Bobbis.net

Well, Wednesday was a pretty good day. Nothing much to do at work, the FilmFestival ad printed just fine, took a nap and had a nice pork chop dinner.

Church was nice. We missed Colin. Tyler played the organ (I love organ music), we sung Christmas carols around the fireplace in the main room setting on the couches or whatever we could find to sit on. At the end of service, everyone sang happy birthday to me and Ben N. They even brought out a couple cakes for us. I really wasn't expecting them to celebrate my birthday as well, but I guess as long as they are doing for Ben, why not.

Service ended around 11:00, extra long this time. Adrienne, Dave S., Dave C., Erik, and Ben J. took me out for a drink at Welch Ave. Station. I had something called a "pissed off Japanese fisherman" that really wasn't very strong at all. It was mostly cranberry juice I think. I also had a shot of something called "oatmeal cookie" that wasn't very strong either. We watched the new episode of South Park and I headed home around 12:00.

Today, I got up around 11:00. It felt really good to sleep in. I can't wait for the semester to be over. Got to work with my lunch and a few minutes into my sandwich Tom came by with another tech from Animal Science. We talked a bit and complained about Telecom pulling jacks in Kildee at random (earlier this week I troubleshot a problem that got narrowed down to that). Apparently it's a very common problem there. After he left, it was time to finish my lunch and dig into the shipment of new computers that came in. It was Christmas time again.

I got the dean's new setup to work on over finals week. As part of her new setup, I get to play with another 20" Apple Cinema display. This time I get to use it for a few days as the dean is not due back from D.C. until later next week :-D.

Also, there are two openings for Apple Campus Reps. Stan asked me to inform the list. Since the job has flexible hours and a max of 15 per week, I'm thinking that it would be a good idea to apply for the job. Having a formal employment with Apple Computer, Inc. would look really good on the resume. Perhaps Colin should apply as well. Knowing the previous Apple Campus Reps, the job shouldn't be very hard. All the years I've been going to ISU, I have only met a campus rep once or twice. He couldn't answer any questions since he was mainly a Windows guy and made the switch when he got the job :rolleyes: .

Anyway, I left for accounting class at 3:30 only to find several fire trucks in front of Gilman. The instructor somehow got a good portion (the dedicated people) from our class to have class in the library. On the way there I said hi to Maggie as she was also displaced by the alarm. I have to say, the review session was worth the hassle of waiting around outside for things to get organized.

When I got home, the matriarch of the family decided that it was time to move a bunch of furniture around. Since my dad had just had retinal surgery a few weeks ago, he was instructed not to do much heavy lifting. This left me to do most of the hard work. I swear, she is going to be milking me of work before I head out to New York. All the moving left a bit of a mess in my living space in the basement. I have been doing such a good job keeping it all somewhat neat and clean since Gaila and I hooked up, and now, in a few hours, it has gotten all cluttered again. I don't have time to clean it up or do anything about it.

Friday is going to be school and work. After work, I'm going to stay in the office to work on my paper until 7:00 for game night. The rest of the weekend is either going to be studies or massive amounts of work from the matriarch. It's times like these I really wish I had my own place where I wouldn't be distracted my the 'rents.

So, I have just finished dinner and am now just getting to my computer. I was planning on starting my history paper tonight, but as you can see I'm typing a long blog entry instead. So, I should get to work on that. Have a good night.

So, today was my birthday. There was very little celebration going on, and much work, studies and being tired. 8 am class to review for the History Final. I misread the requirements for the paper, it read 10 to 15 pages, but has been laxed to 5 to 10 pages, so that really helped out with my concern. They still require one primary source.

Work was long. I was tired most of the time, and ended up working on getting the 2005 FilmFestival site ready for people to visit via our ad that is supposed to run tomorrow in the Daily. I also worked on an old OS 9 PowerBook trying to get a third party wireless card to work. I also had to field a few phone calls.

When I got home, I waited a while for dad to get home and they gave me some gifts. I got my iTrip and FireWire cable (works great!). I also got a nice sweater I think I will like for a while, and a new office chair. The office chair was not on my list, but it was something that I had been complaining about a lot lately, as mine is a piece of junk.

We then went to Cafe NorthWest for some steak. I had a couple of glasses of wine and they gave me a cheese cake with a birthday candle in it. We've been there for a lot of birthdays for the family, but I think this must have been the first time they actually did something about it.

When we got back, I talked to my cousin Jody (her birthday was yesterday) then went to work on my Accounting homework that was due tonight. While doing my homework, I got a call from my bro wishing me a happy birthday and we also discussed what we might be doing while I'm in New York.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank those who wished me a happy birthday. Thanks for your post Adrienne, perhaps Friday would be a better day to go out and have fun. Anyone up for seeing Mission Improvable on Friday at 9 in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union? Thanks for the eCards Gaila and Mel. Thanks for the physical card Meri. Also, thanks for the teddy Gaila.

Anyway, I'm really tired now, so I think I'm going to go in early. Good night.

Ok, so I'm 21 now. Back to my studies. Having a birthday so close to finals really sucks. I'm thinking I might just skip out on going out after church on Wednesday. I have a huge paper due in History that I still haven't started on.

