were even here.

“Son,” the police officer started speaking, “I want you to go check on your brothers; make sure they’re still sleeping.” Doing as I was told, I walked back up the stairs and entered my brothers’ dark bedroom. Without turning on the lights, I slowly crept around, as to not make a sound, making sure they are both still sleeping. As slowly as I came in, I left and headed downstairs. Turning right, I noticed my mother crying in the middle of the kitchen on a wooden stool. Paramedics were providing their services to her right arm; I couldn’t see the extent of the damages.

As soon as the paramedics had finished with my mother, they tended to my father. I approached my mother, this was my time. If I were to find out what exactly had happened, I had to ask her. “Mom, are you okay? What happened? Why are the police here?”

“I’m okay; they had to stitch my arm. I fell off the stairs, I landed onto glass, and it cut my arm. Your dad…” She started to say something, but was cut off by the police. Great timing, I was just about to figure this all out!

“Son, can you please go and talk to your father. We need to talk to your mother and get her take of this event,” the police officer said. If you call me “Son” one more time… and I was not finished talking here. She is my mother, by what right do you have to stop me! I thought, but I failed to reply with my instincts and did what I was told; there was too much trouble in the air as it was. I walked back across the hallway and into the room where my dad was settled; this time the light was on.

“Dad, what happened? Are you okay?” I asked him.

He responded, in a worried voice, “I’m okay, I think I sprained my arm but other than that I’m fine. How is your mother, is she okay?”

“I don’t know. I saw the paramedic leave her. She had stitches, she should be okay though.” I replied trying to sound confident to reassure him.

“She was coming down the stairs with a box in one hand, her coffee in another. I was coming up the stairs and when she saw me, she lost her footing. She tried to balance herself by grasping onto me, but that only brought me down with her. She fell without letting go of the cup. I…” My father paused, trying calming down as to hold back the tears.

“She fell onto the cup and it cut her. I fell onto my arm. She jumped up and called the police.” With every word he spoke, I was frantically trying to guess what he was going to say next, never once guessing what actually happened. If this was an accident, why are the police here? Something doesn’t add up.

The police walked in shortly after my father was done illuminating me on the events that had happened prior, to speak to my father, “Sir, we’re going to need you to come down to the station for a little while. If you could please gather any items you may require and follow me.” My father, without speaking, slowly went to his bedroom, grabbed his medicine, and followed the police out the door.

This seemingly innocuous incident was the final straw for both my parents. Maybe it was indeed an innocent accident; however, the result was catastrophic. This was the day my parents made it clear to each other and the family, they wanted a divorce. Several court-dates later, my mother moved to Tennessee, while I’m left here with my father and brothers in Rhode Island, making the best with the cards we’ve been dealt.

As the post title suggests, I have chosen which college I will be attending - Bellarmine University located in Louisville, KY . I will be going for my bachelors degree in their Computer Engineering course starting June 2nd; three days after I graduate from LaRue County High on May 30th.

For the past few months I’ve been trying to get into the University of Lousiville for their computer engineering course; however, Bellarmine requested me offering $14,300 a year in grants before FASFA . Thus, I decided to visit the college last week to see what I was throwing around beside almost $15k. I ended up in a conversation for an hour with the my soon-to-be professor over the course. The basics of the conversation were that the classes would only consist of about ten students total, and the college did not really have an engineering school; however, because of this he is able to give individual lesson plans to his students. That in itself hooked me into this choice; anyone who knows me knows that I’m quite advanced and I don’t wish to pay for hours of classes just reteaching me aspects of advanced computing I am already very aware of.

That covers the whole reason why I choose that college, now there is another huge decision regarding my foundation of how my occupational future will unfold. While in conversation with Professor Muzaffar - after I told him that I’m a large Linux addict and my current machine consists of five physical drives totalling over one terabyte of space, separated into ten logical drives, three of which are AES encrypted using the SHA256 hashing algorithm -  he stated that I was the only freshman he has EVER had that he’d recommend to a company "off-the-bat".

