Back to K-Town for a few days, then.

Well, I’ve awakened and gotten ready to go, or at least almost completely ready to go. All I’ve got to do is put the water bottles into the little ice chest and be on my way, if I want to walk. Of course, I don’t actually know if I want to walk, but if I do I’m mostly ready. I think I will leave from the front exit today, in a bit of an effort to let everybody know I’ve gone, and I need to thank Amber for allowing me to stay here since Wednesday.

I could actually go to the SLAC at any given time, and I’d actually like to so I can "check my email" along with accessing a few other features of the Internet, such as AOL-IM and maybe IRC. I’ve also got a long queue of blog entries that I need to post, including this one, and it would probably be easier to do that if I had an Internet connection. On the other hand, it would be quite easy for me to just keep writing things. Although I’ve found out that if I do loads and loads of writing when I’m not online, I end up never posting the stuff I wrote, for one reason or another. (typically because I’ve told everybody who I think might read the blog over an IM anyway.)

[later in the day]
I’m now sitting in the business building with my laptop, hooked up to the internet via the NAU VPN and Wifi. It’s working fairly well. Mostly I’m just "checking my email" and now uploading blog entries. Add to that, I'm waiting for my ride back to Kingman. I'll then come back to NAU next Tuesday, as dad switched his day off.

Job, NAU Changes

Well, it’s pretty much official. I am going to start training for the Academic Computing Helpdesk job on Tuesday, the 21st. This means I am moving into Gabaldon early. However, for the first week or so, I have heard that the ACHD job is very extreme, and that I’ll have almost no time at all. Other than that, I don’t know how many hours I’ll be working or how much spare time I’ll have, between the ACHD job and my classes. We’ll see. I’m excited though, I think that between this and my driver license, which I got on Tuesday while finishing projects at the high school with Kate, marks the beginning of what I hope will be another great school year, and the beginning of "Cory as a member of productive society."

Today [Thursday the 16th] I walked around campus. It’s interesting, and weird all the things that have changed over the summer. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll list the changes from South to North.
- Flood at the duBois Center. (it’s in a reduced state of operation, and apparently the basement is totally full of mud.)
- There’s grass around the McKay apartments, and the landscaping all around the campus has been tidied and looks great.
- The Applied Research & Development looks AWESOME.
- The new dorm is almost a recognizable building structure now. And while standing in front of Tinsley or Cowden, you can’t see Allen. From Cowden, you can barely see the East end of Wilson.
- They built a dumpster holder at the northeast corner of Cowden, a lot like the one they built near the southwest corner of Raymond, and the southeast corner of McDonald.
- They moved the sundial that used to be to the north/east of the student union to the west side, in front of Cline Library.
- They started a project for expansion/improvement of the Student Union dining area, it goes almost all the way to the peace pond, and it’ll be 2 stories, presumably filled either with dining accoutrements and the like.
- People have moved into the science building on North Campus, I have serious doubts about the claim that it’s not actually fit for it’s work, but I’ll have to check on who exactly said that.
- Various other maintenance projects have started, especially behind Morton/North/Campbell Halls, and in some of those far-north walkways.
- The bookstore is totally different inside, Megan might like it, and on a sidenote, I didn’t have any mail in my PO box.
- Allen Hall now has the ID card entrance system. I wonder if Allen/Wilson is still a complex, or if Wilson Hall will be doing things on its own now. Maybe they’ll make the Wilson/Tinsley complex. (although I personally think Tinsley/Cowden would make a better complex.)
- I’ll leave mentioning anything about Surplus Sales for later, although I did visit – I’ve got to let Seth and Jim find out on their own. (although I can say this much: no TVs for really cheap.)

After my on-campus adventure, I came back to Amber’s house, and used her computer for a bit. After "checking my eMail" (which means about an hour or two on NAU eMail, G-Mail, Google-Talk, Facebook and deviantArt) I went back down to discover that Sarah was around, unloading a few things into her room (which is where I’ve been staying here at Amber’s house.) Nice little diversion, we all went up to this room and alternated between watching Sarah set up her desk and watching Amber’s bunny Zoey hop around the room. What a cute little bunny! After Sarah & Family left, Amber and I went to a cheap little Mexican restaurant, nice and cheap for some cheese enchiladas, which is great. I can also now say I’ve seen all of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which was certainly an entertaining movie. Although I feel gypped because it ended in an unexpected (although very funny) way. Afterward I came back to the room up here and took a nap, then woke up and started writing this (very, very long) blog entry.

Returning to Flag

Well, shortly here I’ll be heading back to Flagstaff. The only thing that makes this noteworthy is that I’m going a week early, in an effort to potentially get a job. I am scheduled for an interview at the Academic Computing Helpdesk at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. Hopefully I can get the job, because it would certainly be nice to have a bit of extra money during the school year, I can say with some confidence that the next major thing I need will be either Leopard, or some additional storage for the computer, but I’ll save all of that figuring for later.

Anyway, I’ve got to get to bed fairly early (a few minutes before midnight, at least) because tomorrow, Dad and I are going a few places to get some last minute wardrobe additions for the coming year.

Another sidenote: I have intended for a few weeks to write a little retrospective on what I’ve used this blog for, and what I think the future for it holds, but with all the technical notes, and now status updates I need to do... who knows whether or not I’ll be able to do any of that.

iWork '08

I am currently working on testing some of the new features in iWork ’08. I typically use the Word Processing features of any given application or application suite more than any of the other functions, so let me go ahead and explain about some of the things I thought were wrong in previous versions of iWork.
The main problem with iWork, as I’ve had in the past is its insistence upon styles, and the difficulty I had in controlling them to my benefit. Also, it is very difficult to write an MLA format paper with it. What I’m discovering here though, is that it’s much easier to do these things now in iWork ’08, which includes a fairly standard toolbar. Another thing I always disliked about iWork was the awful file format, which seems as though it’s here to stay, but iWork will at least be able to open and save Word Documents, and I can export or save-as whenever I need to migrate a document to another computer. It does concern me that .doc is not a selection for default file format, but it shouldn’t be difficult to just “save as” whenever I need to move a document around to another machine. Especially to my mobile computer, which will be running Mac OS 9 with Office 98, most likely. (battery life issues: the machine is perfectly capable of Mac OS X 10.4, and therefore Pages ’08, but I can get about 1.5x the battery life if I run Mac OS 9.)
Spreadsheets in various forms are the other thing I use more often than presentations. I typically use them for lists, checklists, and little database-like things such as my list of RW media, which I update every time I re-burn one. Numbers then, is what I’ve been waiting for. It allows great flexibility in how I set up my spreadsheets, and what can be done with them. For example, it allows pull-down selections for pre-determined values, and it’s got sliders, steppers and a few other interesting things. If I actually did spreadsheets with numerical data, there is other enhancements and features I’d be able to use, like the ability to have more than one table on any given page, or the ability to combine tables and charts on the same page. I can imagine this being pretty good, especially for tables charts and whatnot created as part of a report that’s destined for a printer.
I’ve yet to look at any more of the integration between the iWork apps, nor have I looked at some of the other features like change-tracking or commenting in Pages, but I really think that this will be a reasonable replacement for my traditional productivity app, Microsoft Office. The main problem I’m having with even thinking about Office is the fact that it won’t be available until next January. By then, I’ll have learned iWork and grown to love it.

It's Official

Yes, that's right folks. It's official. Rotating storage hates me. Between now two failures of my iMac's hard disc, the various issues I've had with burning CDs and DVDs, and my latest little issue... I have just got to say that I've currently got very little faith in rotating storage.

Presently, the failure at hand is of my 80 gigabyte XIMETA external hard disc. The one I got a few years ago to use with my PowerBook G4. My temporary solution to this is to copy all of XIMETA's data onto my backup hard disc -- thus putting my iMac's data at risk again. Long term, I have no idea what I am going to do about this.

My biggest problem right now is a huge chunk of data -- 42 gigabytes of photos -- that I don't want to split up, or lose on DVDs. One idea is for me to just archive them onto DVDs now, and re-archive the whole set every two or three years, either onto bigger media, or at least onto newer discs that will be "good to go" for another few years.

I suppose this is where I need to say something about how I need to reevaluate my data backup scheme. We all know it's true, but I'm not going to say it.

As an aside, today is the fifth anniversary of me signing up for the 68k Mac Liberation Army, way back in August of 2002. I would have been just between 7th and 8th grades.

Merits of Expandability

Hmm... Well this is entertaining. One of the things I discuss with certain people quite often is whether or not the average mere mortal will actually need in-computer expansion capabilities such as slots and extra hard disc bays. I know, almost everybody could always use more memory, but honestly, will most people ever actually install an upgrade graphics card?

I typically say that most average human beings won't need these things, and in fact a lot of people who are considered "high end" users don't actually use a lot of the expansion capabilities bestowed upon them. I typically include myself in this, because I realize that almost everything I've ever wanted for my Macs has either been an add-on that I could do externally via a firewire port, or something I didn't need.

