Mad props to Jared for griping about the post he lost, as it prompted me to copy that last post and paste it into Notepad until it was published successfully, and thereby kept it from being lost each of the FOUR TIMES I had to try to publish it. You the man, man.

Up until today, the entirety of my exposure to Sam Houston (the people as well as the place) has been through my brother (or through my brother's friends, which amounts to the same thing). Today I got out on my own for the first time and met people. Specifically, I'm talking about the Sam Houston frisbee team. I'll share my first impression with you: skepticism.

I'm not skeptical at all about the team's ability to turn into a solid team, with good strategy, good handling, good athleticism, good communication, and good chemistry. I'm skeptical about making good friends on the team. I really like the guys from the UH team. Ray, Amir, Frank, and especially Marce, Stoney, and Katie (with apologies to anyone I forgot). And, of course, there's the Thursday night crowd, which makes it even better. But these guys... I dunno. They just don't seem to be my kind of people. When I'd mess up in practice at UH, Marce would tell me, "Dathan, you fucked it up. We can play this two ways. I can cut you from the team, or you can buy me a beer and promise not to do that again." These guys just kind of ignore it. And they invited me to go participate in a Xi Alpha scavenger hunt afterwards. From what I've heard, Xi Alpha is an evangelical Christian organization, and basically amounts to a cult (at least at Sam). Once they get their claws in you, they don't want to let go. But even aside from that (because aside from the Christian part, it sounds like pretty much any fraternity to me), these just don't seem like my kinda people... And it sucks, because I really like frisbee, and I really enjoyed the fact that I really liked the guys I played frisbee with at UH. Nevertheless, I'm going to keep an open mind, despite first impressions. And, if all else fails, I'll stage a hostile takeover and infuse some new, fresh, somewhat vulgar and alcohol-diluted blood into the program. That oughta improve the scene somewhat.

In the mean time, I'm looking forward to school starting. Yay! I get to take Astronomy and Guitar! Yay!

Waddaya say sometime soon (may two weeks, on a Saturday? That's the... 4th of September?) we get together for dinner (and drinks, maybe)? I'm only an hour and a half away. (Cue Family Guy moment) Come on... Come on...

Well, I said it would happen eventually, and here it is. My first posting of a program of mine. It can be found at http://www.firehead.org/~smidgie/prog_stuff .
I'm sure I've shown it to somebody before, but for anyone who doesn't know, it's a Rubik's Cube that scrambles and solves itself. It's done using OpenGL. I included the source code with MSVC 6.0 project and workspace files (GNU makefile to come later), as well as the Win32 binary version (with OpenGL32.dll and GLUT32.dll for anyone who doesn't have them). If you happen to have some free time, download it and lemme know what you think.

Oh, and frisbee practice at Sam starts Monday!

Went to a bar tonight to do some dancing. Never thought I'd have an opportunity to do the salsa at a country western bar, but it seemed to fit, so Anna and I cut a rug. Andy says we got some good looks from some hot girls who were there. I swear, I get more attention from the ladies while I'm dancing than the rest of the year combined. Oh well, it was cool. But here's my point: (Yeah, you know my posts always seem to have a point, even if it's only important to me.) I've always thought that the way people move on the dance floor more or less reflects the way they are in life. A girl who's real relaxed out on the floor, really gets into the feel of the music, and is nice and loose and knows how to move is more likely to be an outgoing, fun, happy-go-lucky person. A girl who's tense and uptight on the dance floor is more likely to be shy, quiet, and easily embarrassed. Or, rather, I think it's a causal relationship. If a girl's shy, quiet, and easily embarrassed, she's likely to be very tense, uptight, and uncomfortable if put out on a dance floor with lots of people. And the inverse applies to girls that are relaxed, outgoing, and relatively carefree. But then I run into instances where my theory breaks down, or is just too black-and-white. Anna's sister, Abbie, is very comfortable with people, more or less outgoing, but embarrasses easily. She moves VERY nicely on the dance floor. That's 2-1, and she acts more toward the outgoing side when she's dancing. On the other hand, she refuses to dance with other people -- she only does hip-hop dancing. Eh? I'm confused... That's kinda weird. Then, there's the girl I met the other day: very outgoing, loud, almost abrasive sometimes. Doesn't embarrass easily, always has a witty remark, wears skimpy clothing to show off what is a nice figure. But she's as stiff as a board if you get her out dancing (by herself, in a group, or with another person)... I'm just confused. Here I thought I had a good theory, and it goes all to hell. <sigh>

On the other hand, it's sometimes pretty easy to tell when someone knows a particular dance. 'Course, I have no guarantee of this, but it looked obvious to me. Saw a cute little dark-complected girl (5'3" or less, looked like she might be a Latina) doing what amounted to a very nice merengue to some hip-hop music at the club. Damn, she looked good. It's a shame I don't enjoy dancing with people I don't know. I mean, I can, but I've never enjoyed it. It sucks. Once I get to know them, it's cool, but until then, I just don't enjoy it. I'm the uncomfortable, uptight, easily embarrassed one. <sigh> (c;

Party on the 21st, for whomever wants to come. Live music, courtesy of my friend Ray and his band (mostly classic rock and country stuff). Come on out. I know school will be just beginning, but maybe you'd like to get away for a last weeked beforehand.