Three days later, I find myself on the phone with a Mr. Roger Kobal, the president of KiZan Technologies discussing a possible computer engineering and security internship at the age of 17 before even attending my freshman year of Bellarmine. Mr. Kobal, referred me to his head of internships, Mrs. Dense Paul, who is very egar to hire me after an hour interview via telecommuting. Currently, we are looking at visiting with the development team, security auditing team, and the enginerring team next week.

- That’s my story and I’m sticking too it; you have my cell call to talk. If you don’t email me at David@NeoeliteUSA.com and I’ll provide it if I deem it safe.

External Ports Used by the BB-GT1500B: (Outgoing)
DNS: 53 UDP
Internet: 80 TCP
Timeserver: 123 UDP
Bind: 3478 UDP
Bind: 3479 UDP
SIP: 23768 UDP
Call ports: 8000-55998 UDP

P.S. I now have a cell-phone so just skype, email, or IM me for the number if you want it. If you want it i’ll provide it, just not posting it becasue I don’t want spam callers or telemarketers.

    There now I have more space to write on DO NOT DOWNLOAD SPACE INVADERS on the wall. Well ether-way, I just signed-up for the ACT, apparently it’s not a test on how well you can pretend to be a fat, smelly, person climbing up Juliette’s hair, but an aptitude test. Now when I say aptitude I’m not meaning that cool Debian (I use Kubuntu; oh and I’m a full-time linux user now!!! Party at my house) program that installed your xine and truecrypt to hide your “movie collection”, I mean like an IQ test but just for colleges (a southern SAT, if you will). Well, now I’m caught studying the red Elmo out of that test, school (mostly program and not listen to teachers), and working an hour drive (given speed =< limit) away from home.

    “BUT THAT’S NOT ALL FOLKS!” Yesterday my debit card got declined when I was attempting to put fuel in my car. See, we here on earth haven’t yet developed a way to run on electricity and solar power. Oh, I was running my car on empty because I had ran Seafoam, the engine cleaner that rids of the carbon, though my gas tank and needed to use it all up. Well, much like a monkey wants a banana, I needed fuel. Worse DID come to worse, and I ended up driving to school without fuel. Before I left school, I called up the bank and asked “Where’s the $XXX I deposited in my checking account Thursday?” Long story short it went in my savings and I had fuel to drive to work. However, somehow I obtained an extra $150 and I have not written my checks lately… I’ll be getting a transaction sheet printed on my account here in a couple hours; those money-handling energy-consuming THINGS where not open yesterday.

One last word: I don’t have Halo 3 pre-ordered yet and it is released Monday the 24^th!!

I began my Halo 3 exposition with a n Xbox Premium system, a 20.1” 16:9 5ms HD-Monitor, and secured by my network’s custom Smoothwall firewall/routing system. Loading up this development-level software, a blue-tinted journey though Halo’s new level, Valhalla, can be found playing in as the main-menu’s active background video. First thing any-player will be tempted to do is click “Play The Beta”; however, I urge you not to do this, set up your profile first. To configure your Halo 3 Beta profile, press the start button on your controller, opening up the Profile window, press right on the D-Pad and play around with the settings to tweak your experience to its peak. Be sure to configure your colors and change your Service tag to a more suitable alternative. The Service tag feels to be a feature that is under-utilized in the game, due to the fact mostly everything still refers to the GamerTag and not Halo’s Service Tag.

Once your Profile has been customized, we’re able to enjoy the World of Halo , along side its other millions of beta-testers, by clicking “Play the Beta” on the main-menu. Now we find ourselves in the “Matchmaking Lobby”; however, before we begin we must familiarize ourselves with the game modes: Ranked vs. Social, Rumble Pit, Team Slayer, and Team Skirmish. Halo 3 introduces a system of leveling that is achieved two ways, skill and number of wins. As your skills improve it becomes tracked and you are given a skill-level number that is placed alongside your name. The new matchmaking system for Halo 3 uses this skill-level to place you alongside other Xbox Live players with similar gaming performance, making your over-all experience more enjoyable. On the other hand, as you increase in skill you’re destined to win more matches. With the inclusion of the new ranking system, for every match you win, you gain a RP, or Rating Point, these points determine your experience status to be publicly expressed as a military medal near your GamerTag.