On the other hand... just today, I found one or two different PCI Express cards that I'd like, and I realized that if I had the opportunity to do so, I would probably have all four bays of a MacPro filled within a year. Getting those drives will cost more because I've got to figure out something to put them in, and when I do that, I won't even get all of the performance the drives are capable of offering. (after filling the internal bays, I'd probably have to try to get an eSATA card. :P)

And all of this comes from just two tangents I went on today... data longevity and video i/o. Actually, data longevity led to video. I was researching using a MiniDV deck as a tape drive for making backups of my iMac's external hard discs. (one of which is, in and of itself, a backup of its startup drive) From there, I was surprised at how much cheaper it is to buy a whole MiniDV camcorder than to buy a standalone MiniDV or Digi8 deck. From there, i researched high def camcorders. I found that there is a 3-ccd Panasonic camcorder selling for less than 600usd. The catch is that it records AVCHD data onto DVDs or SDHC cards, and AVCHD is pretty much impossible to use on a Mac.

Enter another PCI-E card. It turns out that blackmagic design has a card out there with HDMI input for just $249 This brings a complete high-def setup (with a fairly nice camera) for less than a thousand bucks. (though there is the Canon HV10 for 650 too, which is "proper" tape-based HDV that can be imported into imovie or final cut.

Well... not that I've got money for any of those upgrades now, or for the prerequisite "really high end Mac," but it was at least an interesting observation on the apparently "not totally useless" expansion slots, and how a higher initial investment in a system with more options for connectivity can result in a lower investment later for things like getting into high def video, or expanding storage capacity. I think next time I buy a Mac, I'm going to save up a bit more and try to get a MacPro [or whatever midrange/highend system is suitable at the time].

The Stress-Relieving Powers of Sarcasm

I'€™m visiting my mother'€™s house. It€'s great and all, except for all the ways in which, over the past year, it€'s become awful. I pretty much let my mother know this back in November. I believe there was no shortage of funny faces, somewhat rude comments, and a variety of other ways in which I was somehow able to say "I'€™m dissatisfied with this."

What I've found is that I've got a similar thing going on now, except that things are a little bit better. However, she is now using other physical cues to tell me that being in her home causes me great stress. Back in May she told me I needed to lose weight because I had somewhat high blood pressure, which was apparently evident because my foot wasn'€™t as bony/veiny as it should'€™ve been. On Thursday when I came back, I thought my foot looked okay and showed it to her, hoping for evidence of some kind of progress with my health, but she said it looked just as bad, and she introduced the possible factor of stress.

It occurred to me that it is probably pretty stressful for me to be here now. It isn'€™t as though I really dislike her or her house, or even my brother, but they'€™ve made some choices in the past year that it'€™s really difficult for me not to comment on. And yet, after some of the disasters that happened last November, I'€™ve managed to do very well holding my tongue in December and then again in May. Mom told me this past Thursday that it must have stressed me out pretty badly, the thought that I'€™d have to come here.

I suppose it did add a bit of stress. At mom'€™s house, I sleep in the office on a couch(1), everybody smokes but me, and the entire thing is allowed to be significantly more messy than it ever was in the past, in addition it'€™s become a much more "€œopen" environment where any one of my mother'€™s many new friends(2) can just walk in and out as they please.

What I wonder, I suppose, is whether or not I'm stressed because I don't feel I can speak openly. One of the things I suppose I became used to at NAU is the expectation that I was able to say pretty much whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to say it. So pretty much everybody knew how I felt about a lot of things, because I didn't feel bad about making snarky little comments about things. Here, on the other hand, the slightest little offhand comment that wasn't intended to mean anything, goes a very long way, down a dark, destructive path. Recovering from those tiny comments takes much longer than it should here too.

Ah well. They'€™re my family and I suppose that means I'€™ve got to love '€˜em. It probably isn'€™t as bad as I think it is, and I'€'m sure it's healthy for my mother to be indulging in such things as having friends, and running her house as she chooses. I'€™m just not quite adjusted to the changes I suppose. I'€™ll be back at dad’s house in a few days anyway, and then back to NAU on the 23rd.

1. Which, believe it or not, is actually worse than just a mattress on the floor.
2. Most of whom I don'€™t particularly like.

Bike Ride

uunnghh....

No, I'm not a zombie, but I suppose I'm close. I decided today at about 10 a.m. that it'd be a good idea to return my library book today. (It was LoTR-1 -- and no, I still haven't read it.) Having walked to the library last Saturday, I thought it would be a good idea to go a different way today. (Well, I thought I might give LOTR a try -- I literally fell asleep after reading some of the foreword.) (Or was it the prologue?)

Anyway, I rode my bike to the library today, and discovered that it was an incredibly stupid thing to do on my part. Mainly, it got way hot outside way fast, I didn't bring enough water along, and it turns out that I'm not really *that* great at riding a bike, it takes a lot of strength and energy to do it in the heat like this, and more water than I brought.

So for next time, more water, not biking, and I still need to get a hat, it seems.

New HDD Installed

Today, the replacement hard disc for my iMac came in. I am now booted from the utility partition of the USB2 drive, and am restoring the backup to the primary drive. After that, I am going to think about running all of the software updates. This will be a prime way to test my theory that this particular backup system will be acceptable as a method to use to test new system updates for a few days before deciding whether or not I really want to commit to that update.

Another possibility for backup -- later on -- could be to get an ethernet/usb2 disk that I can back up to over ethernet from one or maybe even multiple computers, and then yank out and hook up directly to the machine with USB2 if I ever need to restore from the drive. we'll see whether or not I ever do that though. For now, the 200gig drive over USB2 will work.

For what it's worth, the "iSight" based iMacs are very complicated. -- Needlessly so. You must remove the front, then lift out the LCD panel (which is a pretty big and delicate part) before being able to access the cool bits of the motherboard, the hard disc or the optical drive.

Getting Things Done

On this luckiest of days, it occurs to me that this summer has been wasted mostly on trivialities, little things that don't matter much in the long run. That's fine with me, but I feel as though I should do something that I feel will have some kind of lasting effect.

More importantly, I've been thinking about the status of the 68kMLA, and the 68k User Base. What I've noticed is that the users of older 68k and PowerPC machines are really just that -- users. We've got very few mega-hobbyists who do programming on them, and get deep into the hardware and architecture of the machines. The 68kMLA/PPCMLA on their own aren't very conducive to those discussions, and most of the people around wouldn't be interested if it were there.

So I feel like I should do something for the retro Mac community -- but what? Should I be writing software? Lobbying for the simplification of websites? I personally don't think that either of those is a very great idea, but I do believe that there are things I can do to help the community.

One of the things I've tried to do before is work on a database of software titles for Macs. This is important for a lot of reasons. It gives me something to do, for starters, and I think it's a fairly important contribution to the community. Especially if I could find information on things such as intro and discontinuation dates on various pieces of software, plus prices to help indicate to people just how much software actually cost.

We'll see though. I'm working on setting up a spot on my own website where potentially, a few people will be able to post information as they get it, but with any information-gathering project, it's not just something we'll be able to do and say "oh cool, done now." It's something that we'll have to work on, pretty much for a long time, I don't think that archiving all of the information about 68k Macs, even just about the software, will ever be done.

Another thing that was pointed out was the fact that the information about Apple's systems is really inconsistent, not only between Apple's website, but given the fact that there were a certain, well-known range of models released, I find it less important to release yet-another specs database.

Anyway, maybe one day I'll start on my Software Titles database, but for now I'm just going to write blog entries about how I think I should. Plus, I'm not entirely sure how I'll coordinate it yet.

Unlucky Bus Ride

The superstitious people are saying that today is a very lucky day, what with it being July (7) Seventh(7), 2007(7). On CNN this morning, there were images of loads of people getting married because of the luck of the day, and I even thought myself that I might have to do some things to test my luck.

I did just that, I rode a bus today. Wasn’t that smart of me? If everything had worked out properly, I should be hurrying right along at the present moment, on my way back home to Kingman, ending out a great week in Tucson. (I was visiting my NAU friends, Glenn, Megan and Ally.)

Unfortunately, the test of my luck (or of the combined efficiency of Autobuses Crucero, USA and Grayhound Lines, Inc) was… unfortunate, let’s say. I found out that the testing of my luck wasn’t the best idea ever. Apparently the bus from Tucson to Phoenix has been delayed significantly several times in the past few days. We were, in fact, lucky that the bus scheduled to depart at 8:40 a.m. left “just” two hours later at 10:40 a.m. The day before it had left at about 1:40 p.m. I suppose I’m glad I wasn’t delayed that much.

On the other hand, any delay at all from Tucson causes me to miss my bus from Phoenix to Flagstaff-then-Kingman. The bus, which was scheduled to depart at 11:40, was missed by more than a whole hour. The only other bus leaving to Kingman today is at 8 p.m. Oh well, I suppose. Too bad I don’t know anybody in Phoenix close enough to have come get me.

