main screen turn on

I found a very good candidate laptop. It has a 1.8GHz Athlon 64 processor, 512MB of ram, an 80GB hard drive, built-in WiFi, a DVD+-RW burner, and a 15" screen for $880. That's an insanely good deal.

I'm just going over my to-do list before I call it a night. Not only that, but I actually did some of the things on it. I finally replaced my windshield wipers today, and I took care of the rebate crap that went with it. I also found out I can get a copy of my friend's recent music recital, so I put a check in the mail for MSU's recording services dept.

I got some Nigerian scam email today, so I sent them an ASCII middle finger as a response. I wish the tech dept would deactivate my MSU physics email so I would get less spam.

finding freeman

I did finish Atlas Shrugged yesterday. It took my 4 days in all, a new record for me.

Our garage sale might be next weekend, so I have to scramble and get everything sorted. I've got tons of stuff to get rid of and it will be good to get it out of here and make a bit of money on the side.

I'm looking at laptop computers again. I got pretty disgusted looking at the big shots' (Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, IBM) notebooks, but I've stumbled into the mobile-Athlon niche and I think I might find something I like.

status report

It's been a few days now and I think I'm liking this blog thing, it's pretty slick. I'm still working on the pictures thing though.

My iPod is fully charged and that gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I wish I had an FM transmitter for it.

I was at the MSU SPS site today and I found I've been a member of it for exactly 14 months. For all the good it did me. Or anyone. I already fired my last salvo at those fools, I just go back for amusement and old time's sake.

I have some stuff to work on this week, but lots of time to do it in and I'm slowly getting my motive power back.

aftermath

My ears are still ringing.

I took some videos along with the pictures at the Hard Lessons concert, they came out really good. They were pretty huge, but DivX brought them down to a reasonable size. Unfortunately they are still too big to consider uploading with dialup, and I don't have a good place to put them, so I can't share them right now.

I am in the home stretch of Atlas Shrugged. I just got to The Speech, so I am saving up my energy to go through that.

the hard lessons

rocking in the name of those who cannot rock for themselves

The Hard Lessons concert was just awesome. I got there early enough to also hear The Nice Device, they are pretty good too. The Hard Lessons opened up with a bunch of video clips from them on their tour, which was cool (and pretty funny too). I took pictures but it's kind of hard because they are always moving around so much. I found and congratulated Augie (Gin) after they finished playing and he said they were going to do a West Coast tour - I told him to make sure they hit Portland.

My ears are still ringing.

all systems go

Well, Atlas Shrugged isn't getting finished today. I've read a little into the second chapter of Part III, but I need a break to enjoy this beautiful day. I'm finding ways to pack even more stuff into my room, and I think I might go to the driving range today. The Hard Lessons concert is tonight, I'm excited about it. I'm going to bring my camera this time.

avionics systems online

I finished Part II of Atlas Shrugged a little early, so I'm doing some cleanup and figuring out what I can get done.

The Hard Lessons concert is tomorrow! I would have gone and scoped out where the club is today, but traffic around here is really bad, doubly so because it's Memorial Day weekend. Besides, I was caught up in my reading.

I have been getting an inordinate amount of spam email. I think everyone at MSU has. Whatever shielded me from spam for 3.5 years is gone now. I would just switch over to Oregon State email but they won't let me set it up until the day I start working for them.

I want to get a laptop. I don't know what to get though. The sticking point is the hard drive. I am willing to get a laptop with a slower processor and less RAM than Riemann Mk. II, but I still need a ton of hard drive space. It doesn't look like most places are willing to let you get a system that is way out of balance like that, so I can either pay more than I want or find an alternate data storage solution. If I get a laptop I'm going to name it Freeman.

I got my diploma today, so I'm official done dealing with MSU.

synchronizing data transfer signal

All I've done today is read Atlas Shrugged. It's been pretty brutal. I have another four chapters to go to finish Part II. Tomorrow I hope to do all of Part III. I feel kind of bad that I'm not taking care of things, like finding an apartment in Corvallis or planning for the garage sale. This is important to me though, and I am not going to ease up. I'll continue working on everything else when I'm done.