If you want to know what has been happening the past weekend check out Gaila's Blog as we spent pretty much the entire weekend together.

Good Night.

This is a timestamp for the time I got home after lanfest. Gaila is going to call me at 11:00 so we can do stuff before going to see Mel.

Good Night er morning.

Lawrence


What Office Space character are you?
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Funny, I never really saw myself as identifying with that person.

Anyway, an update to my week:

I really forget what happened when. Tuesday feels like it was almost a month ago. This week has been so long.

Tuesday was Colin's developer presentation. At about 4:45 I stopped by Mol. Bio. to pick up their projector for the presentation, only to find that it was already checked out. I was really lucky to be able to pick one up across the street at ITC within 5 minutes of them closing. I was actually surprised that a few people showed up. One was really interested in learning Cocoa.

Later that night I got my accounting homework handed in with seconds to spare on the deadline for WebCT, and the following morning I was working on my Econ homework during History right before I was to hand it in at the beginning of Econ immediately after class. I have been doing stuff really close to the wire lately, and it can be a little stressful.

Church was a nice opportunity to relax as always. I think I'll be going with some friends to the bar after church next week. I probably won't drink much, just going to hang out for no more than an hour and go home. My 21st is next Tuesday!

Last night was the games demo in Desing 101. The setting there was really cool. There weren't too many power plugs around the auditorium, but I guess that's ok since it's not really meant for people to be plugging in all over the place. The screen was huge, though for film festival we should bring some rags and windex to clean the window between the projector and the screen.

Today, I kept myself faily busy with work. I solved a Final Cut Express problem where it wouldn't launch. Then the new dial-in server died, and I narrowed down the problem enough to dish it off to someone else to take care of later.

Also of interest this week: I recovered access to AmesHigh.net via several e-mail to and from India, and a FAX. Then I had a heck of the scheduling conflict for finals. As of right now here is my tentative schedule for the week of December 13th:

I'm looking forward to LAN-FEST tonight and going down to Indianola with Gaila tomorrow.

Have a good weekend.

So, I have been asked many times how my holiday was. Usually when people ask how I'm doing, I usually just tell them to read my blog. Lately I have been fairly busy with other stuff to actually get around to updating my blog. So, now that I have some time here at work, I can finally do this.

So, I left off last time at the end of Thanksgiving day. Friday I lazed around some more and watched some movies. Saturday was quite the day. I picked up Gaila at 10:30 or so and headed over to church for working at the concession stand at the football game. It was really cold, but over time, I sort of got used to it. Hot chocolate was the real big item. Most of my time was spent putting lids on hot chocolate and passing them out to the registers while Tyler filled the cups. It was like a little assembly line.

After the game, Gaila and I headed over to my place to warm up and relax a bit until we went to Nick and Maggie's for the get together. We were a little late because 1. we forgot our stack of DVDs to bring (which we ended up on using), and 2. had to find the place. There are a lot of apartments in the Lincoln Swing area, but now I know. We watched Shrek 2, ate pizza (reminds me I still owe Nick $5), played Mario Kart on the GameClube, and You Don't Know Jack. Somehow, most of us ended up getting really tired around midnight, so that's when the party ended. I took Gaila home and said goodbye for the week. Nick has a nice picture of me, Gaila, and Mel on the couch that needs to be published somewhere, just so we don't forget.

Sunday was when break ended :-(. The TransLog group project was due Monday, and we had to get it done. Though the only people who actually worked on the the project that Sunday was me and Brian, out of 5 people in the group. We spent the time between 3:00 PM to 11:30 PM working on it with a 1 hour break for dinner. I am so freaking glad that the project is over with. Now I have to start work on my 15 page paper for History.

Tonight is the programming class Colin is teaching at 7:00 in 1340 Molecular Biology Building. Anyone is invited to attend. I'm looking forward to getting a start on Cocoa programming, but I have a feeling that people (including myself) are too swamped with work until the end of the semester to really put much effort into this. I hope turn out turns out okay.

Wednesday will be nice to have church again. I missed not having church last week.

Thursday night is the games demo in 101 Design at 7:00. Then Friday night at 7:00 in the UDCC conference room we will be having our LANFEST until probably 3 AM. Saturday, Gaila will be coming down so we can go see Torjan Women with Mel at Simpson.

Sunday will probably be devoted to studies and the following week is dead week followed by Finals. It's going to be a busy rest of the year until finals are over. I look forward to the semester coming to an end and a nice long break to begin.

Yeah, so it has been a while since I've updated my blog again. Things have been going great. I forget what exactly I did on Monday and Tuesday at work. I know that I got the Plant Science people squared away with their computers, and I got the recipe thing done. I didn't realize it was to be in memory of Cindy Hansen, one of our administrative assistants we lost a few weeks ago. I only really spent 3 or 4 hours straight on this project. All I remember from work this week is that it was a long two days.