Or more accurately, too bad I haven’t got an Internet connection that I could otherwise have used to contact some people I do know that live in Phoenix. It would be quite nice to be able to get food outside of the station here, because I’m not too big on bus station food. Add to that, I don’t know if I’ll have enough time in Flagstaff now that I’m on a different route, to carry out my original plan of eating at the restaurant there. This is especially true now that I estimate I’ll be in Flagstaff at midnight. Yaay.

Luckily though, I had enough money to call dad and tell him I won’t be coming exactly as planned.  The new plan is that I’ll call him whenever I show up in Kingman. Reasonable I suppose, given that the new ETA is comfortably after midnight, as opposed to comfortably prior-to-dinner.

(Yes, I posted this way late, but ohwell.)

Once Again/Backup Frenzy

On this June 29th, the day of the iPhone release, I come bearing news of the impending death of my new-in-December iMac. The s.m.a.r.t. status of my hard disc, as reported by Apple's Disk Utility application, is "failing."

S.M.A.R.T. is definitely a cool piece of technology, invented in the 1990s and widely implemented in consumer computers... just after 2000 I'd say. It's handy, and if everything goes over right, I won't lose any data, but I am going to have to call Apple up after my trip to Tucson, and arrange the repair of my iMac. It might, but I hope not, result in a trip to Vegas or Flagstaff.

If it does require that I visit a mac shop, I'll look for one in Kingman (Yeah, right!) or just wait until I get to Flagstaff, and if/when the drive dies, I'll just use the 200gig-external, and pray that that doesn't fail because after that, all I've got are the 80 gig, the 40 gig and the laptop.

Well... wish me luck in my backup adventures, and after my trip to Tucson, in my adventures calling AppleCare.

Odd Dream

I get a great smooth jazz station from Vegas where I'm here at home. I love to listen to it, and I have my alarm clock set to turn on at 4:30 a.m. with it.

Actually, there's a mildly funny dream story related to that. My dream last night/this morning involved me, trying to get somewhere to do something and three other people, who were part of some radio show about job fairs in Las Vegas. We started at NAU I suppose, piled into a car and were conducting a phone interview. We then stopped at a toy shop, eventually met some brave-little-toaster esque appliances and went to an electronics store, where for some reason I saw my mother and somebody who looked very similar to my COM101 instructor from NAU.

I woke up at like 5:30 and it turned out that the radio alarm had turned on an hour before, and there was some kind of radio program about job fairs in Las Vegas. Although, in the dream, mostly only one guy was talking, but on the actual program, all four people (three men and one woman, if I recall) were speaking.

I am going to have to put some more research into suggesting things for my dreams, quite possibly trying with my iPod and/or my iMac and the radio on a timer, to see whether or not my dreams can be suggested using other materials. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few albums I want to try... the Wicked soundtrack, War of the Worlds audio performance, the Rent soundtrack, mostly because those things have plots that can be dreamt. Though, I'd be interested in whether or not a standard disjointed album of music, or a new-age or otherwise instrumental album such as Mannheim Steamroller, Yanni or John Tesh could influence my dreams.

Relief.

This probably sounds lame, but I'm now relieved. My mobile computer, which suffered from a spate of... mental retardation, let's say, is back on its own two feet. More accurately, it's back to booting from its own hard disc, and luckily enough, its remaining battery still works. With this, there'll be no more talk of selling the PowerBook G3, probably very little if any talk of buying any new batteries, and I won't need to worry about using the Toshiba Satellite laptop (the one with Windows 3.1 on it) as my main mobile computer.

Not that anybody cares, but for some background, my PowerBook G3 is a "Pismo" model, the last G3 PowerBook before Apple introduced the PowerBook G4 computer. It has a 500MHz PowerPC processor, 512mb of memory and a 30 gigabyte hard disc. (Those are upgrades though, it originally shipped with 128mb of memory and a 12 gigabyte hard disc.) The model was introduced in February 2000, and discontinued in January 2001. My particular model is from early 2000. This means it's 7 years old!

Old and slow it may be, but it remains a very trustworthy machine, with very good expansion capabilities for its time, and some really great battery life.

One of the unique things about this computer, compared with more modern laptops/notebooks, is that the CD drive is removable, and can be replaced with another device, such as an Iomega Zip drive, a Floppy disc drive, or a second battery. Even the primarily battery is very easy to remove. When they were new, Apple suggested that a machine with dual batteries was capable of achieving 9 to 10 hours of battery run time. In my experience, with newer third party batteries actually brings me closer to 20 hours, with the battery meter reading between 17 and 19, and actual runtime being between 14 and 17 hours. It is somewhat difficult to do, but it can be done.

Even if replacing the one now-dead battery is a $150 proposition, or $300 for two, it costs less than a new laptop, and I somehow think it might last just as long anyway.

So here's to you, Schraubenschleussel, and here's to at least three more good years.

Happy Ice Day!

Well, I've started to get back to my old shenanigans of declaring every day some kind of holiday. I've been drinking a whole lot of water with ice lately, so I declared today a Day of Ice

I learned also that there was once an emperor so crazy as to have ice brought down from mountains.

Bethany: And Emperor Nero would send servants up mountains to get ice for his form of ice cream :3

So this begins the first of probably-several incidental random celebratory days.

I've gone ahead and created a calendar that anybody with a google account can subscribe to. If you've got suggestions for a celebration, feel free to send me a message through the message-sending implement of your choice.

Wicked Avenue Rent Express-- The Extreme Acid Jazz-Polka Musical.

If you could create a musical, and/or your life (or your ideal life) were a musical, what would it be called, and what kind of music would it have?

My musical (maybe not my ideal life, but my ideal musical. :P) would be called Wicked Avenue Rent Express , and would have the subtitle "The Extreme Acid Jazz-Polka Musical." It would basically be about junkie wizards and witches who live in a cheap, run-down apartment building in New York, Oz. They'd also conduct train (or trainwreck) races -- in which magic, talking, quite-snarky trains race around quite uselessly. (because it's somewhat dangerous to ride the train, given how fast they go.)

I'm actually not yet sure what the musical of my life would be though. I need to work on that a bit.

It should be a bit obvious what I've been listening to recently.

Also, I've been reading the Gregory Maguire novel "Wicked" subtitled "The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West." It's very good. I've actually got the sequel here too, a Yanni CD, and the first LoTR novel. I intend to catch up on some reading and whatnot. I found out too that I can place holds online, and (in theory, though I've yet to test it) have them make their way to a specific branch of the Mohave County Library System. In this way, I intend to make fairly regular trips to the now-walking-distance Valle Vista MCLD location. Summer of Reading! Yaay!

It's also worth noting that I recently discovered the "Indoor Walking Machine" aka the treadmill. Quite a nifty device, which I'm taking advantage of by using it. I found that after an hour or so, I can work up quite a sweat on it, which is cool because I think that means it's helping me achieve my lofty goals of losing the "Freshman Thirty" (Come on, you can't think I've been denying the fact that I'm a bit chunkier than I was at the start of the school year.) The Treadmill also (niftily enough) can be attached to an audio device (such as my iPod) to provide a form of entertainment (midis converted to MP3s by iTunes) while I'm walking (but not actually leaving the house.)

My goal is to return to the weight I was before I started at NAU. Unfortunately, even if I do, it may not do me any good, as I'll just be back at NAU again next fall, probably following the same eating patterns. Though, I do admit... my food intake patterns probably didn't hurt my GPA, so for now I'm not complaining too bitterly.

No more PowerBook?

What a fitting revenge of the machine. Officially "almost one year" after I got it, my PowerBook G3 seems to be officially dead. For everybody who placed bets, let's just say that you were all wrong. The culprit happens to be the IDE controller. I'm not sure whether or not this is something that will just smooth over somehow, or if my PowerBook G3 will be crippled in that respect for the rest of its days with me.

I knew it would die, I did not know it would die this quickly. I don't know if it needs to be said, but I'll say it anyway. I am considering getting a Mac Portable to use for note taking and novel-writing. Nice, simple machine with weapon status, and really long battery life.

I am kind of sad that the PowerBook G3 can't remain useful the way it was before. Last fall, it had awesome battery life, wireless networking, good storage, and was generally usable as my main computer. It was originally acquired as a stopgap machine, purely because it had a display that worked, but I found that even after getting my iMac, I did somewhat like having a mobile computer.

How ironic that after two (or more?) years of posting on this blog (whose title is "Life:: Strapped to a Desk" for those of you reading this from any other websites,) I am now for the first time, actually without a fully mobile computer.

Writing a New Novel.

Just a quick note to let everybody know that I have restructured the Gotschland map to be more suitable for some of the changes I want to make to it.

Also, I'm now writing a new novel. Well, I think what I'm writing now will end up being a bit more like a textbook, but it's the beginning of what will eventually be a novel, or collection of short stories. I'm not entirely sure yet.

