_  __      __               __  __ ___
        | |/ /0__ _/ /___  _____ __  \ \/ // _ `
        | / / / _`/ __/__\/ __\ / /   /  // ___/
        |__/_/\__/\__/\__/_/   \ /   /_/\/_/
                              /_/                  Student Edition


    This is really the December issue of VictoryXP.  The January issue
will come in the next week or two, and I promise less geek talk and lots
of exciting pictures starring such lovable people as *Me*, *Malcolm
Gillis*, and *That Guy You've Never Seen Before*.  You won't want to
miss it!
    Here's a link to the archive in case you missed a previous issue:
http://victorynetwork.net/michael/victoryxp/

WEATHER
In the words of the great Roger Pine, cold weather "SUUUUUUCKS!"  Fort
Collins is starting to get kind of cold.  Honestly I don't know if I'll
make it through the winter or not.  (Many of you know that I'm not very
resistant to cold.)  At least I am able to wear slightly nicer clothes.
People at HP dress about as well as people at Rice.

WHICH IS WORSE?  THE ILLNESS OR THE CURE
After eating a nice tasty Big Mac I decided to rinse my mouth with
Listerine.  I use Listerine about once every five weeks because that's
how long it takes me to forget how nasty Listerine is.  For the first
time ever I was able to use it for the full 30 seconds.  In the past I
was never able to keep the fiery liquid in my mouth for more than 10
seconds... you know, because of the searing pain and putrid taste.  But
I learned today that after about 15 seconds my mouth goes numb and the
pain subsides, after which I can easily hold it in for a minute.  I
always wondered how Mike Schwartz could use that stuff, and finally I
know.

MY ROOMMATES AND OUR AMAZING CONVERSATIONS
Henceforth my roommates shall be referred to as "Carson" and "Karl".
(Carson owns the house.)  We had a prolonged discussion, starting at a
pizza place, on the thermal conductivity of the tile used as a hotpad,
and that carried over to a more general conversation on thermal
conductivity of materials, and whether thermal and electrical
conductivity are closely related or not.
    Upon learning that diamond is the most (heat) conductive material
known to man, Karl began a long string of gloating that conveniently
ignored his fallacious view on tile/ceramics which was the original
argument. Carson has since dubbed this 2 hour incident "The Great
Thermal Conductive Debate".  With the exception of this retelling,
hopefully this topic will never be spoken of again.

AIRPORT SECURITY:  LONG LINES ARE THE KEY TO SAFETY
When returning to Colorado after Thanksgiving, I was able to run a hard
drive through the x-ray with no questions, which leads me to believe I
could run anything I want through (guns, explosives, etc.) as long as I
were to encase it with a rectangular parallelepiped made of sheet
metal.  Good to know, isn't it.


11/19/2001  (The following is an exact recount of a conversation I had
with another HP employee who started about five
months before me.  Let me know if you find it enjoyable to read or just
meaningless.)


Brandon: Do you have one?
Michael: ...One what?
Brandon: a digital camera

Michael: Just out of curiosity, how was I supposed to know that "one"
was a digital
camera?

Michael: Were you just talking about this with someone else or
something?
Brandon: Yeah, I just asked both Chris and Shahram.
Michael: So you thought I might have overheard you ask them or
something?
Brandon: Yeah.
Michael: Oh ok...  No, I don't have one.


SNOWBOARDING = FUN... OR DOES IT?
I went snowboarding with a bunch of people on Dec 2.  I had never been
skiing or snowboarding before, and it was really hard to do.  I must
have fallen over about 150 times that day.  After the first three hours
the group met up for lunch, and during lunch someone asked me how it was
going.  I replied, "Well it would have been a lot easier for two guys to
just take me out back and beat the crap out of me, but I suppose this
was more fun."