Incoherent Mumbling
Monday, April 24, 2006
List
So I had a list of things that I was going to do over the next six months. It is time to check in and see how things are going.
The list, as I remember went something like:
1.) Spend lots of time with my wife and kids.
2.) Spend more time in devotion, meditation and prayer.
3.) Study: Greek, French, PHP, mySQL, VB6 and Python.
4.) Read, Read, Read. Too many books to name.
5.) Work out -- lose about 10^100 lbs of fat.
6.) Practice the bass, maybe the guitar. Go crazy and start a band.
1.) I have a lot more quality family time. It has been quite refreshing.
2.) Coming along, need to work more diligently.
3.) Haven't done anything from this yet.
4.) Going great, see the sidebar for books consumed so far. I will update it with more as I finish them.
5.) Started a workout regimen today.
6.) Nothing so far. Plan on restringing the acoustic soon, though. ¶ 10:01 PM 1 feedback
So I had a list of things that I was going to do over the next six months. It is time to check in and see how things are going.
The list, as I remember went something like:
1.) Spend lots of time with my wife and kids.
2.) Spend more time in devotion, meditation and prayer.
3.) Study: Greek, French, PHP, mySQL, VB6 and Python.
4.) Read, Read, Read. Too many books to name.
5.) Work out -- lose about 10^100 lbs of fat.
6.) Practice the bass, maybe the guitar. Go crazy and start a band.
1.) I have a lot more quality family time. It has been quite refreshing.
2.) Coming along, need to work more diligently.
3.) Haven't done anything from this yet.
4.) Going great, see the sidebar for books consumed so far. I will update it with more as I finish them.
5.) Started a workout regimen today.
6.) Nothing so far. Plan on restringing the acoustic soon, though. ¶ 10:01 PM 1 feedback
Friday, April 21, 2006
meme
Been tagged. Read on.
Six weird things about me:
1. I hate it when stuff touches my face. Especially the water in the shower or stray bits of hair during a haircut. I do still wash my face, but I do not put it directly into the stream of water.
2. I have walked past homes of people that I know, hoping they are home looking out their window so when they see me they can invite me in. Several times. Consecutively. No-one has yet to invite me in.
3. I don't hand-write normally. I mean, I rarely form a letter the same way twice, or follow any pattern when I make a letter. Sometimes I start at the top left, sometimes it is the bottom right, or mabye I start in the middle and work both ways. I do this unconciously -- I only know about it because my wife pointed it out.
4. I cannot be organized. I have tried a PDA, pocket calendar, notebooks -- they all fail. Or rather, I fail. I just don't take the time to write events down. And then I schedule multiple events for the same day and hour.
5. I look at feet. I recognize people by their shoes and feet before I look at thier face. If everyone I know took off their shoes and threw them into a pile I could probably return all of them to their rightful owners. If I know you, I look at your feet.
6. I try to keep a good book in my pocket at all times.
Fiver
Five minutes to yourself. Read the book in my pocket.
Five bucks to spend right now. Go to the Book Bin.
Five items you could part with in your house, right now, that you hadn't thought of already. My wingtips (read: shoes from hell). My baseball bat (read: home protection system). My couch (read: not where I sit). My TV (read: the thing is an evil drainer of time that I am unable to resist). My old T-Shirts (read: I have, like, a billion).
Five items you absolutely, positively, could not part with in your house. Books, text and otherwise. Photos. Chair. Lappy and PC. Bible.
Five words you love. Sarcophagus, Tertiary, Theorem, Daah-eee, Loquacious.
Five folks I'm tagging. I don't tag. Do it if you want. If not -- DONT. ¶ 4:19 PM 0 feedback
Been tagged. Read on.
Six weird things about me:
1. I hate it when stuff touches my face. Especially the water in the shower or stray bits of hair during a haircut. I do still wash my face, but I do not put it directly into the stream of water.
2. I have walked past homes of people that I know, hoping they are home looking out their window so when they see me they can invite me in. Several times. Consecutively. No-one has yet to invite me in.