I am mostly doing this because I found an interesting (far from finished, though) app that's specifically for novel writing. It is only available on the Mac, (which is fine with me) and it's got a few nice additions such as a full screen mode that doesn't waste 75% of my monitor, and a database function that lets me easily keep track of the characters I've introduced, and store information about them.

At any rate - Gotschland, Ahoy! (not Chips Ahoy! - unfortunately.)

Visit to Mom's

I just got back from visiting Mom's house. It was better than over Thanksgiving, but I had difficulties in getting to my 68k Macs. Apparently a whole lot more stuff has been added to the garage, as well as the office, making neither location suitable for playing with old Macs. Additionally, it was very difficult to get to the Macs.

Luckily, I was able to find my 17" VGA monitor, the displaced PC133 memory (128mb sticks from the Dell/500, apparently) and the SGI Octane. I didn't, however, seem to be able to find my Powermac G3. Unfortunate, but I am sure it'll show up. That, or I'll use the Dell/933 as my main Mom's-House computer.

While I was there, I found out that Intel uses really cool codenames for their processors. Examples include Deschutes, Banias, Dothan, Cedar Mill, Conroe, Merom, Merced (boy do I remember the Merced!) , among others. (Prescott isn't that great, but I suppose I have to say "whoo for prescott!" because I have friends from that particular location. -- At any rate, I intend to give my unnamed computers names from a selection of Intel codenames. I may even give one to my iMac.

Schlangenbeschwoerer, however, is still a very tempting hostname for the iMac. Truthfully, who can resist something like "Snake Charmer?" It is currently named PRAGMA-II after the PowerBook G4 it officially replaces. (The PowerBook G3 being considered a stopgap machine, and now filling a different usage slot.)

Also, I really like Initial D music now. The Eurobeat stuff they use is nothing short of excellent. I will probably use this stuff for NaNo Writing Music this coming November.

Gentoo Linux

Hey everybody! I am just writing this to let you know I am running Gentoo Linux on my PowerBook G3. It's working well enough that I am even comfortable using it unplugged, although I have yet to find out exactly how I am going to monitor the life of my battery or batteries.

One of the things I'm interested in is whether or not Linux can really manage the power very well. Naturally, it's not of the greatest concern right now, but I will be interested and concerned when it comes to me using the machine for school, taking notes for classes. Next semester, I have a lot of classes in a row, so it'll be me with my backpack and my notebook computer for probably eight hours straight. I suppose it won't really be a huge problem if the other battery were working, I used to be able to get ten or more hours of use without any problems in my dual-battery setup.

Another thing I am concerned with is whether or not wireless will work properly. I'm sure I can make it work but it's another thing I have to figure out *before* the next school year starts, elsewise I will end up using Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X 10.3 again. (While that's not so bad, I do think I'd like to give
this operating environment a proper chance.)

I must say though, that I do quite like xfce4. Everything works properly, and nothing is too glitzy to be functional. OpenOffice, Xchat and Firefox2 can all be open and running quite well without many issues.

Timber Inn

Well, I said I would, and I am.

Last Wednesday, Megan and I went to Timber Inn, the sit-down burger/fries/shake joint. It was pretty good, and as an added benefit, it has transfers and I was only a few minutes late for my photo final. :D I think I'll have to eat at the Timber Inn more often next year, if it's still there.

CS3!

I bought some Adobe CS3 apps today. I now have the Adobe CS3 Design Standard suite, as well as the independent Dreamweaver CS3 kit. I bought them instead of Design Premium because the NAU Bookstore didn't have Design Premium for Mac in stock.

So far, the applications all look and work great. Several improvements have been made in Illustrator, and so far, inDesign, Photoshop and Dreamweaver all work as expected. I am also working on the next generation of my Dana/CLW249 website, which will hopefully start coming together this summer. I intend to include more of my photography and a few other things in the new website. I will eventually start moving my old Dana/CLW249 content over too.

I have also determined that I would at some point like to get a Wacom tablet and start getting into doing some stuff with Illustrator. Brandy even mentioned that it wouldn't be too difficult for me to get into doing a webcomic if I really wanted to, if I were to do fairly simple and/or stylized people, so I may just have to bust out the pen and some paper to get some practice with that.

I also downloaded and installed the cool free font bonus, and I am currently partaking in 30-days of free training from lynda.com, another registration gift from Adobe. Both are pretty interesting, I do like the font, and I will probably use it somewhere, for something. The lynda.com training is interesting too. They've got training on just about everything, and I intend to use it to improve the way I use these Creative Suite apps. Plus, I've been learning loads of cool tips from the Adobe Creative Suite podcast, which is now covering mainly CS3.

Needless to say, I will have a lot to do this summer, a lot of which includes the Creative Suite.

I love grammar.

I admit it. I'm a horrible grammar nerd.

I had fun making this diagram. I will probably do more complicated ones later on.

100th post.

I've been sitting here for a few weeks, since I saw that my blog postcount was in the 90s, and I've been thinking about what I should make my 100th post about.

At first I was thinking of doing something about Megan, but I had second thoughts about that because I was unsure of whether or not I really wanted to do anything epic and long about that whole situation.

I was also thinking of doing something computer related, but that would involve me finding something pretty much epic to write about.

I was thinking about doing a reflection on my Freshman year of college, and while that's a pretty good idea, I don't know what I'd say - I've been recording my thoughts on it all year, and I will probably be able to do an even better overview in the next few weeks when it's actually all over. (Thank Goodness, too!)

I could also write about the 68kMLA and its downtime. It came back up today, and I still haven't added it back to my bookmarks bar. I also haven't completely decided whether or not I want to make my hiatus "official." I am fairly certain I am going to do so, however.

I also could write about my struggles in finding something to do this summer - the Summer RA job fell through, so I am definitely going to go home to Kingman. I am unsure about the video thing though, there was also talk about a pool job, and I'm sure there are other opportunities for employment over the summer.

Of course, it looks like instead, my 100th post is actually about the things my 100th post is not about. The only thing I haven't written about is how the 100th post is not about my experimental film.

PHO281 Project Finished!

Today I finally got my PHO281 project finished. I'm sure it would have been much less stressful overall if I had done it earlier, but I actually saw people who were still printing today, and after looking at them, it turns out my prints looked better than I originally thought anyway, which made me happy, but sorry for the people who will have to get their prints done and mat the photos so quickly.

Today was also my first time using the dry mount press method, I really like it compared to the old method - it's cleaner overall, there is less X-acto involved, and the prints coming out looking much cleaner.

I can't wait to be done with PHO281, though I suppose PHO285 will possibly just as bad. Ohwell, I suppose that as a photo major, I must go on.

An apparently bad week.

I know everybody has them. which is one of the reasons I try not to write notes all the time that consist simply of things like "I had such a bad week, I mean nothing to the world at large, and I hate all my classes." This week, however, is an exception. I think that I'm having a really bad week, especially by the very sensitive standards of some of the people whose lives I read up on.

So instead of taking more pictures for my PHO281 portfolio, or being in the darkroom developing that film, or working harder on the rewrite of my JLS131 news story, I'm going to write an angsty blog post slash Facebook note. I figure since everybody else does it, I am allowed, eh?

Hmm.... Actually, I think the worst part of this week is that Sunday my roommate tore apart his side of the room, thinking his parents were going to bring the stuf he doesn't need home. So it's difficult to move around my side of the room.

Oh, there's also the bit where the NAULive reporter asked me to do something Yesterday at night, which was subsequently rescheduled to Thursday night. So I've got the biggest and hardest to move camera sitting here in my room. Even though NAULive is not running this week, I hope I don't get in trouble for having it so long.

Other than that, I am significantly behind on my photo project. My fault, but I have a feeling I'll be able to make it in time... I just need to pray that the two rolls I took today, plus some of my previous exposures will work for the project, which is architecture on campus, of which I've got a lot of photos. I've heard that some of the other teachers have allowed their students to do some digital pictures on a CD. I can assure you that if I were doing that, my project would basically be awesome. Ohwell.

I'm sure that I need to mention something about always forgetting to do the extra credit in the classes for which I direly need it. This lack of ability to remember task lists is surely the fault of the world.

Well, that's it for my angsty blog post I suppose. I need to go back down and switch my laundry to the dryer machine.

NAB!

The National Association of Broadcasters tradeshow and other related events is happening this week, and I'm here to provide some reactions.

Apple's announcements are obviously very interesting to me, so I'll start there.
Final Cut Studio 2.

That is pretty much it. - well, that and Final Cut Server, along with Apple's new Codec ProRES 422 and the special i/o device for that codec, AJA's new io-HD, which looks like it was actually designed by Apple.

The RED Digital Cinema Camera is apparently finished. It looks cool and it's really inexpensive for what it is. The base unit is $17,500 - which is about as much as you'd pay for a high end XDCAM or Panasonic P2 camera, but this camera's got an actual 12-megapixel more-than-4k resolution sensor, and can record an uncompressed full resolution signal. If this, in combination with "inexpensive" computer editing gear and software like the MacPro Final Cut Studio, isn't basically the best thing ever to happen to digital cinema, I'm not sure what is.

