Bobbis.net

One more thing I forgot about that I have to do this week was ClubFest on Wednesday. If you want to check out some of the fine organizations on campus stop by the Memorial Union between 7 and 9 PM on Wednesday the 26th.

It is the start of another week. Already this semester has become routine. I guess that can be a good thing, so I don't have to worry about something changing in my school schedule. This week is going to be pretty busy. I've got a test on Friday, and a quiz today (and tomorrow, but there is always a quiz for Econ every Tuesday). Work, I will be taking all my time integrating the undergraduate and transfer scholarship applications with the administration system. At home I need to clean up the basement and take down Christmas decorations that have been partially picked up since the beginning of the year. Then, Friday and that weekend will make my entire week when Gaila comes back to town :-). Saturday, I'm having a bunch of high school friends over to hang out to celebrate Gaila's birthday. I can't wait for the weekend.

Anyway, about last weekend. Friday night I didn't think I would be doing anything, but I ended up seeing The Aviator with a bunch of friends from church. I had to scrape my windshield before leaving for the movie and after the movie because of the freezing rain that night. On the way out of the theater, I discovered a new low for movies, I didn't think it could get any worse. Saturday I went over to Adrienne's with Colin. We ordered some Jimmy Johns, played Trivial Pursuit 90s edition, and watched Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Tom was right to think that this would become a cult classic because out of 3 video stores, they were all rented out for DVD. We had to rent a VHS of all things! Sunday, I found my way to church for a change, even though I stayed up late Saturday night talking with a bunch of people online until about 3:00 am.

Some of you may have noticed that my web site was not available Saturday. From what I could tell, my server was blocked at the campus border because AIT thought it was doing something wrong with NetBIOS packets (some crazy Windows networking protocol). I have no clue why such a thing would happen. I run Linux, and nothing on my machine does anything remotely related to what NetBIOS does. I didn't get a chance to contact anyone about it, but they un-blocked me by Sunday morning.

Anywho, I shouldn't be wasting my time updating my blog when I have work to get done before Friday.

Wow, how have I not been able to post much this week? I've done a good job keeping myself busy this week. I came into campus early again on Wednesday only to find that Tom was still sick. The ad did run on Wednesday like we wanted so that was a good thing.

Also, there was an odd discussion started on the MUG mailing list. Djoe decided to forward a petition for Apple to include some very obscure feature into OS X. Far more technical than what would be in the scope of the general mailing list. Djoe has a reputation for being quite stubborn with ideas and very vocal about his opinion. If he reads this, I'm sure he would find something to comment about.

Anyway, later that night Colin and I went to FUG and started the meeting out with discussion on the earlier debate that happened on the MUG list. Later on we went to church then I went home to crash.

Thursday was a bit of a long day. 9:30 class taught by someone with a thick, monotoneistic, eastern European accent that doesn't use a microphone in a large auditorium allowed me to nap a little more in the morning. Tom was in so I finally got the intramural in. I wanted to get a lot done with the scholarship system, but ended up doing some trivial work on the freshman system that was already running. The circuit breaker blew in the office so half the computers (nothing on the rack went down thanks to backup batteries) went off, including my web server. When I brought it back on, the date got set to 4 hours into the future.

MUG was ok. I had to use my laptop to watch the low quality ripped stream of the keynote, so I was not able to make it to a computer security contest briefing meeting that night. Though it is nice to be able to present a video full screen to a projector and still use the same computer for IM, web browsing, and general computer work at the same time. Every day, except maybe Tuesday, felt like I was really busy, but not much got done. I hate that feeling.

I found this article about what you wish you would have known when you were in high school. Even though the article is geared towards high school students, it can still be applied to people who are in college, are already in in their careers, or still looking for something to do. I thought it offered a different way into looking how you live your life and it might have some useful nuggets of advice. It was an interesting read.

Anyway, I should probably get some work done.

Bah! I hate the campus bureaucracy. To get a Daily ad to run, campus orgs need to request the service and get a quote, fill out an intramural form, have it signed by the Treasurer, Faculty Advisor, and get approved by the campus organizations accounting office. Problem is, our treasurer is out on internship this semester, but I got the form faxed in with his signature, but today the faculty advisor is out sick (like usual if the temperature isn't between 68 and 72 degrees outside with 50% humidity and a light breeze). So, we were running on a short deadline to run our ad on Wednesday. We needed to get the intramural in by 9:00 AM this morning. Now I have to wait until Tom is no longer sick to get it in a soon as possible. Grrr! I got up and into work at 7:45 this morning for nothing!

Anyway, I suppose you really like hearing my ranting so I'll let you know what happened since my last post.

