Listen, I'm Wright and your wrong. Once you learn that everything will be just fine.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Its thursday....do you know what that means?
Its picklefish night! Well, I think the time has been set for a Serenity showing. Since Hollywood theater only has one auditorium showing it, we were between the 6:55 and the 9:40 showing. Since kc works nights, she normally sleeps till about 6 or so. So, the group trip will be for the 9:40 showing on Friday night from all indications. Hopefully, this will not discourage any of you from going.
Yesterday was a pretty busy day, starting to get ready for Hain's exam on monday and trying to get together a topic for my term paper that Hain would agree to. Anyway, enough of the boring stuff.
Plans will be concrete by tonight on the 9:40 showing, I will also post it here once again. If you kindly would, please leave a comment, or tell Kenny or myself, that you may be coming or not, so we can keep an eye our for you. Also, apparently from what I hear from Matt is that they are not expecting Serenity to draw too many people here in Mobile. Hopefully, they will be proven wrong.
I just saw a the Scifi insider about it and MAN does it look awesome. So, we are planning a trip to a local theather to view this visual spectacular this Friday night (looking at around 9ish) anyone who wants to go is invited. So, more explicit details will be coming and finalized at Picklefish.
BTW, the Eclipse thing at the school will the Thursday at 2:00 - 4:30 if I recall correctly (i'll double check tomorrow and update if needed).
~Kisea
Update: I should have mentioned that this Eclipse workshop is being presented by students.
I was watching Leno tonight and Arnold came on to sign the bike he has for auction he is donating to the red cross. Leno did his little ditty trying to impersonate Arnold and it made me a bit sad, Espen did a mean Arnold...oh well.
Been studying all day in preparation for Langan's exam so hopefully I should do well. There is going to be a workshop sponsored by the ACM about Eclipse, sorry don't have the data and apparently the website is still down. I'll try to post it tomorrow for any who are interested.
Thanks to a good friend who doesn't read this blog who told me about a really nice place to shop for battery backups. www.upsforless.com has some great prices on refurbished UPS's with new batteries. When my order comes in i'll tell everyone how it is. Also, I ordered a gigabit switch and NIC so the transfers between my machines and kc's machine will be smokin' now.
Well, Rita landed well west of us but we have still been affected by this one. The feeder band of rains have done a number on our felt roof. It began Thursday evening with some heavy rains revealing a leak in the living room just inside the door. This continued Friday with more rains. Then last night some of the stronger winds blew loose the strip of felt on the front of the gable thing above kc's room. So, being without a ladder I back my truck up to the house, stand on the tail gate and pull it back over the bare wood.
This lasted for a few hours until another feeder band swept through with some of its winds. It was strong enough that the entire strip, on both sides of the gable was blown over. So, I get ahold of the landlord's worker dude, Ray, and he said he will be here ASAP.
He gets here and nails the sheet back in place and we decide the best way to keep it in place is to nail some boards on top of it close to the edge. So he does and said thats all we can do right now, but he's coming back on Monday to try and fix the other leaks the best we can until they can get a new roof put on. Roofers are at a premium right now, obviously.
So, another feeder band blows through a few hours later. The part he fixed was fine, but the living room leaked worse. So we have a mixture of six garbage cans and sand castle buckets in there to catch the rain water. Then kc noticed she has a couple leaks near her computer desk, so she got some sort of tupperware container and I got two 5 gallon buckets to put underneath them.
During all of this, I'm trying to study for a Dr. Langan exam o_O
Well, in good news I got to watch Alabama win 24-13 over Arkansas. At times they didn't look too well however, unlike the previous two years they didn't let some bad play at times get to them and go belly up. This team really has what it takes to make a run at the SEC West title. The other two contenders in my opinion are LSU and Auburn. The next three games will really give more insite into how the West is going to shake out with Florida at home next week, away at Ole Miss, and back home for Tennessee.
I had a bit of a problem with my router today due to a power drop but not a loss of power. I'm now looking into getting a UPS that will handle my router, modem, switch, vcr, tv, and ps2. How large of a UPS do I need? Should I go APC or would CyberPower be a reliable alternative? Please give me some comments about this.