This could even bring cinema-quality shooting to Electronic News Gathering, or to more independent filmmakers. I'd love to use one at some point in time, it seems like a reasonable size, and the image quality from it must be AMAZING.

In other news, Sony is apparently expanding its XDCAM lineup to include a new prosumer product that will apparently be able to record onto a new 8 or 16 gig flash medium. With two 16 gig cards, recording times are apparently about 120 minutes. I am interested in seeing it for sure, it looks like Sony is trying to bring the XDCAM to the places Panasonic's P2 system is already at, but with better recording times.

Oh - one final note regarding Apple's announcements of the past week. No Leopard means no 64-bit Final Cut Pro, and no 64-bit Final Cut means limited addressing space for users dealing with redcode and other high-def files. I can't wait to see how Final Cut flies on systems with 8 or more gigs of ram, once we get Leopard and 64-bit Final Cut.

The Scheduling Gods have smiled upon me.

I like my schedule for next semester. I start every day with German 102 at 10:20 a.m. and end, at the latest, at 4:00 to 6:30 is VC251.

• GER102 - MTuWTh 10:20-11:00
• PHO285 - TuTh 12:45-2:00
• BIO100 - TuTh 2:20-3:35
• BIO100L - W 1:50-3:50
• VC251 - TuTh - 4:00-6:30

It's 17 cerdits total, but I won't be doing NAULive and the classes are arranged in a nice way, I'll end up doing homework on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Apparently I am old enough, or I seem enough like an old coot to be called grandpa on the Internet. I was having a discussion in #68kmla on FreeNode about web browsers and Mac OS 9, and somebody actually called me grandpa. Needless to say, I was quite surprised. It wasn't as offensive as it was surprising, and it certainly made me realize that as far as computers and technology go, I have been around for a lot of it.

I even vividly remember in November or December 1999, being in a CompUSA with my parents pointing out the various pieces of Apple software that would be cool as christmas gifts. Mac OS 9 was new then, and surely enough, Mac OS 9 and AppleWorks 5 were under the Christmas tree that year.

[cory5412] IE5 and wamcom can be okay, I've just had a lot of bad luck over the years.
[patrickool93] Ok Grand pa. back to bed ;)
[multifinder17] lol @ Patrickool93

My Protest of Shoes

Well, It's finally come to it. I have either gone hopping crazy-mad, or am about to offer a new and interesting critique of humanity. Unfortunately, I have none of Ryan's potentially world-changing wisdom today. Only a personal narrative about my barefoot campus adventure and today's frustration with footwear. So we must here conclude that I've gone hopping crazy-mad.

Recently I decided my shoes were aging abnormally fast. In high school, I was able to keep a pair of shoes for a very long time, often two or three years before they were actually unwearable, and usually I finally ditched a pair of shoes when I outgrew them - not when they died or had holes in the soles. However, here at NAU, I either walk differently, walk significantly more often, or some other type of walking that has caused my shoes to die within six months.

I decided that until I can get new shoes, I would wear my sandals around. It's springtime - therefore nice enough outside to do so, and it'll be a cool change in theory. Unfortunately, what I didn't think about was the fact that those sandals are always difficult to wear for long, especially if I don't wear socks with them, such as in a situation where I've just been in the shower with them and I do not feel like having wet socks all day long.

Yesterday this became apparent when after my German class, I went to NAULive and did some photog work for Tuesday's show with Jessica, one of the anchors. It was, of course - difficult to keep up while walking around. I had the double-problem of having brought the large JVC DV-500 ENG/EFP camera, along with the huge tripod. Add to that, I was wearing The Sandals Of Doom. The shoots ended up turning out okay, I was (as I often am) awkward and slow throughout the process, forgetting about certain settings, even switching the camera into full auto mode at a certain point, and not being sure how to switch it back.

Back at the Comm Building and Studio A, I ended up leaving my shoes behind the camera I was operating for today's NAULive, affording me the opportunity to stand around for an hour and a half without shoes on. The show went well, but I could still feel the pain. (Yes, I am whining. At least it's not about video acquisition formats, or a comprehensive, 8-page complaint about the speed of my computer, or about mobile computers.)

(This is where the whining stops and the explaining starts.) I ended up just walking home barefoot, my feet were already in pretty extreme pain, what could make it worse? I actually discovered that walking home barefoot was probably the best idea, I went from the comm building to the union and then from the union to Reilly (using the pedway by Cowden and Tinsley) barefoot, and found that although I walked slower, it wasn't really that bad. It was better than worsening the blisters or killing another good pair of socks.

Today I ended up just wearing the boots that I wore when it was snowing, I realized just how slow I've been walking, as a result of the shoes/sandals being evil. It was an amazing difference actually. I will definitely not get that type of shoes again anytime soon. (and by anytime soon, I mean this weekend when my mother comes for a visit.)

No Talk Show Pilot?

Well, many of you may know that I was dedicating my Sunday to two things.

1. Sitting at my computer next to the phone all day long, waiting for Courtney from NAULive to call.
2. Recording the pilot episode of Courtney's talk show for UTV62.

Unfortunately, my least favorite of those things happened for 14 full hours - I didn't leave my room all day except for one 45 minute breakfast run at 10:30 a.m. The thing I actually wanted to do, record the pilot, did not happen. I spent most of my day sending e-mails to Courtney, and I never got a reply.

Naturally, I did have fun with the GL2 the other evening, I'll put the results of my 2-cam videoblog shoot online next weekend sometime, after I've captured the results from both cameras and edited them, including some of my brand new Motion opening graphics, and of course, my Soundtrack Pro themesong for the videoblog. (I may need or want to rework the Motion opening sequence, but I've basically got what I want.)

The second naturally in my post is something UTV62 related. I am naturally going to have a discussion with Courtney about showing up and calling people. I don't know if I made this clear to her, but I cannot call cell phones because they are usually long distance, so if I want to talk to somebody whose number isn't on-campus or local, I need to wait for them to wait for them to call me, or I need to e-mail them. This is bad when people who I need to contact never call me or check their e-mail.

I hate to say it, but I am extremely frustrated because I had multitudinous opportunities today to go hang out with other friends (I'm still sorry, Megan!) and get food - instead I sat here all day waiting for the highlight of my weekend, and nothing happened other than me browsing some websites about old macs, and chatting the day away. Oh, I did COM200 and GER102 homework as well.

DV Recording

I've got a really cool toy to play with this weekend. It's a Canon GL2 in what I think is basically the most awesome configuration ever. It's got an MA-300 Microphone adapter, and two dynamic mics (One lav and one hand held), plus the appropriate (long enough) XLR cables.

I am going to use it on Sunday to film a pilot episode of a talk show for UTV62.

Until then, I've got Camera+1 sitting here in my room, so I've decided to do a few things with it.

The first thing I shot with it here in the dorm was actually a screen capture of the old Toshiba laptop (aka TWL) booting IBM OS/2 Warp 3 and loading one of the IBM Works applications. The screen cap worked fairly well and it made me realize exactly how slow that old laptop is.

After screen capping the Toshiba, I decided I'd try a different method just for fun. The GL2 has an S-Video input and when the camera is in VCR mode, it can do analogue input for recording to the DV tape, or for recording straight to computer. So I got out my trusty new S-Video cable and the PowerBook G3, and did a few OS X screen captures in the camera's VCR mode. This was definitely interesting because it was essentially a perfect example of Mac OS X's failings in a low-resolution setting. The default size for everything is basically awful when outputting at 720x480.

Bored with screen capturing, I performed what I think is the most important and interesting of the tests - a direct comparison between the DV and Video8 formats, and of course the Sony HandyCam I've got and the Canon GL2.

For the comparison, I set both cameras up at about the same height on tripods, each in a different enough location so that I could look back and forth to make it seem more like a legitimate multi-cam shoot. I then got the dynamic hand held mic and the Canon Mic Adapter. I decided I wanted a direct comparison of the audio as well as the video quality, so I actually took the headphone output of the GL2 and attached it to the Microphone input of the HandyCam. I pressed record on both cameras, sat down and just talked about the setup for a few moments.

Doing such a shoot is definitely interesting, I am certainly happy to have a comparison done, and I can't wait until Monday when I can start to capture the tapes to hard disc. I'll have to capture at the comm building, and then bring the footage back to my iMac on the iPod or something.

At any rate... I certainly can't wait to do the actual talk show shoot, but I am concerned because I received a phone call today (after the EM checkout desk closed) saying that for the show, three cameras and a minimum of three microphones (two lav if possible) will be needed, so I hope the now-wimpy one camera, one lav and one hand-held will be acceptable.

If we were allowed to shoot S-VHS, I'd run out and buy another S-VHS tape and shoot with two or three of the big 3-chip S-VHS cams, but I don't think NAULive has enough tripods for that, unfortunately.

