merriment

Christmas today. Among other things I got the entire set of Northern Exposure, a TV show I've vaguely heard good things about but I've been oblivious of it until now. Checking that out should be neat, especially with normal TV running completely on empty now - no Heroes, no Top Gear, no QI, nothing. Tomorrow will be Lansing for Christmas with grandparents. I haven't been up there in a long time, and I've not really been out and about since I got back except for a pizza run.

With Christmas festivities almost over I can try and concentrate on making the most out of being in Michigan. Unfortunately I caught a minor cold en route, so I have been a little out of it since I got back.

where will you be when this is through

Much quieter today with no family xmas events. I even managed to divert the CTS for the purpose of going to Gregg's for lunch. I am trying to pull down the last Top Gear of the series but the time zone difference is not as favorable here. I dug around my local book collection and found Player Piano by Vonnegut, but it's not great. My family has finished wrapping presents but we still have to wait another stinking day until we can unwrap them.

I'm sad I'm going to be missing the Detroit auto show because they will have both a Corvette ZR1 and an R8 convertible. Audi might also bring a V10 R8 if they can figure out how to make one that doesn't burst into flames. My extended family is praising the virtues of upcoming 'clean diesels' but I still have my heart set on the last bastions of petrol, before the new MPG laws ruin anything interesting.

I am continuing to apply labels to the archives as I see fit. It's somewhat bizarre because for the most part I am going backwards, so a post about 'went to see the Hard Lessons' is followed by 'Hard Lessons in one week!'. A minor disclaimer is that I am also engaging in some limited revisionist history, mostly tweaking hindsightedly stupid lines and removing italics applied for similarity to Tycho's writing style.

I also ran this URL through a blog readability tester and I've apparently been upgraded from high school to genius, despite my continuing to rant about cars and technology as usual.

t minus one week

Down to the last week in Michigan. I have much to do in preparation. We had another garage sale to day to get rid of more crap and I made another $140. I also saw my friend Christie briefly, which was cool. She was in Corvallis last summer and gave me some tips on things to do in Oregon. It was damn hot and humid out today, so the garage sale was rougher than the first one. I have some gas money to show for it though.

My family rented some movies today, so I have some new fodder for movie reviews. We also set off some fireworks, including the last couple illegal ones left over from a stop in Ohio while driving back from my Florida internship. Not sure what the fireworks rules are in Oregon - I'm guessing the same as Michigan.

Just think! In a week, I'll have more to post about than doing nothing in my hometown! Exciting.

addendum

I had lunch with my old physics teacher Mr. Burdick today. He's doing good, it was pretty fun seeing him again. I gave him the physics shirt I slated for Brian Greene but never got around to mailing. I think it means more for Mr. Burdick to have it, especially since I don't know if or when I'm going to bring the shirts back.

The Malibu was in the shop all morning so I had to borrow my mom's Buick Rainier. I hate SUVs. I was very happy to get behind the wheel of the Malibu again. I wish I knew someone with a Prius so I could see what they drive like (just to satisfy my own curiousity).

I brought my iPod everywhere today, so I could listen to my music in either car. Even though my Malibu has an MP3 CD player, I like having the depth and flexibility of the iPod. I can easily make playlist changes, or play something completely random. I definitely have no regrets about the iPod, especially since in the past few months I've been finding more solace in listening to my music.

My sleep schedule is a little off because last night I went to bed at 3 AM again and got up around 6:30 AM. I'm pretty wiped so I think I'm going to listen to some music and go to bed.

i already knew there was a 6 AM, i didn't need proof

It's so early...I up this morning because my car is going in to the shop to get its A/C fixed. If I'm going to be up and about this early in the morning I'm at least going to get some french toast sticks from Burger King. I'm meeting my H.S. physics teacher for lunch too, so today is a busy day.

birthday summary

My birthday went OK. It was gray and rainy for most of the day - bleh. I went over to my mom's work to set up Riemann around lunchtime, then I sat around playing SimCity. I did a little bit of research on Oregon apartments. I also sprayed the Half-Life lambda logo on my external hard drive.

For my birthday I got an FM transmitter for my iPod and a fancy cordless phone for my apartment in Oregon. I would post pictures but they came out bad, I'm going to try again tomorrow when I get some sunlight. I'm also going to get some luggage, butI need to pick it out.

Now that my birthday's over I need to really start gearing up for Oregon. I'm going to take care of some of that, but I have a ton of plans this week. I'm having lunch with my old physics teacher on Wednesday, lunch with physics crew + Gobeski in Lansing on Thursday, and lunch with another friend on Saturday. It's becoming critical to get the air conditioning in my car fixed. I also need a haircut, and I might have it lightened while I'm at it. So I'm going to be busy this week.

heavy cloud but no rain

I want to go relax in the hot tub but there is lightning outside, even though it's not raining at all. Stupid weather.

The new hard drive enclosure I got works great. My computer is running slow from moving all these huge files around though. The enclosure also gets very warm when the hard drive is active, but it's made of aluminum so at least the heat is dissipating. I'm glad I got this new thing, because the one thing I was worried about with this laptop was hard drive space.

I decided to reclaim some room in my movie holder by putting all of the Gundam Wing episodes onto a single DVD instead of 6 CDs, but it turns out a couple of the files were corrupted and I'm going to have to replace them before I can burn them to DVD.

I think I've been spending too much time playing with the laptop, I need to get out a bit. If anyone is in Clarkston feel free to hit me up, and I'm planning to go up to E.L. in the near future so I'll be up there at some point too. I'm going to have lunch with my old high school physics teacher sometime, which I am looking forward to because I haven't seen him in a while and he was a big influence on me and my going to MSU.

My reimbursement check from UCSD finally showed up. I'm relieved - that was $1000 I had tied up for over two months because whoever was processing it took their sweet time.

faith in chaos

Today was mostly spent getting things ready for the garage sale, it's going to be crazy tomorrow. We had around 1000 price stickers and most of them are gone.

I did stop working on garage sale stuff long enough to go to Best Buy, where I finally got my laptop. It's going to be a while before it's fully up and running, but I have it far enough that this post is being typed on Freeman.