Having decided the type of play -list you wish to get your game on with, you’re left with deciding your gaming mode. Rumble Pit can be best described as a normal Halo Slayer match, or, to the Halo illiterate, a free-for-all without any teams. Secondly, we’re given a popular favorite amongst many gamers, Team Slayer, a two team match were the only objective is for your team to make 50 kills first. Lastly, we have a rather general game category called Team Skirmish, here you must choose between two teams. Too win at this game mode, your team must be the first or the most productive at the task assigned.

Once you have successfully chosen your play-list and game mode , you may begin playing by pressing Start Matchmaking. At this new window, Searching for Match, is where the new skill levels are put into effect. Initially looking for active players at your skill, gradually widening the search criteria as needed, you are placed among players that are ether too easy or too experienced. This feature, while taking longer at times, is a blessing for the inexperienced or newer players, providing them with the proper opponents needed to help them learn the game. An additional feature that to some may seem new, to others modified as needed, would be the Veto system. One annoyance in past Halo games would be joining a match while the match was being set up just for some person to keep pressing the countdown delay button. With the introduction of the Veto system, now the countdown does not stop unless the majorities of the players veto, or say they don’t wish for the current match settings, allowing for a much less annoying match feedback system.

When I had my first chance to download Halo 3 , I’m afraid to say I was away from my house and was faced with just a 254/64 DSL connection sadly. While this obviously was a detriment on the time it took to download Halo 3 Beta , unexpectedly it wasn’t for game-play. Surprisingly, throughout the hours of gaming I never experienced lag, with the exception of walking too close to another player. On top of that, I was even more surprised on how lag-free and clear voice communication was playing. Even when multiple people were communicating on their headsets at once, I heard all of them; you’d never know they were talking if you didn’t have sound. Before I get off the topic of headsets, I would like to mention that team-only communication is possible along with easy muting of players, providing strategies and war-zone updates vastly helping your team’s performance.

It ’s obvious that if you play a FPS, First Person Shooter, you’re going to get shot, if you don’t, play tournaments; you’ll make some good money. Thus, you’ll want to know how the new armor works. I can happily say that not too much has changed this time when it comes to your shield; however, it seems to deplete faster now that weapons are much more powerful. To makeup for this inconvenience, your shield completely regenerates in about eight seconds of no damage. Oh… and to all you over-shield users, you might be out of luck; there currently is none to be found in any of the three maps provided. Fear not, however, with the introduction of the bubble-shield, you have a portable sphere of translucent protection from explosions and bullets. While I’m on the topic of portable objects, let’s discuss the new grenades and similar objects. Luckily, the original two grenades, Spartan and plasma, are present and accompanied by a third grenade, which upon explosion fires shrapnel similar to today’s claymore mine. Unfortunately, I feel that Bungie wishes to make its players develop more precise aiming and thus limited the explosion radius and effect and even lowering the auto-aim system for most weapons. The three types of grenades and the bubble-shield are not the only objects you may carry, portable gravity lifts, shield drainers, and proximity mines are also readily at your disposal.

What kind of Halo won’t include weapons? In fact that’s probably one of the most questioned areas of any game, and Halo is no different. While, hopefully, not all the weapons are presented in the Beta, many, if not all the weapons are either new or have been modified from the prior Halos . By now most of us, depending on your interest in Halo 3 , know that turrets may now be dismounted and used as a normal weapon. Unfortunately, I advise you not to dismount a turret to carry unless you must; once a turret has been dismounted from its tripod, it drastically reduces your movement speed and begins to have an ammo capacity. Several older weapons that have been modified and included in the beta include: Plasma rifle, SMG, Sniper, Plasma pistol, Needler, Shotgun, Battle rifle, and Assault rifle. Due to the fact I really haven’t been using plasma rifles, I didn’t notice too much of a change. Fortunately, they’re still dual-wieldable and it feels to be they have a small increase in damage and fire a little faster. SMGs have a new, or at-least improved sound, fire-fast, and do more damage within a decent range from the target; they are also still dual-wieldable. The sniper, on the other hand, has been noticeably modified. No I’m sorry it’s not dual-wieldable but it has a better rate of fire. It feels like the damage given to a player has been reduced, but headshots are still a one-hit kill. Plasma pistols are still available and dual-wieldable, and if you read the in-lobby messages while waiting for a match, they can do a number on moving enemy vehicles.

