Ahh, what a nice day. I think it may have sprinkled a bit, but otherwise it's sunny and a perfect 82 degrees. I'm just sitting outside at Ogeechee Tech, pondering my thoughts for the day and enjoying the weather.



I can't believe it's almost September already! I am NOT looking forward to winter. At least I'll be down south for most of it and have a trip to Disney to look forward to in mid-December.

I have a new laptop coming soon. As much as I like my current ThinkPad T42, I needed something a bit more powerful so I could run Office 2013 for school. I also have a new commercial-grade VHS deck too with Dolby noise reduction, adjustable tracking, and more. Should come in handy for transferring some old VHS tapes to DVD. It needs a bit of work but I think I can get it going again. I know it needs a new bulb behind some VU meters and I think some of the old lubricant dried out as it won't pull the tapes in the machine anymore (it gets most of the way inside but then gets stuck). Pics and updates to come as soon as I have the time to work on it.

Finally, I have something I've wanted for a long time on its way. I won't reveal what it is yet, but I'll be sure to post about it when it gets here!

Regards,

Nick (nick99nack)

There are some changes coming soon. New content, some design changes (moving away from the Slingo theme) and more!

Ahh the things you hear and see when you're boarding an airplane. I had to reschedule my flight yesterday because I would've missed my connection in Atlanta and have to sleep in the airport overnight. But anyway... I overheard a couple ladies talking behind me in the line to get on the airplane. Apparently one of them met their boyfriend online a couple years ago and this is only the second time they're seeing each other in person. And it seems that whenever they talk, she always has to be the one to initiate things... Sounds to me like she takes a back seat to whatever else he has going on at the time. And he has a shoe fetish... Man, the people you meet online lol. Oh, finally the Delta website loaded after about 10 minutes of it just sitting there. And now it's snack time! I'll pick this up once I'm done eating.

*Five minutes later*

The peanut packs have gotten smaller. I ate those in about 30 seconds. The only reason it took me as long as it did was because I had some Pringles saved from yesterday.

Ah well, I won't bore you any further with my ramblings. I don't remember what the original point of my post was. But, here's a picture of me and some guy who fell asleep behind me on the airplane the first night after we were on board the plane for about 15 minutes. His snoring sounded like Darth Vader.

Oh, and I'll be posting comparisons of the 1987 and 2009 Beatles CDs, so be sure to check that out if you're interested in that sort of thing.

So, what's changed since I last posted here in February? Not a whole lot. In my attempt to take over the Internet, I joined Instagram (@nick99nack), and I made my first post on Twitter (also @nick99nack). I also joined imood and plan to post updates on that site every so often too.

***Site Updates***

There's probably not much here that most people would notice. Most of the updates come in the form of some style tweaks in order to make the site backwards-compatible with older browsers. Users of modern browsers actually shouldn't notice a difference at all.

Things you might have noticed:

• The imood indicator under my picture


• The Yahoo! Messenger indicator


• The AOL Instant Messenger indicator


• The imood status page

So really, it's just the indicators. The rest of the updates were just some code changes that made the site compatible with a wider range of browsers and devices. Adding backwards-compatibility to the site made the code a lot more robust, and it finally fixed the problem I was having with the page being cut in half on mobile devices. This site is now backwards-compatible with:

• Netscape 6.x and up


• Internet Explorer 5 and up

And... that's about it. Hopefully I'll get around to posting here more often, as long as I don't get too overwhelmed with schoolwork.

Good luck.

--Nick Higgins

Well, after a long delay, I figured now would be a good time to start this blog. And what better way to kick it off than to finally write a review I've been meaning to write for the past few months. Hopefully this review will get people talking and maybe change some people's minds before they make the same mistake I did. Anyway, here goes nothing:

I attended Middlesex County College for four semesters (Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015). I decided to take a break from MCC for Spring 2015 to re-evaluate what exactly what I wanted to do, and I ended up changing majors. Now, the first thing I'd like to admit is that I was not a perfect student. I made just about every mistake in the book. What the college did to me, however, was just inexcusable.

In my first semester (FA '13), I took Business Organization & Management with Professor Ken Dorflaufer. At the end of the semester, I had a C+ in the course, and that was reflected in the gradebook shown online.Fast forward to the end of summer 2015: I went back to Middlesex to get a new schedule made for the upcoming semester. I went to see the advisor, then went back to the library to pick my schedule. While I was on the computer there, I happened to take a look back at my past grades just to double check what classes from my old major could be used toward my new major. When I went back to Fall 2013, the grade I had gotten in Business Organization had changed from a C+ to an F. I printed out a copy, went back to the advising office and showed them what happened. They said to gather any evidence I had and take it to the dean, so I did just that. Luckily, I'm kind of a file and document hoarder, so I still had an original print of my grades from 2013, along with every test and quiz we got back. I only had one of the article analysis papers we had to do, however. I don't know where I stored the others and they were probably thrown away accidentally. Nevertheless, I made copies of everything I had and handed them in to the dean's secretary to have everything looked over.

After a so-called "investigation", I met with the dean (Jeffrey Herron) to discuss his findings. He told me that there was no record of someone changing my grade and that the instructor (who is apparently "either retired or no longer living", according to other sources that work at the school) said that the grade was never supposed to be anything other than an F. It doesn't make any sense, because all of my test grades and homework grades add up to a C+ (see attached pics for details). When I told him this and showed him the papers, he stated that he didn't have to change my grade, because according to college policy, all grade appeals must be filed within one year of the end of the class. Of course, in my case, there would have been no reason for me to file an appeal right after the class ended, because the grade was originally correct, and I don't know at what point the grade actually changed.

Needless to say, it was my last semester there. MCC put me through a lot even before this, with many incompetent or rude staff members who didn't seem to care one bit about the students who attend. They aren't all bad, though. Some of my professors were actually very good at what they do, and are genuinely nice people (Francis Burke, Virve Lane, Nicholas Archer and Jayne Kinder, to name a few). It's a shame they had to work at such a terrible school. If you're just starting out looking for a college, do yourself one big favor and stay far away from Middlesex County College! If I can convince even one person to stay away from this school, then this review will have been worth it.

TL;DR: Incompetent and rude staff; grade randomly changed from C+ to an F for no apparent reason and dean refuses to fix it. Pictures attached for evidence.

Scans of my past grades, tests and homework can be found here, and there is also a PDF version of this review that can be found here.