Grr. Don’t you just hate it when your browser– or worse, your entire computer– comes crashing down as you write an entry for your weblog? I know I do.

Before my computer decided to thwart me with its cold Blue Screen of Death (which resulted, incidentally, from the use of a gadget mentioned later in this post), I was sitting here in this hotel room in Daytona, trying to write about the ACM Programming Competition Southeastern Regionals (or, as one of my friends has somewhat jokingly referred to it, the “Daytona 486”), in which I and numerous others participated earlier today. The results are in, and Mercer University’s Essential Bear team– a.k.a. Team A, a.k.a. the team that I’m on– placed ninth overall, with eight problems solved, the highest number solved by any school in the undergraduate division. That’s right: we placed first in our division!

But wait, it gets better. Mercer Team D placed second in the undergrad division, Team B placed fourth, and Team C placed fifth. All four of Mercer’s programming teams, in other words, were in the top five in our division!

And I’d be content with that, but it gets even better. One of the prizes given to each member of the winning team in our division was this webcam/digital-camera thing (yes, these gadgets are rather hard to describe concisely). Naturally, I’ve been playing around with mine tonight… I’m such an easily amused geek, I know, I know. 😀

Anyway, I’ll be returning to Macon with the rest of the team tomorrow– OK, technically today, though tonight is somewhat of a time warp anyway. It’s been quite a fun trip, though, and I’m extremely proud of how well we performed at the competition.