Rodney McKay

When I was watching Stargate Atlantis the other week, I realized that I was very much like the character Rodney McKay with the major exception that I know how to keep my mouth shut. The episode I was watching when I realized this was "Trio." McKay believes himself to be able to do anything and thinks very highly of himself. He also has a bit of trouble relating with other people. The major difference between the character McKay and me is my knowledge of when to hold my tongue and my choice to hold it much, much more often than does McKay.

McKay and Dr. Keller are quickly becoming my favorite characters on the show. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite quotes comes from a dialog between the two:

Keller: McKay! I've been trying to reach you.

McKay: Well, you know, trying to save the city and what not.

[several minutes later]

McKay: You're a genius.

Keller: Well, you know, trying to save a life and what not.

Awkward Situations

Everyone has been in an awkward situation at one point or another. No one likes them, but I think they are a part of life. (It is weird how as I just start to write about a topic, I change my thesis as I write the first sentences.) One of my most harsh criticisms of the Harry Potter movies in their deviations from the books is in their side-stepping of awkward situations. When watching the each movies for the first time, I would cringe when an awkward situation was just about to happen. Just then, the scene would change, and the situation would be avoided entirely. The movies would have been immeasurably better if they had not chickened out by cutting (or never filming) these scenes.

This brings us to my life. I absolutely hate awkward situations. When faced with an awkward situation, my default reaction is to disappear as quickly as possible with as few people noticing as possible (preferably, no one.) Obviously, this is an undesirable solution to an equally undesirable problem. Therefore, I try to learn from my mistakes. After encountering such a situation, I think back try to determine how to diffuse the awkwardness.

Two situations I experienced (is that the right word?) recently, neither of which I shall mention here, were of this awkward type. For the first situation, upon careful consideration, I was able to come up with a solution. I have since had several opportunities to test this solution in practice, and can say that it has worked flawlessly.

The second such situation that comes to mind has given me more grief. The only diffusing solutions I could come up with would require one or more additional awkward situations, which I despise so greatly. I wish I could come up with a simple solution for every problem, but I am simply not omniscient. My temporary (or rather semi-permanent) solution for this second type of situation is to carefully watch out for and identify its potential occurrence, and to steer clear (physically, if possible) of its occurrence.

P.S. Some time in the future, I may update this post with the specifics of these situations, but, at this time, they are too pertinent and sensitive for me to mention (considering that this is a publicly-accessible medium.)

Time

My how time flies! I only have three weeks left until I have to head off to RPI. I am no doubt excited about this, but there are some things that I wish to accomplish first.

Firstly, and probably most importantly, I want to finish off my work on the NHS web site. The work that remains to be done consists mostly of completing the system for updating the site via a web interface. I have done virtually no work on it so far this summer.

The next thing my queue of things to complete is a Beowulf cluster that my friend and I have been working on over the summer. We have been gathering older computers, and are attempting to get them to work together in parallel to perform computing-intensive tasks. We are doing it as mainly a proof-of-concept and to gain some additional experience.

Less importantly, but possibly unwisely high on my list, I am re-reading the first six Harry Potter books. As I type this, I am paused at the end of the fourteenth chapter of the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I am re-reading the first six books so that the story line will be fresh in my mind when the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out tomorrow. I have ordered a boxed set of the entire series in hardcover, but it won't arrive until October according to Amazon.

Getting back on topic, I have recently noticed that there is too little time. There are all of the things mentioned above that I want to do, and more, but time seems to be flying. It is already Friday, and it feels as if Monday were yesterday. I notice that I am probably about a quarter of the way through my life, supposing I live to be seventy-six years old. There are several other things to be done this summer. For one, I need to start getting in shape for next month when I will go up to Rensselaer for the ROTC program. I also want to, some time in the future, watch the entire series of Star Trek Voyager. I watched an episode of it the other day on television, and it reminded me of how good the show is. I have watched the entire series of the following shows: Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, 24, and Smallville.

Anyway, back to reading Harry Potter -- if I don't fall asleep first, that is.