3. I don't hand-write normally. I mean, I rarely form a letter the same way twice, or follow any pattern when I make a letter. Sometimes I start at the top left, sometimes it is the bottom right, or mabye I start in the middle and work both ways. I do this unconciously -- I only know about it because my wife pointed it out.
4. I cannot be organized. I have tried a PDA, pocket calendar, notebooks -- they all fail. Or rather, I fail. I just don't take the time to write events down. And then I schedule multiple events for the same day and hour.
5. I look at feet. I recognize people by their shoes and feet before I look at thier face. If everyone I know took off their shoes and threw them into a pile I could probably return all of them to their rightful owners. If I know you, I look at your feet.
6. I try to keep a good book in my pocket at all times.
Fiver
Five minutes to yourself. Read the book in my pocket.
Five bucks to spend right now. Go to the Book Bin.
Five items you could part with in your house, right now, that you hadn't thought of already. My wingtips (read: shoes from hell). My baseball bat (read: home protection system). My couch (read: not where I sit). My TV (read: the thing is an evil drainer of time that I am unable to resist). My old T-Shirts (read: I have, like, a billion).
Five items you absolutely, positively, could not part with in your house. Books, text and otherwise. Photos. Chair. Lappy and PC. Bible.
Five words you love. Sarcophagus, Tertiary, Theorem, Daah-eee, Loquacious.
Five folks I'm tagging. I don't tag. Do it if you want. If not -- DONT. ¶ 4:19 PM 0 feedback
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Would you like a warranty with that?
I usually don't buy the extended warranty. My brother bought a lappy 3 or 4 years ago; he bought the 3 year extended warranty. The thing died-beyond-repair exactly two weeks after warranty expiration. When I bought a lappy in september of '04, I opted not to extend the standard warranty. My rule of thumb is to look at how much the warranty costs and compare that to the projected worth of the laptop at the end of warranty coverage. Because in three years a repair is not going to cut it. That is pretty much the useful life of a PC. Usually, PC hardware doesn't hold it's resale value very well (like a Ford Taurus -- what is the two-year depriciation on one of those bad boys?) which means that the extended warranty seems worthless to me.
But recently my digital camera fritzed. And when I bought the thing (a mothers day present for my wife) my brother was there. He and the salesman convinced me to buy the extended warranty package. The package came with a two year, no questions asked warranty, rechargable batteries which died immediately, a charger which fried, a case that didn't fit the camera and some lens cleaner that I never used. I felt pretty ripped off. Until we got the papers out the other day and realised it was a couple weeks before that no questions asked warranty ran out. So the camera is off getting fixed and we are happy as can be.
Thanks to Dale and the camera salesman. Mabye the extended warranties are not the ripoff I always believed they were. ¶ 10:20 PM 0 feedback
I usually don't buy the extended warranty. My brother bought a lappy 3 or 4 years ago; he bought the 3 year extended warranty. The thing died-beyond-repair exactly two weeks after warranty expiration. When I bought a lappy in september of '04, I opted not to extend the standard warranty. My rule of thumb is to look at how much the warranty costs and compare that to the projected worth of the laptop at the end of warranty coverage. Because in three years a repair is not going to cut it. That is pretty much the useful life of a PC. Usually, PC hardware doesn't hold it's resale value very well (like a Ford Taurus -- what is the two-year depriciation on one of those bad boys?) which means that the extended warranty seems worthless to me.
But recently my digital camera fritzed. And when I bought the thing (a mothers day present for my wife) my brother was there. He and the salesman convinced me to buy the extended warranty package. The package came with a two year, no questions asked warranty, rechargable batteries which died immediately, a charger which fried, a case that didn't fit the camera and some lens cleaner that I never used. I felt pretty ripped off. Until we got the papers out the other day and realised it was a couple weeks before that no questions asked warranty ran out. So the camera is off getting fixed and we are happy as can be.
Thanks to Dale and the camera salesman. Mabye the extended warranties are not the ripoff I always believed they were. ¶ 10:20 PM 0 feedback
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Neon Xeon
My workstation at the new job is a Dell Precision 530. It has dual 2.4MHz Intel Xeon Processors, 80Gib, 7200rpm hard drive, 1Gib of RDRAM (2 slots of 512Mb) and an nVidia Quadro4 700 XGL GPU. All under the famed Windows XP, Professional Edition (supports dual processors and domains, while XP home does not).This PC should rock my little world. Should.