Also, the Vin Diesel thread on allmsu.com got killed...so I brought it back.

aligning sensor matrix

I've been graduated for about three weeks now. I'm not sure what to think about MSU now. I beat it. I won. I graduated - with honors, even. I am fairly indifferent to MSU right now though. I am not sobbing like everyone else is about how my carefree undergrad days are over. It is time to move on, there is no reason to look back. I'm recovering and moving on. For me, Oregon State is not just about getting another piece of paper. It's about leaving behind what didn't work, taking what does, and using it as the foundation for the next phase of my life.

I've been up to East Lansing a couple times this week. The weather was very nice, the campus is very green again, and it is much quieter with no one else around. I think that's how I want to remember it.

One more chapter of Atlas Shrugged, then it's bedtime.

optimizing ion stream phasing

I am rereading Atlas Shrugged. I have already gone through seven chapters today and I intend to finish the rest of Part I before I go to bed.

I got another email from Oregon State, this time from the department secretary. It was addressed to this year's new grad students. There are five of us. It's me, two other guys I met at the open house and two others I don't know yet. I was kinda hoping for more. The two guys I've met are probably the two I would have picked to go to school with after going to the open house. At least one of them is also doing the PSM with me. I guess the guy from the open house that had the Schrodinger equation tattooed on his ankle picked somewhere else.

It was nice outside today. I did most of my reading on the deck. I did play a little Gran Turismo 4 today, but only to screw around and buy two more Priuses.

life support levels nominal

Today my dad took me with him to swap his company car. I got to see lots of cool cars at GM's Tech Center. There were a TON of H3 Hummers, plenty of Chevy Cobalts, several Pontiac G6 Coupes and Chevy HHRs, a handful of Pontiac Solstices and Cadillac XLRs and even some right-side drive Holden imports. Pretty cool.

Oregon State finally got back to me and offered me a summer job - a teaching assistantship from mid-July to early September. I'm definitely glad to pick this up, this way I'll get set up out in Oregon long before my classes and real TA job start up. It's also supposed to be really beautiful out there in July and August so whatever time I'm not being a TA I'll be out exploring everything in the area. This job also means I have an actual timeline now to start planning my move. I'm still having a very good time relaxing but I'm also getting stuff done and things are starting to come together.

It's a very nice day outside (for once) so I'm going to go read on the deck and maybe sit in our hot tub. Much better than having a job.

initiating reactor startup sequence

In other news, I got new windshield wipers today because the ones I have were trying to fall apart. I also put Rain-X all over my car windows because it's been raining so much. Better living through chemistry. I saw at least five Chevy Cobalts today, and one Prius. Car watching is fun.

I'm kinda stuck for things to do in Gran Turismo 4 so I'm just buying new cars, tricking them out and driving them for fun. I enjoy just looking at all the cars in my garage. Each car is someone else's take on what a car should be like. That game has given me a newfound respect for cars.

I got this month's issue of WIRED today, which was cool. That magazine is fun to go through for a geek like me.

I'm going up to East Lansing tomorrow to take care of some business. It's good to get out and about.

system booting up

The news part of my website is basically a blog anyway, so I figured I may as well break down and start an actual blog. I might do rants and news this way and keep the other website for different things. I don't know. Bear with me as I conduct this experiment.

I'm trying this out for a couple of reasons. I ran across a blog belonging to an old friend of mine and I liked the looks of it. I've also been playing around with Picasa, which is kind of like iTunes for images. Picasa integrates with some other program which can talk to blogs. I've been looking for an easier way to do pictures so i'm interested to see how that works. It will take some trial and error.

I never remember that I have Picasa installed, so I haven't played with it too much yet. I also have some new hotkey software I'm trying out but I forget that's installed too. I am a tech-savvy guy, I'm just so stuck in a rut of how I do things that I've forgotten how to adapt. I'm slowly coming around though.