9:35a

Well, I didn’t win the lottery (obviously), so I’m in class again.

9:47a

I’m finding that, since there are only two of us in class, it’s difficult to type things up during the lesson because if I’m typing and the other guy in class (who always has this look like he has no clue what’s going on around him) is doing… whatever he’s doing… then the teacher starts thinking no one is paying attention. Having been in that situation, I know where he’s coming from.

I’m almost done with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. 765 pages in the book (I’ve got the UK edition) and I’ve only got like 30 pages left. This is going much faster than my last book, and I hope the next book I read is this interesting.

That said, I’m glad to be getting through this because I really need to start focusing on test preparation and it’s difficult when I just want to sit and read my book rather than buckling down and doing what I need to do. I should have the book done today sometime and tonight I’ll maybe work on some of the labwork from the Programming Windows class I took a while back.

I ordered, for $3.75 shipping, the BMWFilms DVD. Good stuff there. If you haven’t seen the films, check them out.

I got my Zaino car polish products in the mail yesterday so now I’m anxious to try them out, but I’m going to have to find some good time to do that. I’m thinking if I can get out of here early tomorrow, I can go straight over to my parents’ house to wash the car down and maybe get the first coat of polish on. I will probably be able to do a second coat, then, in the morning on Saturday, which would be good because my class reunion’s that night and I’d like to have a spiffy car for the occasion. Not that my car’s not already spiffy, but a nice coat of polish would do it well.

My parents went to Mamma Mia! last night and they liked it a lot, though they agreed that a couple of the actors were a little wooden. I did have a good time with it, it just wasn’t quite what I expected. Anyway, Mom took the shirt Jenn bought at the show on Tuesday back to the show when she went on Wednesday and the concessions guy traded it in for a different model shirt that would fit. That’s cool, so Jenn will get her Mamma Mia! shirt. It’s not the one she wanted, but it’s a shirt. Sucks that the one she wanted didn’t fit. (The other girls’ shirts there also only came in “fitted large” size, which I think is crazy - in today’s society, “one size fits all” is not a valid way to fly. Jenn ended up getting the “generic t-shirt” style shirt, which is not nearly as cute as the one she wanted.)

10:43a

The teacher has said that if he lets us go to fast and we get out too early, he’ll be in trouble, so I guess we’re taking more breaks to fill the time. That’s okay. During the downtimes I’m catching bits of Harry Potter. Getting closer to done…

11:25a

Lunchtime! I’d best go to the store and get me another book; I’m really close to done here!

12:22p

I finished Harry Potter at lunch and I think this is the best one yet. I liked how you get to see more of his internal feelings of growing up, becoming interested in girls, etc. It makes him a much richer character. Not to mention a darn good story and a lot more of the workings of the wizarding society - more information on the Ministry of Magic and so forth. I think this will make a spectacular movie when the time comes.

Of course, if you haven’t read the first four books, I don’t know that this fifth book is the place to start. Newbies aren’t going to get all the references to the previous books and will miss several subtle yet significant points. That doesn’t mean “go see the movies and skip the books” - you need to read the books to get all the subtle stuff and then read this latest. It’ll be worth your effort.

1:15p

We’re already done with the stuff for today, but the teacher’s going to get in trouble if we get out too early, so we’re going to look at some other advanced topics that aren’t really covered in the class (like some of the XML stuff that SQL Server can do).

I’m all for leaving right now, since I could go over to my parents’ house and start cleaning up my car or maybe go home and do some of the labs for the Programming Windows Apps class. But I don’t want the guy to get into trouble, so I’ll hang out.

2:27p

Well, class is done, but I’m in the process of reformatting my blog to use CSS (why not, right?) so I’ll be here for a little longer.