I had to make an adjustment to my schedule. I dropped CRP 270 for two reasons. I was not liking the class (it felt more like a literature class than something to do with cities) and I'm retaking Econ again. It really annoys me that I'm not getting a high enough GPA in the foundation classes. If it doesn't work out this semester I will just get myself a management degree and do all my computer work in my spare time or take some programming classes audit if that's possible.

I spent the majority of the weekend with Gaila online, about 3 hours on the phone Friday. We are thinking about having some of the high school gang over to my place on the 29th to celebrate Gaila's birthday which is on the 1st. We'll probably send out an email later with details.

Take Care

Hmmm, I seem to have found some old pictures from high school. Now I have a nice place to put them and we can all laugh at how we were 5 years ago.

Yeah. I'm finally done, for the most part, with rebuilding my computer. Between class, work, and organizing for class, I really haven't had too much time to be working on it. I have to say, that starting with a fresh install of OS X really makes my computer seem a lot more responsive. Also, all the screen space on this 20" Cinema Display is really nice. So that's what is new with my computer. :)

So, what has been going on lately? Thursday evening, I went to the Apple Store to get my price difference refund of $280, then went to the airport to pick up Gaila. I have to say that was the shortest time I have or probably will spend in that mall or store. The rest of the time until Sunday was spent hanging out with Gaila. We shot some pool and went bowling at the Union, and saw After the Sunset at the North Grand cinema. Good movie, B.

Macworld was Tuesday. Apple cancelled the stream and the satellite downlink for the keynote, so nobody got to watch the event as it happened :(. The best things of note from the keynote is the release of the iPod Shuffle and the Mac mini. The new iPod is a flash memory based iPod and the Mac mini is a $500 headless Mac, and really small. Check out the links. They also released iWork which is comprised of Keynote and a new document layout program called Pages. Hehe, as I was cleaning out files I found this article about how Apple would not introduce a headless Mac back in September.

Today Colin and I went to a FUG SIGBAP at the Stomping Grounds on Welch. Met a new guy on campus who is starting this semester and knew Colin from IHCC. We then went to church. It has been a while since I've been there. I found a new, familiar face in the group. She was familiar because she was on our bus trip to the Apple Store. She decided to join our group from St. Thomas in order to help her understand the differences and the reasons behind the different churches and their rules and traditions.

Anyway, I shouldn't be spending too much time here. I've got school stuff and MUG stuff to take care of now. I hope everyone had an enjoyable break and are looking for a good semester.

I will not be reachable via my computer until next week sometime. If you need to contact me please call my cell.

Take Care.

Gaila is on her way back to Iowa. Finally we will be able to spend some time together this break. Okay, yeah, we were pretty much inseparable between the time I got off work the Friday of finals week and when I left for New York, but the idea of a break was to be together. We both had these plans and flight tickets long before we hooked up, so I guess such is life.

I called Apple this morning about my white spots, finally. I really should have done it earlier in the week. The box for me to ship my PowerBook out should arrive either tomorrow or Saturday. They said it would take 7 to 10 days, so I guess I'll be without a computer for the first week of school. I probably won't be missing it this weekend though since there will be other, more important, things worthy of my time. I'm also getting a new power adaptor because the light on it flickers. All free of charge.

Tonight, I'm going to backup my computer and image it onto another machine. I'll get started on that as soon as I submit this entry. Then, I'm going down to the Apple store to get some money back for the price drop in the displays. After I get my money I will pick-up Gaila at the airport.

I've got my fall schedule figured out. It's getting posted here and on my school page. I already got my syllabus for Speech. It turns out I will be using that clicker system from MIS 330 last summer that I really hated. I hope I don't have to purchase the service again.

Anyway off to taking care of things. Later.

They dropped the price on my Apple Cinema Display by $200 . I believe the Apple Store has a 30 day price refund guarantee. I'll have to look into that. If anything it might just send me back to spend more money at the store. Grr.

Also, they double charged me on one of the gifts I purchased through amazon.com/borders. They said they cleared it up on the phone and yesterday on the email. If I don't see the charge back in my account by tomorrow I will call them again.

How is it that I have problems with people taking my money all the time?

EDIT: I love how within 30 minutes of macminute posting about the price cuts I already have two people consoling me about the recent price drop. News spreads really fast on the Internet.

My .Mac account has finally expired. For those who used jrearick2 at the mac domain, which I don't think anyone has, your mail will get bounced. My MSN name will stay for a while until I decide to change it. I'll let those on my list know when I do. For all email to me please use my Iowa State address. I suppose I will setup postfix on bobbis.net so that I can use bobbis.net emails properly.