last day in lansing

I was in East Lansing all day. I got into town around 11:30 AM, and tried to get a haircut. However, when I walked into the barbershop the two barbers that were just sitting around talking and reading magazines said they couldn't take care of me until noon, for whatever reason. I then called my friend Lisa to try and get some lunch, but she wasn't answering. I found out later she was in the shower - I told here I figured that and I wouldn't get angry for cleanliness. As far as getting a haircut goes, I decided to hell with the normal place, those bastards aren't the only barbers in town, and went to another barber like 100 feet away.

After successfully obtaining a haircut, I got in touch with Lisa and had lunch a Qdoba. I was surprised to see Lisa has a brand new car, a black Pontiac Vibe. She loves it. I then visited with grandparents all afternoon. I then went over to PJ and Paul's place. I brought Freeman so we set it up to do a huge file swap (20GB+ each way over crossover) and we went to see War of the Worlds. Review on my other site. When we got back I parted ways with PJ and Paul, which is sad becuse I'm probably not going to see them again for a long time. I had to drive home in the dark but it wasn't too bad, and now I'm putting the newly pirated music somewhere I can sort it, writing this and writing my WotW review.

Well, it's July now. I have a crapload of packing and prepping to do tomorrow. Leaving on Saturday - I can't believe it's this close already. Next week is the Trail and finding an apartment - hopefully I'll be settling in a week from now.

getting ready to hit the trail

War of the Worlds came out today. I was checking it out this morning, it looks like it might be pretty good. The music and imagery on the website alone evokes some of the creepier parts of Half-Life. I want to see this movie, but I'm not sure when I'm going to get the chance.

My room and hallway are a mess right now because I'm really sorting through stuff for Oregon. I still have a lot to do though, so I don't think I'm going to the Hard Lessons concert on Friday. That's a little sad because that means I've missed two in a row I could've gone to, and I always have a good time at the concert even if I thought it was a mistake beforehand. My time in Michigan is just about up though,

I watched Escanaba in da Moonlight yesterday, which was pretty good (if not bizarre) and 3000 Miles to Graceland today (which was awful). I think I'm going to have to check RottenTomatoes before I am tempted by more $10 DVDs. I'm cruising through their movie reviews and I'm agreeing with all of them so far. Fist Of Legend even has 100%.

My dad and I went to Borders to get some books on CD for the Oregon Trail. I picked up the radio versions of the first three Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, and some Car Talk. My dad got something about geology and The Far Side of the World, which is in the same series as Master & Commander. I wasn't impressed with the first book, but I'm interested in hearing this one.

I'm kinda focused on packing right now so I'm starting to forget other things. I was going to get a decent ringtone for my cell phone but I got distracted. I think I'd like Hawaii Five-O.

distractions

I got stuff done today. I also screwed around with side projects. I chipped part of the HL lambda on my external hard drive, so I sanded the whole thing, resprayed it and put Contact paper over it to protect it. I also found my old USB fingerprint scanner and got it working again, which is great because it's cool and it lets me be super lazy with passwords.

I am going up to East Lansing on Thursday one last time, so I really need to start getting stuff packed tomorrow. At least I am shifting towards a more normal sleep schedule (no more staying up until 3AM and waking up at noon).

My computer chair broke more today. I think if I were sticking around much longer I'd have to replace it. We are supposed to get our DSL hardware by the end of the week but the service doesn't start until next week, so I won't get to enjoy it until I come home for winter break.

reductions

I'm having fun doodling on the computer. I wanted to make a logo for a made-up corporation so I did a Google search for 'symbol of industry'. The favored result is the bee, followed by beavers, ants and spiders. Another site claims red clovers are a symbol of industry. Frankly I was hoping more along the lines of gears and mechanical things...

The Malibu had whatever leaky part fixed, so the air conditioning might be fixed now. It was damn hot today, and it was good to have the A/C.

I went through some boxes of stuff today to get a better idea of what's going and what can stay. I'm in a big purging mode. Getting rid of boxes of stuff I don't need. Selling off what I can. Even on Freeman, I'm offloading what I can to the external hard drive so I can free up precious primary hard drive space. I got several gigs back by offloading big folders, like all the episodes of Red vs Blue (1.5GB) and some multi-hour Oakenfold mixes I don't listen to (2.5GB). I also offloaded a bunch of old Outlook Express email, which can be deceptively large. Thanks to my data setup I haven't lost files since early 2002. The flip side of that is that I keep accumulating files and I don't clean them out. It adds up. I also need to purge what's on my iPod, because it's about 95% full. At least I decided to go big and get the full iPod, that's a big help. Even in Gran Turismo 4, I went through my garage and sold $5,500,000 worth of cars. That's how much I'm into getting rid of things I don't need. I guess I'm just trying to get ready for life on a tight budget.