Break didn't really start until Monday evening when Gaila came by. We hung out in my basement watching a couple of DVDs. Tuesday, we went to see the Incredibles then back to my place to watch more DVDs. Wednesday, we were planning on going ice skating, but they close too early for when we wanted to get up. We ended up watching more movies until her mom came to take her down to the family gathering in Ottumwa. Later that night I went over to Adrienne's with Colin to watch some movies.

Today has been a lazy day. I made french toast and eggs, dad made the bacon for breakfast. I Worked on holiday shopping for my 'rents, at their request, via apple.com and amazon.com. It's not fun when I actually order the gifts I will receive. Though, shopping has reminded me of some other stuff that I would like, and thus my wishlist entry has been updated.

We didn't do anything with the extended family this year. Between dad's detached retina (Sorry, I didn't mention that earlier. I had to take him to Des Moines Sunday morning at 8:00 AM for surgery to fix it, he's doing ok, but has to take it easy), and mom not really in the mood for travel, we decided that it would be best just for use to do our own thing. I liked it. It was relaxing.

It doesn't feel like it's past 11:00. I'm going to watch West Wing now. I hope you have/had a nice holiday.

Tis the season to be a greedy college student. The following is a list of items that I would appreciate as gifts. Most of these are probably out of price range, but one can dream. This is mainly intended for the 'rents so they can have easy clickable access to what I want.

• CHECKGriffin iTrip FM transmitter for iPod with click wheel available at Apple Store


• CHECKFireWire cable for iPod with click wheel available at Apple Store


• Sort of Check17" or larger LCD screen from one of the following vendors: Apple, Dell, Sony, ViewSonic, NEC, or Samsung


• Some fairly formal clothing. Being a business major, I need to look sharp every once in a while.


• A new or better fitting suit


• CHECKLord of the Rings: Return of the King Special Edition DVD


• CHECKShawshank Redemption


• StarWars Trilogy on DVD


• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book)


• 50 foot Cat5e ethernet cable


• CHECKHero DVD


• Harold and Kumar go to White Castle


• Back to the Future Trilogy


• Set of 4 AA rechargable batteries and charger

This is really all that I can think of at the moment. The list will probably grow.

So, what has happened this week? A lot has happened. Monday and Tuesday nights were devoted to the crappy TransLog project. Wednesday night was TransLog project again, skipping most of FUG, then going to church to relax.

Wednesday service really has done good things for me. Thanks for getting me involved Meri. Next week there will be no Wednesday service because there will be no students. Also, I will be volunteering at the concession stand at the football game on Saturday the 27th since nobody is in town to do it. Hopefully Colin will be able to do it was well.

Thursday I went into work at 8:00 AM with the expectation that we were going to show off a computer set up to the dean, but Tom was mistaken, so I just stayed at work until class at 3:30. Since things were already set up, I was able to use the 20" Apple LCD display all day with my PowerBook. Oh DROOL. That, indeed, was a good day for computing.

The officer's meeting was highly productive. We got an advertising strategy for the programming contest and Film Festival done. We all have a bit of work to do on it before winter break. The LAN-FEST will be Friday, December 3rd in the UDCC conference room starting at 7:00 PM. Tuesday, November 30th will be the programming tutorial by Colin. Lots of stuff.

After the meeting I picked up Colin to go to surprise Jen (nerdig's GF) for her birthday. We had cake and watched Road Trip. I didn't get home until 1:00 AM, sleep at 2:00.

Friday was a really long day. I can't believe I'm still up right now writing this, it has been such a long day. Though, talking to Gaila online makes it worth it.

8:00 AM. Take computer system up to dean's office for evaluation. Talk to dean about the coolness of the system to help her feel comfortable with the decision to purchase a similar system. The setup did most of the talking anyway. Fix AccessPlus problem for dean's secretary. Run across campus to Carver Co-Lab to pickup computer. Backup, restore, and install software from old computer to new computer while figuring out file sharing problem from budget and finance without Tom or Chris. Return computers to Carver Co-Lab, setup and run though how to use the new system for the user. Lunch at 2:30. Setup Mac using dean computers and users for new file server and password use. 3:30 first time in the day to actually take a break. Get home 5:30 (feels like 11 or 12). Order pizza, take a nap. Wake up with pizza, then for some reason I had to talk online with Gaila until now, even when I'm so tired. At least I can sleep in really late tomorrow.

I don't know what's going on next week. I'll be working all day Monday and Tuesday. I'm taking Wednesday off because I have been working so much the past two days, so I need my hours to even out. Tom wants me to work on a quick project for the users over the holidays. An online recipe submission and search program.

Anyway, it's late and this is a long entry. Good Night.

So, I got my credit card bill yesterday. On it was a $30 late charge and $1.90 in interest added on top of an unpaid balance of $98.34. I know I pay off my card completely every month, so this really threw me. I went back in my records to see what was up. My previous statement was torn off, there was a carbon copy of the check in my checkbook, though the check had not passed through my bank. I'm thinking the check got lost in the mail. I'll call the credit card provider tomorrow at work to see if I can convince them to take away that charge. I'm sure they really like not earning interest on me and would be willing to help a good client out. What is it with banks taking my money lately. First it was an ATM machine taking $20 (which I recovered) and now the post has lost my payment.