Hiatus from the 68kMLA

Some of you might know that I've been an active member of the 68kMLA online community... almost forever. I'm working to change that, or at the very least, reduce my own urge to visit that community. I am officially announcing here that I am on hiatus from the 68kMLA.

Suffice it to say that I have been frustrated with the changes in the general attitude of that community, and basically, I've come to the conclusion that it's is pathetic for me to place so much importance in an online community. It's great that I'm committed to something, but that community has proven time and again that I really need to find something better to do with the majority of the time I spend at my computer.

So what am I to do?

I think I may start by blogging more often, a lot of stuff happens in my life that I'm just sure the whole world needs/wants to know about. (Yeah - as if.) It is also a good process of self documentation, and I am sure there is something about my actual writing skills it will help.

I also might actually work more on my experimental film, whatever it is and whenever I actually intend to do something about it. I really want to get some stuff done for that so I can have an actual product, something I can say "I made this and it's not just random recordings, and it's not for NAULive"

I could also work on my classes more, I've got loads of work for a lot of my classes I need to do, and not being at the 68kMLA would definitely be a good inspiration to actually do work.

Well, we'll see how long my hiatus from the 68kMLA lasts. I may force myself to stay gone long enough to actually do the experimental film.

Adobe CS3

Well, after a year or more of anticipating, and 4 months of using Photoshop CS3 Beta, Adobe has finally announced the availability, pricing, and some of the features of the new lineup of CS3 products. About time!

Not only have the usual suspects been updated, (Photoshop, inDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, Flash, Dreamweaver) but Adobe is also including PremierePro, Encore, and the new SoundBooth app in this madness of new apps.

The additional applications is leading to a restructuring of the family, there are now Standard and Premium packages in "Design" and "Web" variants, as well as a Premium Production package for audio/video, and an all-encompassing "Master Collection."

The restructuring of the family is cool, it ensures that creative professionals are paying just for what they need, not apps they'll never use. Thusly, Dreamweaver and Flash aren't included in the Standard Design bundle, which is intended for print designers.

Unfortunately, the restructuring means that Educational pricing is very confusing now. All of the bundles are available, and the prices to get approximately what was available in the old CS2.3 bundle are a bit outrageous.

To get both Dreamweaver and inDesign, which I want to do, will cost $200 more than it would have under the CS2 structure. I would need to buy the Premium Design package to do that. The bad thing about that is that the Premium Design package is $599 whereas the old CS2.3 was $399. (Educational Pricing)

I'm excited that all of this is coming out, but it makes me a bit sad that it costs so much more to get the same functionality I would have had with the older suite. For a hot moment I was actually tempted just to buy CS 2.3. I wouldn't get Flash, and performance would basically be awful, but I would have a legal version of the apps I want.

I think my solution may end up somewhere in the middle, I will probably try to get my hands on one of the standard packages, and either "acquire" the pieces I think of as missing, or use the old Dreamweaver and Flash MX I've got, either on the PowerBook G3, or I'll just bite the proverbial bullet and use Rosetta.

Of course, we'll see if the parentals approve any kind of AdobeCS related shenanigans at all, especially since I also might have designs upon the next version of Apple's operating system, Leopard.

Train Travel

Amtrak does a good job with the Southwest Chief. It may have been at one point in time, or it may even still be one of their least profitable routes in the entire system, but there are plenty of people who ride it from Chicago to LA and back again on a regular basis, plus the regular helping of people who ride it for shorter distances, such as my ride from Flagstaff to Kingman.

One of the first things I noticed, and something about which I was very pleased, was the fact that the waiting room in Flagstaff was very full - there were an amazing amount of people waiting to get on the westbound Southwest Chief. It makes me happy that there were so many people waiting on the train.

Engines number 5 and 98 pulled my train. One of the Heritage Fleet baggage cars, followed by a typical Superliner consist, of the Crew Dorm, probably three sleeping cars, the Dining Car, the Sightseer Lounge, and the three Coachclass cars.

I heard the comment in the station that it was a lot like Europe, where we were all waiting for the train, but I realized that this is a distinctly American experience. Here I am sitting in about the middle of the top deck of a two-level long distance coach. I have more legroom sitting in this behemoth of a transport option than I do in any of my classes, and while I realize that it isn't going as fast as the cars on the road, or an airplane would be - I'm partaking in a unique and relaxing experience. The gentle swaying of the cars as they roll along the tracks, the Eastbound freighters zooming by us at regular intervals, and the ability to get up and go to the restroom, and then wander over to the Lounge car and buy a snack or some milk. Despite the supposed awesomeness of bullet trains, I don't hear about anybody telling you their latest Shinkansen journey was relaxing, or that they were able to roam the train and buy a snack.

I am definitely glad I was able to take the train, even though the trip was so short. I may make it a point to do a longer and more comprehensive journey by rail at some later point. I would one day like to do the whole Southwest Chief journey, as well as as much of the Coast Starlight as possible - and I would certainly love to see some of the other Northern and Eastern routes.

Maybe one day I will buy one of those 30-day North America passes from Amtrak and VIA and take all of the various trains I've read about and seen pictures of.

Spring Break

Well, Spring Break is finally here, and I couldn't be too much happier. I really do enjoy having a week off.

I get to go home Sunday night too, though I am thinking I might try to come back here a bit early, Thursday or Friday night most likely, that way I can get myself well enough prepared for the final haul of my freshman year.

I also think that before I leave, I should clean my room, but for now I'm fine just sitting here listening to Leahy and reading the Interblags.

Cory W. Fund for the Fiscally Impaired

The Cory W. Fund for the Fiscally Impaired is a fund to which I am the initial donator (with USD2.57 of it coming from me). It was started by Mike's girlfriend Erica who thought it would be a good idea to raise money for one of his hockey teammates.

They recently completed fund raised exactly USD$100.00, which they will present to "The Fiscally Impaired" in the form of one hundred dollar bill. He will supposedly use it to purchase hockey gear for next year.

Now if only there were some kind of fund in someone's honor for me.

Travel Plans

I am going home for spring break - I get to ride the Amtrak Southwest Chief train from Flagstaff to Kingman on March 18th, and I'm going to come home a few days later, on the same train.

I'm going to bring my camera and video camera most likely, who knows - there may be other implements of awesomeness involved. Portable computer, anyone? I may attempt to make a video blog of the trip.

Unfortunate -

I didn't get the RA position. Part of me really wants to know why, another part of me just wants to keep listening to Daft Punk's Discovery over and over again. As always, there's yet-another part of me - more than one actually. Two other parts of me want to be angry, and have an "I don't care" attitude, respectively.

I do care, and I am somewhat miffed because I did work hard on the application and everything, but I am also somewhat relieved because I have heard it is a difficult job, and my time is already almost fully consumed as it is.

I hope to apply again for the RA job next semester, but in the meantime I think I may need to find another on-campus job, or look into working over the summer, or even finding a few more decent scholarships.

I did get a few emails from the Office of Financial Aide over the past few days, regarding scholarships I am eligible for, I got the applications today and am going to do the applications for those before long.

I think it's time for me to fire up the D50 and start running around campus. Even more importantly, I might have to go off-campus to get some photos of other things. I may also work on another videoBlog post, who knows.

The other thing I need to do now is decide what building I want to live in next year.

Summer Rail Trip!

I'm not yet certain, but I think would be quite awesome to have a jolly ol' rail trip this summer! I've discovered an interesting plan that Amtrak has, which basically allows me thirty days of free travel on almost any train in North America operated by Amtrak or VIA Rail Canada. This plan would cost about $640, plus I would want to get a Passport and I would need to sign up for the silly "Student Advantage" card which would allow the savings.

If I did that, I would probably not spend too much more than a day or so in any cities of real importance, but you can be gauranteed I'd have many many photos of wherever I went.

Another option is to just go to Seattle on train and visit people from that region of the world. It is both less, as well as more exciting. I would definitely end up spending a total of 3-4 days total in the Seattle area, probably visit some people I know online or whatever.

Either way, I think it would end up being like a 30 day long photographic wet dream, plus I could get to visit my friends from Washington and other parts of the USA and Canada.

Playing DDR

During a Target run today, I decided that for some reason, it would be nifty to use Dance Dance Revolution as a method of exercise, so I got one of the Konami kits that has DDR Extreme 2 and a bundled dance pad. I'd have to say the only unfortunate thing about this kit is that the dance pad only works with playstation II consoles, but that's okay, for now I've just borrowed Justin's playstation II.

DDR Extreme 2 has an interesting mode, it's called exercise mode, unfortunately I've discovered that exercise mode kills me. However, this could be an advantage, because I need to do some working out and losing some weight anyway.

Anyway, here's to the revolution of the Double-Dance!

Thoughts on HDV.

Hey Everybody! This is actually something I wrote as a forum post, and then liked, so here it is on my blog. If you'd like to follow the discussion, click here.

