These days on campus have gone so fast, I wonder if the whole year will be over next week. Before the freshman arrived, mornings were packed with games and game-making. Evenings brimmed with cookies, movies, and general merriment. Now I find myself running to all ends of campus. Lofts, packets, boxes, parents, blood, sweat, and tears.
This morning things have slowed down a bit, I have no commitments today until 2:00 pm. I hope I'm not so tired that can't do the few things for which I finally have time.
After a long and undesirably eventful drive, I've safely arrived in Texas. Tuesday morning Sharon and I left from Chicago around 5 am. We arrived in Longview at about 9:45 pm. We filled up on gas 5 times, using approximately 40 gallons We filled up on automatic transmission fluid 4 times, using approximately 1.5 gallons. The gas burned cleanly, the atf left a coat of nastiness on the back of the truck.
Now I've been enjoying such Texas delights as 90 degree days, the ice-cave of Scholl, and Waffle Shoppe. The rest of the crew needs to arrive so we can have some real fun.
So I've been enjoying a wonderful day with a beautiful girl around Elgin, IL. Sharon and I have visited two parks and lots of water, and stopped at the new, very large Elgin library. Naturally, I was drawn to the computers. I sat down in the children's section and discovered something of great personal happiness. The web-browser all the systems are loaded with is not IE, but Firefox! Hurrah. Now its time to take a peek around and go looking for food...
I am distraught to be leaving here at home 2 15" and 1 17" monitors. If anyone could use these for the year, I will bring it / them with me. Just let me know by tonight, or it will be too late. The 17" I'll want back at the end of the year, the others can be bought / bribed off me for food / cash. I got them for under $10 each...
More sweet goodness from O today, I stopped by his place to pick up a monitor for Ziggy. He had told me yesterday he could get me a 17" Trinitron flat-tube for $85. When I went in today, he had sold them. So he gave me a 19" Trinitron flat-tube for the same price.
In other goodness, I also snagged a 366 laptop with a 14 Gig drive (and no cdrom or floppy) for only $50. It works, and its small and nice. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but it was too cheap, I couldn't resist. Right now my problem with it is that it used to belong to some company. They've done a very decent job of locking it down. It's running 98, and as soon as the system enters Windows it loads their special app. When I exit said app, it shuts down the computer. You can't alt+tab, ctrl+alt+del, or f8 your way around it. I'd like to get it back to normal windows without pulling the drive out and messing with it in another system, but I don't know what else to try. Any ideas?
*edit*
Got it. Now I must figure out how to get Debian on here...
My week has become filled with many things I must do. I am leaving Saturday morning to go to Sharon's house in Chicago. Around Tuesday we will leave there to drive to Texas. Thus my week has included so far:
- An extended DnD session with a monk/cleric who was half legendary wolf and sainted. Fear my greater turning!
- Downloading of a dozen MST3K episodes. I don't think I could stand another giant turtle in Tokyo.
- Replacing door panels, the dashboard, and the seat on my '82 S10 with panels and such from a '89 S10.
- Taking the old banger in for shock work, just under 200 (ouch!).
- Downloading the Fedora Core 2 DVD ISO for our Digital Shortwave Content Servers (don't ask).
- Eating mass numbers of cookies during a blackout (a long story).
Thus I am left with only one more task. Packing to leave for college. I'll get around to it...
I've suddenly realized my deep-felt need to drive to Wisconsin.
So I'm leaving in 4.5 hours.
It's nine or so hours each way, so it should be fun.
I'm hoping to stop and see a most beautiful girl on the way back... I hope that works out.
I'm also finished downloading:
Earth vs. The Spider
The Magic Voyage of Sinbad
Jack Frost
Horror of Party Beach
Gamera
Star Force, Fugitive Alien 2
Additionally, MST3K seasons 00 and 01 are making their way to my hard-drive.
Only 239 hours to go!
I love bit-torrent...
ps. Haha to all you suckers on dial-up!
I watched Spiderman 2 tonight, and I am appalled.
About half way through the film, Peter Parker is sitting in a large university classroom, apparently in a theoretical physics class. His professor asks the class, "So what is the Eigen value?" Nobody seems to know, and the professor practically pleads for anybody to answer. Peter slips up his hand. "0.26 electron volts," he answers. The professor was pleased. I was horrified.
Anyone who knows anything about solving systems of differential equations will tell you that Eigen values are never the solution to a problem, only one step. Moreover, they do not have units. Thus, Parker's answer can not possibly be correct. It is all a horrible movie flub. Quite frankly, it blew any plausibility the movie had built up.