Well, i'm going to the ACM programming contest in Melbourne, Florida on October 15th. I have a pretty decent group of people together and I hope to have fun. But the programming environment that is going to be used in the competition is a modified version of Knoppix 3.8. I installed it on a computer to attempt to get used to the environment and quickly came to the realization that KDev sucks. Thankfully we have Eclipse which has plugins for C, C++ and others. But it runs SO SLOW so I may have to use one of my machines with at least 512MB of ram just to run it at a speed which we can work at. While sometimes I critique microsoft, they do have a wonderful IDE, much better than anything I have seen with my limited exposure to Linux. I fully believe that Linux would be more widely adopted if it had an IDE approaching Visual Studio quality. Several Linux guru's code for their linux machine using windows and VS for the advantages of VS. But what do I know, i'm just a student.
Also, for algorithms class i'm looking at writing about Discrete Cosine Transform as used in image watermarking and steganography. If there are any books that you know of please email me or post comments.
I got bored so I played some CoH...then decided to make a new character here is the fruitation of this adventure: Meet 'Texan Ranger' my martial arts scrapper with uber reflexes. Sorry, Cordell Walker was taken already.
Yep, i'm bored. Been working on that paper for Dr. Langan's class which I need to refine once more before turning it in. Been doing some (very little) research to do a research paper for algorithms class with Dr. Hain. Trying to work it out so I can reuse some of the paper I wrote for 518...maybe it will work. The only thing keeping me going this week is the Lost season premier tomorrow night...although i'll be in class and Picklefish on Thursday.
I have AI this afternoon (snooze) then Langan, so hopefully the typical Langan zip will revitalize me.
Great, just great. Tropical Storm (should be hurricane by this afternoon) Rita heading towards the Gulf of Mexico. Last night the storm track had it going mostly towards the Mexico/Texas line but has since shifted more northerly towards Texas/Louisiana line. Just what we need, another storm which could give us more rain and wind (fingers crossed that is all we may get).
I read that M$ is going to have a $100 Million advertisement campaign to launch Vista/Longhorn. Yet again I say, ignoring the whole DRM stuff, why should I even consider upgrading? The vector based graphics is going to reduce the performance of my OpenGL games by possibly 50%. Beyond that, I don't really care about the fancy, schmacy interfaces look. I already strip my XP down to classic windows view, I would rather have my processor cycles working on something other than the 'pretty' factor. Anyway, I just wanted to warn everyone to prepare for a major marketing campaign by M$.
I'm considering on replacing the folding table that i'm using as a desk with....a real desk. You can take a look at it here. One thing I cannot decide on is if I want the optional hutch (center piece in the picture) or not. I am planning on running dual monitors on my primary desktop and possibly one monitor on my secondary machine. There is enough room that I can do that and have my notebook set up too. But, i'm not certain about the hutch. In addition, to go with this I would also put in a gigabit switch.
Now to end it on a high note, I was assigned to read a 29 year old paper written by Wegner about the first 25 years of programming languages. It was quite interesting I have to admit. Some of the 'milestones' that he pointed out had effects on current programming languages. Some of it was defintely heading towards object oriented programming. After the fact, I was thinking (which is quite a scary thing indeed) suppose we write a paper like that today then in 30 years what are programming languages going be like. What features and attributes are they going to have that is different or 'better' from today's programming languages? What will be the new 800LB gorilla in the corner? So, hopefully in 30 years i'll still be around so you can ask me and hopefully i'll have an answer.
What have we learned today? M$ is going to pound Vista into our eyes, ears, and mouth (hopefully that's the only places they are going to pound us but unlikely).
Howdy ho there readers, been a couple days so here's the last set of pictures of the Norwegians. I received an email this morning from Espen telling me that their trip went relatively well here is a link to his new blog. Here is Julie and Espen at Picklefish for lunch Sunday before they left (Gotta love the shirt). Cbot and Kenny. Seems like she is always photogenic... Matt, who didn't make the party but did join us for lunch. Doug, also another one of those who are always photogenic... Erin, the Irish girl... Skrubby, who doesn't seem too thrilled having a photo taken.
Well, thats the end of the three day posting of pictures. These are not all of the pictures just the ones I thought would be good. If any of the party attendees want a copy, I shall do so.