This evening I was reviewing the procedure for getting video from my sony handycam (video8) onto the computer, and usable by a nonlinear editing system such as Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express. One of the things I discovered is that FCE/FCP doesn't like plain mpeg4 DVD rips, so my procedure for using (any analogue video source with a composite or svideo output really) Video8 now includes using Quicktime Player to convert the .mp4 file to a .dv file.

My main concern with this is that it has become a bit of a time consuming process to prepare my video for final cut, and that the filespace advantage of using a ripped DVD file (which is about 700megs/hour) versus a .DV file (which is about 13 gigs per hour) is now gone, without any of the actual quality advantages of having imported from a real DV camera.

I've been looking at newer camcorders, and what I've seen is that while DV (and digi8 too, if I were going to go that way...) is become less expensive, so are DVD cams, hard disc cams, as well as HDV cams.

DVD cams are interesting because they seem to promise nice, DV quality, but they don't use tape. However, I've noticed that those don't mix well with the iMac. Plus, that only eliminates one (admittedly the least fun) part of the current process.

MiniDV cams are attractive because they are inexpensive (bhphotovideo.com has one for $199) but I am concerned that this format (along with all other things standard def) may be a bad investment (at least to buy new) because of the growing popularity of all things high-definition.

Hard Disc camcorders are significantly more expensive, one of the cheapest ones around is $430 and this is still standard definition. Unfortunately what I've learned is that the current hard disc camcorders are extremely difficult to use with Macintosh video software, and they're even difficult to use with PC software, but very slightly less so. The idea is good, but it's still not been executed properly I think. Add to that, these units are still standard def, which could mean in the long run, it'll be a bad investment.

This brings me to HDV. I've noticed that there is now at least one HDV camcorder for under $1000, the Canon HV-10 for $800, and the Sony HDR-HC5 for $999. Canon's upcoming HV-20 is also going to be available soon, for $1099.

This format seems to be the future, it uses MiniDV tapes (though higher-grade "HDV" tapes are available, which supposedly improve the quality of the format significantly), and it can record 1080i or 720p (I bet it can record 1080p but the low end cameras don't do that apparently.)

My question is whether or not it seems like HDV is really worth it yet, especially for those of us who might already have access to other high def equipment, if some hypothetical person is interested in getting a camcorder sometime within the next few years.

Naturally, there are not really any HD-capable disc burners within a reasonable price range yet, but for displaying HD works on the TV, there's always the component video output on the camera, and there isn't anything saying that bluray or hddvd burners won't come down in cost in the coming years.

Another thing that may be worthy of noting is that HDV is the same data rate as DV, so in the end (storage-wise) if I record an hour of video with my handycam and put it on the computer (after converting to the .dv file), and an hour of video with an HDV cam and put it on my computer, they take up about the same amount of space. (at least this is my understanding, it may or may not be correct.)

I think if I were to adopt HDV today, I'd go for the Canon HV10, it's a smaller size than the Sony offering, as well as being better in a few ways even than its upcoming big sibling, the HV20. The HV10 has the ability to record analogue audio/video from its line-in port to a DV tape, for example. In fact, just about the only down-side to the HV10 is its lack of a microphone port, but that isn't that big of a deal for me, considering I only first started using an off-cam microphone a few weeks ago. Plus, another advantage I've got is that I'd still have the old handycam hanging around if I needed to make recordings using the microphone.

I like the idea of the extra video quality that HDV offers, especially if I intend to do some sort of independent or experimental film at some point in the future, but I am unsure if it's really worth it right now, especially given the fact I've already got the Handycam... well, handy.

Return of the iMac

The yet-unnamed iMac has returned. It's weird though... all of my data is gone, and I'm going to be spending a very long time getting everything returned to normalcy, I can tell. It is really unfortunate that what happened did, because it really reduces my trust - not only in computers in general, but specifically in this computer. This computer was less than 90 days old and it failed completely and totally - as a result of BootCamp with Windows XP, I had to get the motherboard and the hard disc replaced.

Unfortunately, replacing the hard disc means that all of my important data that was on the hard disc is gone. These include such awesomenesses as the UeberWiki, my entire iTunes library (minus whatever I may be able to derive from old archives), and a few of my photos.

It's somewhat devastating, but I guess that this is a good lesson for me in BACKING UP! I am going to start a backup plan this evening, where my home folder will be backed up on a regular basis. I also intend to back up the UeberWiki at least once per week, and create archives of files I am no longer using on DVDs, which will help reduce confusion and uncertainty, and maintain order and whatnot.

Luckily, I've gotten some network things sorted out (this also prevents unauthorized people from using my printer) and gotten the UeberWiki back online! http://134.114.127.122/ is the new URL. I'm going to create a new intro page, and that'll probably host my potential future video podcast or something.

Birthday, RA Interview

Well, it's been an insane few days... This really should be like four different posts, but here it goes.

My birthday was on Friday, so on Friday night, my friends Megan, Justin, Seth, Mike and Ashley came to sweep me off my rear end onto my feet, out of the room and into the world for our "night on the town." We had the mandarin super-buffet, which was okay - but not remarkable. Admittedly, I was a bit difficult for awhile, and the original plan was to go to the other chinese place, but in the end it worked out well enough. After that, we get back to the dorm, and it turns out that Megan and GirlChris had baked a cake earlier that day - wow! (I'm still eating the cake now, I'm going to finish it this morning. It's awesome.

It didn't end there, though! I got an Easy Button and a Staples gift card from Megan.
Needless to say, I think I've got the most awesome friends of anybody, ever.

In the morning on Friday, I went to check on the status of my iMac. It turns out that the hard disc needs to be replaced, and they're doing that for me. I am going to go Monday and ask them to perform the data recovery service as well, which could cost me up to $60 depending on who is working and how helpless I seem to them. I really dislike putting myself in that kind of position, but I also really want my data back if I can get it. that drive had my music, the UeberWiki, some schoolwork, and lots more on it.

As far as my other computer goes, I now have the PowerBook G3 running Mac OS X 10.3.9, I will probably just leave it with this for awhile. I've got a few nice apps on here, and I'll probably go ahead and put Dreamweaver MX and Office 2004 on here, to prevent me from needing to run PPC apps on the Intel iMac. (I still intend to buy Adobe CS3 when it comes out, but that's quite far away.)

Saturday was big too, my dad and Brenda came for a visit and we went to the Flagstaff mall for lunch at Ruby Tuesdays, then some shopping. I got a new pair of pants in a slightly smaller size, which is my new goal. I also got a shirt. Then we went to Target and got some microwave burritos, deodorant, shampoo, laundry detergent, milk, and a tripod. Some useful stuff, some cool stuff, in all, a nice day. After shopping, we went to to the Olive Garden for dinner, and then my day was over. (Not really - I stayed up until like 3am playing computer. :P)

This morning was like an EventExplosion. At 7, my dad came by and dropped off a birthday card. Then I went back to sleep. Unfortunately, the phone rang a few times. I ended up ignoring it the first time, then it rang again and a message was left. "oh my god!" I thought. It was an NAU Office of Residence Life director, calling to say that I was currently missing my appointment. "Oh noess!!!!" I thought. I called back after a shower, and left a message explaining that I regretted missing my appointment and I was in the process of getting myself over to the office. The director called me back shortly, and said not to rush too much, that if I got there before 10, I'd be good. She said "we didn't want you to miss this, because your application was definitely not just thrown together." (that made me happy.)

So I get there and my interview starts - It's a director from Sechrist, and RAs from McConnell and Tinsley interviewing me. Their 20 questions ranged in difficulty, but they obviously know how to make sure that somebody is well-qualified. I felt fairly confident, but one thing I observed was that I started using fairly big, somewhat formal words, which I'm not sure they wanted. Hopefully I get a second-round interview though.

Anyway... have fun, and to all - A Happy Tuesday!

iMac... maybe?

Well, the iMac was repaired, but that has apparently failed. I went to the NAU bookstore today and checked on the status of my repair, and it turns out that the replacement logic board was ordered, received, installed, and then failed!

Sometimes, I wonder about computers, and whether or not they're worth it.

I'm now using the PowerBook G3 (500MHz/1mb L2, 512mb of ram, 30gig hdd) as my main computer. It started on Mac OS 9.2.2 as a no-internet work computer, as well as doing my website in Dreamweaver MX. Then, getting tired of it's lackluster Internet performance, I put SuSE Linux 10.1 on it. That failed miserably, Linux is significantly lacking in the usability and speed departments.

The PowerBook G3 is currently running Mac OS X 10.3, where it has basically all of the apps I really need, and it runs them quite well. (still some performance issues, but they're nowhere near as awful as running Linux was.)

Relief!

Well, that certainly is a relief! For those of you who don't know,
last Thursday while I was attempting to discover the "Wow" power of
Microsoft Windows Vista, I decided that vmware wasn't enough, and that
I would need to use Vista in the Boot Camp environment. Unfortunately,
I couldn't partition more than 5 gigs of the disk for some reason, so
I decided I may as well do Windows XP. Unfortunately, that failed too.
The iMac stopped recognizing all forms of boot media.