I got paid for Riemann Mk. II today, and combined with garage sale money I've got over $500 to drop off at the bank tomorrow. Despite my unemployment (which I am enjoying thoroughly), I'm almost making money this summer.

t minus six days

I finally got around to ripping my new Blackthorn CDs, and I am surprised yet again by how retarded CDDB contributors are. For example, a contributor moved the word 'the' to the end of song titles. So what should properly be 'The Parting Glass' is now 'Parting Glass (the)'. What the hell is that?

I'm also getting annoyed with batteries. It seems like every time I put something down the batteries are drained when I pick it up again. Cell phone, my new cordless phone, the camera, iPod, it doesn't matter. Batteries suck. You'd think that someone would have come up with batteries that could hold a charge.

I saw 'Batman Begins' with my dad today. That is a good movie. I like Bruce Wayne's transition from angry guy, to ninja, to ninja with cool toys. The movie is a lot darker than the campy pieces of trash that preceded it. I thought the music did a very good job of helping with this and I'm tempted to buy the soundtrack. I like heroes that are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, like Batman and Gordon Freeman.

I'm leaving for Oregon on Saturday, so this week I have to do everything that remains to be done. I'm hoping that the stupid car part I ordered will be in tomorrow so I can fix my damn A/C. I need to start figuring out what stuff deserves to be in the car and what can be shipped later. The shift from 'bum' to 'graduate student' is going to be a hell of a shakeup. My friend Erin has already passed the point where to her, 'home' is not the place where her parents live. I feel like that distinction might be creeping up on me. I'm also going to have to make a lot of new friends. Fortunately it seems like the grad students are a close-knit group, and most of them should be around during the summer. No idea when I'm next going to be in Clarkston after I leave, so my Gregg's breadstick intake will probably be even higher this week. (Clarkston people will know what I'm talking about.) I also want to catch the Hard Lessons show on Friday, the day before I leave.

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.

i guess i'm doing this old-school for a while

Wireless network is still not working. Jim is having the same problem so at least it's probably the neighbor's fault. Until wireless network returns, I'm back on dialup. Fun. Our own DSL is maybe a week away. So don't expect any more photo albums to go up until I get somebody's broadband.

I didn't get the Malibu into the shop today because the part I need didn't show up yet. At least I got a bit of sorting done today.

A little over a week until I leave for Oregon, so my days are naturally getting filled with things that at least peripherally relate to that. And yet technically my summer isn't even half over. I got out the first week of May and I don't really start being a grad student until the end of September (One reason I wanted to get a job - that's a long time to be idle.) Tomorrow I'm hoping to get the Malibu's A/C fixed and I'm going to look at luggage. We're also having another garage sale on Saturday to get rid of the crap we didn't sell the first time. Exciting stuff.

The last Pistons game has started, so I guess I should get some token watching in.

i'm a sad pirate

Yahoo Photos decided to work again, so I fixed the new photo albums. However, my wireless network connection has stopped working for some reason. I can't receive packets from the network. I am trying to fix that, but I'm hoping to get the Malibu into the shop soon so I'm not going to mess with it for much longer. Computers suck.

pictures

Well I uploaded a bunch of pictures to my photo album site, but I've come to the conclusion that Yahoo Photos sucks. I'm working out a better way to do pictures but I haven't made the new program completely bend to my will yet, so it will be a day or two before the new and improved albums go up. In the meantime, enjoy some pics of Oregon and today's car show. Thanks to Yahoo I currently can't add captions or change the order, so you'll have to enjoy them out of context for now.

In other news, the Malibu goes back to the shop tomorrow for a new Freon-carrying tube and another A/C recharge. Hopefully I can keep some of the Freon this time, I'd like a cold car.

lots of cars

It seems like one of those days where I got a lot done and still wasn't productive. I got up early for some reason so I cleaned out the Malibu. Then I found out there was a classic car show at the GM Tech Center, so I went with my parents. It was pretty cool, just wish we'd had a lot more time to see the cars. GM had three new cars on display: the Hummer H3 (meh), the Pontiac Solstice and the Pontiac G6 Convertable. Even my dad hadn't seen the last one yet. There were also some souped-up Chevy Cobalts. I took pictures until my batteries died. I posted pics of the DeLorean below, and I'm uploading more car show pics to the photo album site so check it out. When I got back from the car show I mowed the lawn, did the dishes and some other chores. I didn't do anything about Oregon though.