Its Saturday so its time for Alabama football. Already 2-0 on the season with wins against MTSU and Southern Miss. we have our first SEC team on the road in South Carolina. 'The ole ball coach' Steve Spurrier seems to already have his team under his grip and they are looking pretty good (although I haven't seen much football yet this season). The big surprises so far this year are Notre Dame (2-0) and Vanderbilt (2-0). I do have to say I was very thrilled to see Auburn lose their first game this season to a very weak Georgia Tech team. Now maybe the Auburn fans will shut their pie holes about how they were the best team last season and how they were robbed of the championship. Yes, they lost both starting runningbacks and yes they lost their quarterback (highly overrated IMO). If they were anything within a shadow of a good team they should have won.
UPDATE:Thanks to the graciousness of kenny, we have the Espenator video hosted now. ENJOY!!!
Here is day two of the goodbye to the Norwegians. These are images from the Big Joe Duke hosted "Get the F out of Mobile, you dirty Norge's" party.Here is Espen as he arrives to the party, fashionably late as usual. The hats were supplied in order to distinguish the Norwegians from the cool people, and yes they had to wear them all night.Here is Julie wearing her hat for the night. That is Joe on the right, another Norwegian who will still be in Mobile. Here is Andrea and Julie. AHH yes, here we see one of the major reasons for the party, to get our drink on!! Here is Espen mixing up a delicious mixture of spirits and cola for consumption. Julie following suit and pouring herself a glass of wine.How can you have a party without Doug, he is the party man. We dig the shirt, its so European. I would have posted a picture of Doug and Casey (hope its spelled right) but the picture wasn't that good. YES, here we are. From left to right is Ian (hope that is spelled correctly) Espen and Joe. Espen is holding one of the Famous BJD smoked ribs. I have to build me a brick pit and try to be half as good as BJD's ribs. Here we have the Irish girl and Skrubby. Its about time she showed up to one of these things... Here is another shot of Espen later in the night as he is starting to feel the effects of the partay. Doug posing with the mask off of Espen's hat.Cbot and the Irish girl. Wow, someone looks like they've had too much to drink here... Skrubby and the Irish girl... An intellectual conversation captured between Doug and Espen, this is almost at the end of the night.Espenator still looking like his pimp self even if he's kinda toasty... Here is a good image of Julie showing her funny side...
As I look back on the pics I laugh at the whole thing. I keep harping on how sad it is they are gone but things change and people move away. These things happen. We just have to hold onto the memories of the shenanigans that happened. Now that digital cameras are everywhere, our documentation of these good times is much easier to do and share. Thursday night is Picklefish night...we will have to raise a toast to our friends half a world away.
Well, last Thursday was the last Thursday night Picklefish, then there was the Big Joe Duke ribs and "get the F out of Mobile, you dirty Norge's" party saturday night. Then we had a farewell Picklefish lunch on Sunday. Some of these pictures will be posted over three days and most of the entire package will be available to certain individuals from my FTP. Espen on the left, then Matt Davis and Christy on the right. Awesome picture of Espen smiling for the camera. Courtney, our awesome waitress on Thursday nights. Kacey posing with Espen. Jenn, another one of the great waitress's and bartenders, posing with 'the Norwegian.' Today's finale is Courtney with Espen.
Espen, Thursday nights will not be the same...now we have to find a new 'dirty foreigner' to adopt and make fun of.
I had written up a nice post last night but when I went to publish it blogger was down and I lost the entire post :( So here is my attempt to recreate that one.
Distractions...Espen and Julie are heading back to Norway and I wanted to have a good time Thursday night with them for the last Picklefish celebration but guess what happens? My truck decided not to start again. I installed a new starter last Friday (2nd of September) and it worked fine until Thursday night when I was leaving class for Picklefish. So, I take a walk with my backpack from the CIS department to Picklefish, which isn't that far but I have this notebook which weights about 10lbs plus accessories, books, notebook, etc. But its not that bad, at least i'm not wading around in the toxic soup that is New Orleans right now. So, I get to Picklefish for a jolly time and no one is there yet. So I talk to Courtney and she cheers me up some. Cbot comes in and starts talking about her new job. Kacey and Kenny come and bring cheesecake for the Norge's and quite tasty cheesecake at that. We have our conversations of WoW, CoH and blooooooooooooooogggggggg. Then it started to get sad and one by one some people left and the realization that no more Espen at Picklefish, I mean what is he thinking? After conversion gas is about $7/gallon, beer is about $6/glass, Norway has adopted a Penguin into their army and given it the rank of General but the penguin isn't even in Norway its in Scotland!?! Well Espen and Julie, you will be missed...I guess we'll have to adopt a new foreigner to pick on.