Other than the standard M$ apps, I mostly use this machine to run solidworks. Pretty standard stuff too, no trillion part assemblies. No parts with circular arrays of more than 40 members. No parts with complex surface renderings.
But, yesterday it BSODed 3 times. Today it did it twice, once when I tried to open windows explorer (nothing else open, been running after boot for at least 15 minutes).
The stop code indicates that a hardware condition caused the BSOD. As of two days ago I have all the latest drivers. (I don't have admin rights on the machine, but I asked IT nicely and they updated the drivers after I was having problems in my first week at the job -- it made no difference.)
The CPU/GPU combo is tested and certified by Soldiworks. I am going to blame Dell. I am not sure what they do down there in Texas, or Singapore, or wherever these are made, but it seems to have consequences.
What makes me sad is that this machine should really smoke. Mais non.
Back to the old CAD mantra: "Save Often, and Back It Up." ¶ 10:29 PM 1 feedback
My workstation at the new job is a Dell Precision 530. It has dual 2.4MHz Intel Xeon Processors, 80Gib, 7200rpm hard drive, 1Gib of RDRAM (2 slots of 512Mb) and an nVidia Quadro4 700 XGL GPU. All under the famed Windows XP, Professional Edition (supports dual processors and domains, while XP home does not).This PC should rock my little world. Should.
Other than the standard M$ apps, I mostly use this machine to run solidworks. Pretty standard stuff too, no trillion part assemblies. No parts with circular arrays of more than 40 members. No parts with complex surface renderings.
But, yesterday it BSODed 3 times. Today it did it twice, once when I tried to open windows explorer (nothing else open, been running after boot for at least 15 minutes).
The stop code indicates that a hardware condition caused the BSOD. As of two days ago I have all the latest drivers. (I don't have admin rights on the machine, but I asked IT nicely and they updated the drivers after I was having problems in my first week at the job -- it made no difference.)
The CPU/GPU combo is tested and certified by Soldiworks. I am going to blame Dell. I am not sure what they do down there in Texas, or Singapore, or wherever these are made, but it seems to have consequences.
What makes me sad is that this machine should really smoke. Mais non.
Back to the old CAD mantra: "Save Often, and Back It Up." ¶ 10:29 PM 1 feedback
Monday, April 10, 2006
Greetings from H3W-24
H3W-24 is my cubicle number. Dilbert eat your heart out.
Went to a new church sunday. It was very different. I come from a church of 50 members or so. The service we went to had to have more than 500 people. Mabye not, I am not a good judge of that sort of thing. But more than 50 by alot. Anyway the service was good. Very good. Preaching from the word, soundly rooted. I enjoyed it. Looking forward to small group on tuesday. ¶ 4:54 PM 0 feedback
H3W-24 is my cubicle number. Dilbert eat your heart out.
Went to a new church sunday. It was very different. I come from a church of 50 members or so. The service we went to had to have more than 500 people. Mabye not, I am not a good judge of that sort of thing. But more than 50 by alot. Anyway the service was good. Very good. Preaching from the word, soundly rooted. I enjoyed it. Looking forward to small group on tuesday. ¶ 4:54 PM 0 feedback
Color
¶ 4:53 PM 0 feedback
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Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Connected
Got a T1 connection installed today. It is shared, so don't get all "Holy Cow" on me. At 25$/month it is the cheapest high speed internet option in the area. Very speedy -- guaranteed 1.5Mbps Up/Down. I am one happy camper. If I had space in this tiny place I would set up a server. ¶ 12:41 PM 1 feedback
Got a T1 connection installed today. It is shared, so don't get all "Holy Cow" on me. At 25$/month it is the cheapest high speed internet option in the area. Very speedy -- guaranteed 1.5Mbps Up/Down. I am one happy camper. If I had space in this tiny place I would set up a server. ¶ 12:41 PM 1 feedback