My day didn't start out too good, but it got better. I was running just a little bit late getting out of the house, but then there was a lane that was closed before I got on the highway. That added at least 10 - 15 minutes to my commute. By the time I got to campus, the parking garage I normally park in was full, but I didn't know it was full until I spiraled all the way to the top. Another 5 minutes wasted. I drive to the next closest lot, which normally has open spots, but that was full. Crap. I dig in my back-pack for the campus parking map, but I must have taken it out. I just start driving around campus looking for the yellow commuter lots. I pull into three or four and they are all full. I finally find a spot on the street right about the time class is starting, and it is about 1 mile away from my building!

I get to class about 12 minutes late. The professor is still talking about the exam we had on Monday. Cool, I didn't miss any new material. From what I have heard him talking about, it sounds like the test scores were not good. He walks over to me as he is talking with a stack of what looks like about 10 to 15 exams and asks if I am Brad. I nod and say yes, but he is admittedly bad with names. I didn't think he knew mine. Crap. I must have really bombed the test. I was a little bummed out after I took it on Monday. I knew I didn't ace it, but I was pretty sure I could get in the "B" range, and I was crossing my fingers that I wasn't in the "C" range. He hands me my test, and on the top in big red ink is a "60". Grrrr….. I page through it really quick looking for red ink to see what areas I messed up, but not wanting to look too long so other people don't see how poorly I did. I then stick it in my notebook and close it. He keeps talking about how he is confident that everyone in class can bring their scores up, and he wants us all to do well, and that he doesn't like to give bad grades, etc. etc.

He then puts the grading scale on the board. An "A" is 55 and above. Huh? I dig my test out again. The numbers were points not percentages. Yeah! I got an "A". There were 70 possible points on the exam. I looked at the guy next to me and it looked like he had a 17. Yeah! So that was a good way to start turning my morning around.

In my next class the professor announces that the University can give students a free copy of Microsoft MapPoint 2004! It is a $300 piece of mapping software that I was actually thinking pretty seriously about buying. Yeah yeah yeah!!!

Near the end of the class he is talking about programming custom functionality in MapPoint using Visual Basic 6.0. I raise my hand and ask if you have to have Visual Basic 6.0, or if the free version of Visual Studio .Net that I just got this week will work. He says it has to be Visual Basic 6.0, and that he has copies for anyone that wants it! Yeah yeah yeah!!! It was only myself and one other guy that stuck around after class to get the software. As he is handing us the 4 installation disks and 2 manuals that come with it, he tells us that the normal price of the software is $1,200! Holy crap. What a great day this turned into!

I am looking forward to watching the Cubs again tonight. I am not normally a baseball fan, but I will usually watch the World Series, and a few of the games in the playoff. It's even more enjoyable now that a Chicago team is in the playoffs.