Now for a weapon that has been placed into the hearts of many beginners for its per-bullet homing ability, the Needler. I’m s ad to say, the Needler is no longer a dual-wieldable weapon; however, it’s no longer just another weapon to push aside. T he homing ability has been reduced, but in return the given damage to an enemy is inversely proportional, making it a strong choice in those soon-to-be close-range assaults. Which bring us to the weapon most popular among the anti-sniper types, the shotgun. While not much has changed here, the gun is in fact still available and seems more powerful in close-range combat. Furthermore, the Battle rifle has been given a newer model, a better scope, and gotten a damage upgrade. If you ever find yourself sniper less needing one quick, might I suggest a Battle rifle? Just get in place, get into scope mode, and once you line up the head of the target and red dot appears, fire! Finally that leaves us with the last of the older weapons, the Assault rifle. Being the beginning weapon for most game modes, you’ll find this weapon to be one of the most commonly used in the game. Damage given with this weapon is fair and the firing rate is pretty good but prepare to have to reload in the middle of a battle with its small clip. By now you must be familiar with the new Spartan Laser that has been included as a new weapon. Let me be the first to say that it is not as good as you might think. Yes, it is a one-hit kill weapon capable of killing multiple targets at once; however, having it wait roughly eight seconds between shots, it’s just as slow as it is strong. Apparently the Magnum pistols were not on Bungie’s better side, not anywhere in the beta are they found; on the other hand, a new pistol, the Brute spiker, can be found in almost any mode. These are dual-wieldable and in the right hands, deadly in close and long range and are accompanied by a good firing rate. Unfortunately, the Magnum pistols were the only things replaced, the rocket launcher has apparently been replaced with a two-handed version that’s damage has been decreased and can only hold eight rockets; as if that was not enough, this new version also makes movement just as slow as walking with a turret.

The beta was and continues to be great; however, because it is a beta, a version released to public for the sole purpose of testing the software and feedback, the version I have reviewed, and many others are playing and enjoying, is in no way to be thought of as complete and to be used to judge the final, retail product. Having said that, I do wish to target a few areas that were lacking or need improvement from the beta version standpoint; I also understand they may be already fixed in the current development build of Halo 3. First off, while the graphics themselves are impressive, clean, and crisp and show little pixilation around edges of objects, I must say I had higher expectations. I really can’t pin point exactly what I would have liked to see but it wasn’t there. Don’t get me wrong, the water was great, looks and acts real, but I’m failing to see the possibilities of next-generation graphics; possibly more HDR, High Dynamic Range lighting, or Bloom would be nice. While I’m on the topic of lighting, I would have liked to see a flashlight feature on some on the darker maps. The maps themselves are great, though the idea of 16 people on a singe map, start to seem small and too congested.

With a new mode of transport, the Mongoose, I agree is a nice addition, however, I feel that the player should be able to run down enemies similar to the way the Warthog can. A seemingly common bug amongst the Beta players would be the random ends to a game or round right in the middle of the match, making the battle continue while they stare at the battle scores and wait for the game to let them play again.

When the match finally ends, hopefully you ’re the victor; you’re given the choice to save a replay of the video in your 32mb Halo 3 file-sharing account. I’m sorry but I don’t see the purpose of this feature; if it is to remain in the game, I hope it will be developed further making it more worthwhile. Finally, I’ll end with a little idea to provide the players with bragging rights, providing awards for solders at the end of matches such as MVP, most kills, survived longest, most deaths, etc. I figure this would go right along with the interesting medals that can be won during matches.