Anyway, I brought it to the shop on Thursday, and have finally heard
back today - they ordered a new logic board for it, and it should be
ready within the next two to four days. I am going to go pick it up on
Thursday if it is ready by then.

Also, I cleaned my room, that made me feel a bit better. Plus, I've
been picking up the paper on time.

German Class Canceled

Among other things, but the chief topic of this post happens to be the fact that my German class was canceled today. I was quite surprised, really. There was no prior notice, but a sign had been posted indicating that our instructor's 9:10 class would be canceled.

Anyway, lots of snow, a class was canceled possibly as a result. Have a good day!

Holy Improvement!

Google/IG has some improvements that I really like. It turns out, the display of RSS feeds can now display part of the post from the feed, and it displays the date of the post. This is useful for things like the feed of a webcomic that displays the same title in every post, or for keeping track of how often I post to my own blog.

Speaking of cool things - I've been using /IG to keep track of this webcomic. (Actually, I linked to a specific strip. It shows something I've noticed about people with cellular telephones that take photos, and with point and shoot digital cameras.)

Thoughts on Convenience

I am a bit of a luddite. I absolutely love technology, but when it comes to using it, sometimes I shy away from some of the newer and more adventurous technologies. One of these, has traditionally been digital music players. I was a fairly big fan of tapes, and I still am. However - December, 2006 brought around an interesting new device. I received my own digital music player.

There are basically a few reasons why I have had an aversion to things like digital music players.

• They seem to disconnect people from other physical people.
• I'm sure there's some sort of health issue in there.
• Any digital music players that are worth looking at have traditionally been somewhat costly, for somebody with a fairly modest collection of music.
• I have always thought that it was a bit of a waste to keep my music on my computer, as well as on a portable device.

Naturally, there may have been more, or it may just be my aversion to the way people act when they are using such devices. (the same with cellular telephones.) However, it seems as though what the portable digital music player device category offers is convenience, which is not necessarily a bad thing. A good recent example of this is that I recently needed to make a quick run down the stairs and to the ATM machine at the student union. Before, I would have used my analogue tape player on that mission. Instead, I brought the digital player. What I noticed was that I was just as "disconnected" and would have been so, even if I didn't have headphones on. There simply was nobody for me to talk to. Another interesting thing.

Additionally, I didn't have to, or feel the need to change music sources when I came back and sat down, and if my computer were having some sort of issue, or if I were using another computer, I would have still had access to my music.

I guess that this means I must concede... this digital music player device is fairly nifty, and thus far, I give it a rating of "fairly useful" among the sea of devices I've seen, read about, and had the pleasure to use. Naturally, I'm not dumping the tape player, or the optical disc player, but this has probably succeeded those two devices for music which will play on it. (If, however - I feel like only listening to John Tesh's album "Avalon" (which I have on compact disc), or "The Disney Afternoon" (which I have on audio cassette tape) all day long, I will probably use the disc player or the tape player, respectively.)

Epic Video Game

Hey Everybody, this is just a little note to say that I recently acquired an epic "video game." It's the kind of video game you play with a camcorder, apparently! It's this interesting 1990s thing called "Camcorder Helper" it comes with a little handbook, a sound effects CD, and little cards that suggest scenes to act out, among other things. It is from the creators of Magnetic Poetry, and the packaging suggests that it's a combination of an awesome party game, and a "Video Chemistry Set."

I need to throw a mini Camcorder Helper party some time.

Also, an update on CraGNoWriMo, which is now called "ProCraGNo" (Project: Crazy Group Novel.) Brandi has notes about our main characters, and the setting and basic premise. In upcoming meetings, we will discuss more of the technical details about what we will write the novel on, as well as when we plan on starting and stopping the novel-writing madness, and we will also discuss some of the ideas for chapters, specific events, etc. I might even bring notecards to that meeting.

Action News Update!

Heya Everybody! I have news about a variety of things. Firstly, classes start tomorrow, and I am insanely happy about it. Tomorrow, I have GER102 and PHO281 - those were two of my favorite subjects in high school, so I'm interested in what I will think of them at the university level.

Nextly, I have a laptop so old that it is considered to be quite epic. It is an old Toshiba Satellite 486 laptop with 4 megabytes of ram, and a disproportionately large 2 gigabyte hard disc. It will dual-boot Windows 3.1 and IBM's OS/2 Warp 3. I hope to use it for word processing and other retro things. In fact, I may get the CaGNoWriMo group to use it so that we're all writing using the same computer, so that there isn't any issue if some of us use Macs or PCs or whatever. Plus, I bet this thing would withstand being dropped or tossed in case of clumsiness or frustration. Plus, backups onto a modern computer would not be very difficult using floppy discs.

In other news, Brandy and I want to get CraGNoWriMo started by the beginning of February, so we hope that anybody who is going to participate will be able to make it to an Introductory meeting sometime soon. This way, we'll be able to hammer out some of the details, and get going on the upcoming novel. With luck, each of us will be able to have a few characters, and have a lot of say in the overall feel of the novel, we were even thinking of having a very liberal amount of time available to work on your segment, and with luck, with that amount of time, we'll be able to have two full rotations of the novel. That'll be great.

Also, I'm working on moviemaking projects, and probably a lot of other things. Anyway - Happy Tuesday!

WebComic 002

I am now even further into the depths of the world of web comics. In this one, I am introducing another character! Also, I've set up a bit of a strip visual style, with luck the same frame and panel arrangement will be used for awhile - at least for the rest of the strips I do on this computer. I am currently looking for a title for this particular series, and comments about it. If it is not-so-awesome, then it would be best to tell me before I start putting them together in advance or anything silly like that.



Oh, I also plan on another series, which has already undergone some development, I just need to set up a visual style for that one and start making strips in the computer. I don't feel like scanning anything, and my handwriting sucks anyway. Maybe I'll use Poser for my other project.

Electronic Sketchings (WebComic #001)

I am at mother's house tonight, and I don't have the iMac. So I'm just using the old Dell OptiPlex machine - what a surprised. Luckily for me, the Adobe Creative Suite exists on this machine, to prevent me from becoming insane. What a wonderful consideration, don't youthink?

So, basically, I created the first issue of my web comic. I may do more, I may give up. I will probably switch art styles multiple times throughout its run - I may even experiment with using Poser to create each panel, using some of its defaultPeople as the objects of my craziness.

Trip to Vegas!

Today was Vegas Day for Dad and I. :) Here is a Photo-Blog-Post of the adventure. (This is, by the way, my first blog entry of the year!


They started building some improvements to Highway 93, I presume.



Pink Jeep tours now gives tours in pink Chevrolet Suburbans. Don't tell the tourists - they won't even notice.


We then got to the Hoover Dam, and had to drive across it. We went from the "AZ" time to Pacific time.


I saw a ram that you don't put in your computer, as well as an extremely deceiving walkway, it looked more like a wash ditch than a walkway!


Las Vegas has some very interesting landscapes, as well as a lot of smog! I don't know if I'd actually want to live there with that kind of smog hanging around all the time.


I saw a lot of buses in Vegas, which is surprising, and not surprising at the same time. I haven't seen an accordion bus since I lived in Washington, I think. Also, there is a casino with friends. I wonder who they are.


In Las Vegas, especially on or near the strip, just about everything is either more scandalous, or shinier with more neon light tubes.


Danny Gans was Entertainer of the year at least two or three years ago when I went back to Michigan, and he is apparently still it. I think it should be Celine Dion or somebody else for a change.

How interesting! Fashion Show Mall has a huge iPod ad on the front. Almost every surface in Vegas has advertising on it.


Vegas has a lot of interesting advertising. Here is some examples of adversiting on taxi cabs. NewEgg, Toshiba, Microsoft, and Benq seem to REALLY love that advertising space. I also think that the stacked deck thing is somewhat funny.


We went to the Apple Store in Fashion Show Mall! I really liked looking around the store, but I found that while it was mesmerizing, it was less mesmerizing in a "must have a new Mac" way now that I've got... ba-dah-bing - my new iMac. :)


Teavana is another store in the mall. Dad went in here, and was going to buy a book, but he didn't want to, he said, after the cashier in the store said that photography wasn't allowed. The store had a silly fan setup, I took a picture of it from outside after that incident.


I got a new lens for my camera! It's a Quantaray 18-125mm lens for Nikon AF. It is awesome! when I got that picture of my dad, I was standing about three feet away from him. This is totally an awesome wide-angle lens. I also got the picture of the Tamrac logo from probably... well, it was quite far away. I certainly can't wait to test the lens out tomorrow, and next week at school. It will be awesome.


Here are some automotive things from the very end of the trip. (taken with my old 28-80 Nikkor glass.) The first belongs in "Stick Figures in Peril" I'm sure. The second is an automobile that seems to be missing parts.

In all, it was a very awesome day, and writing this blog post has taken much too long. Here's to an awesome 2007, filled with loads of photography opportunities, and great times!