After Picklefish, I got to drive Espen's stealth back to the house. Now that was truely an honor...and that thing drove wonderfully. I've never driven a 5-speed car all I have driven have been manual trucks which are totally different beasts with different clutches and longer shifters. It felt really nice to get on it and catch a couple gears. I cut the drive short because I knew if I drove much farther I would have to impulsively go buy one. Which, damn you Espen, I may still have to do.
After reluctantly allowing Espen to leave with his car, I had kc take me and my tools over to my truck to see if I could coax it into starting. After fiddling with it for about 30-45 minutes taking the wires off the starter and repositioning them and tightening them back up it started and drove it home. Still driving it, so my hypothesis is that its a grounding problem.
Today is BJD's "get the F out of Mobile, you dirty Norge's" party complete with ribs and BYOB. Can't wait for tonight at 6pm directions are here (limited time offer only).
Sorry for the lack of updates recently but, like I said....damn distractions.
Ok, sorry about not posting the last few days, but here are more pics of the house after the landlord and crew came over on Thursday to repair the roof. The window in Kc's room has been put back in place, but if you look closely the bottom of the window doesn't quite mate back up with the window seal. The felt at the top is to keep rain from getting in because there is quite a gap at the top right now. Here is the repairs to the roof in the livingroom. As you can see quite a large area of shingles had to be removed and several boards of decking had to be replaced. Felt is now over that to repel the rain.There was hidden damage in the valley which also needed a few boards replaced and felt to dry it in. Over on the right side of the picture you can see where the worst damage was. A total of 10 1"x3"x12' decking boards were required to replace the decking. In addition to this, there were, I believe 4 roof joist broken. Here is the view from the other side of the gable (carport side). As you can see there is new wood showing, these are two of the roof joist which were broken. Almost this entire side of decking had to be ripped off and replaced, only about the last two boards at the peak were usable and stayed in place.In order to make the side door accessable again we had to take down the tin and some boards. We did not take all of the tin off yet, but the landlord is planning on replacing all of the tin on the carport. There are some salvagable board in there as you can see on the ground and the other half of the carport is still intact as well. Here is the pile of tin we pulled off of the carport held down by a piece of limb to keep the wind from moving it.Here is the pile of construction material we stripped off of the house, there is more under the pine straw on the right of the picture.Here is a larger image of the remainder of the pile, some construction material in mixed in there and more pine straw covers the previous limbs piled there.Here is an interesting decking board we pulled off of the house. Aparently some of the decking was boards from a shipping crate from Brookley, most interesting.Here is a picture of the front yard now that we have worked very had to clean it up. The landlord jumped onto this quickly, which we very much appreciate. We have driven around and saw many houses with tarps and plastic on their roofs. While our roof isn't shingled yet we do have a waterproof roof. It rained Sunday afternoon and we had zero leaks that we could tell. The only thing we have to worry about is strong gusts of wind.
I purchased a MMORPG.... I feel dirty now. Since half of my City of Heroes free trial was disrupted by Katrina I thought I would continue playing on an interim basis. I can put my account on hold and come back later if I want. But I had grown attached to my 'Lady Evangeline' superhero.
Also, I received notice from Skrubby that the Norwegians (AKA Espen and Julie) are leaving in about a week to trek back to Norway. This Saturday, September 19th there is going to be a cookout to celebrate 'Get the F out of Mobile, you dirty Norwegians' at Big Joe Duke's. So here is a picture of the 'Dirty Norwegians.' While beer runs about $5 per glass, gasoline is about $7 per gallon and Norway has a Penguin (article here and here) as a General they are still going back. Hopefully, they will come back to the states when they notice that its really cold in Norway. I will never forget one night when Espen walked into Skrubby's office looking like an eskimo, good times. I suspect more information about this will be made available on BJD's blog and other blogs linked from here.
Here are some pictures of the cleanup effort from the first day (Tuesday August 30, 2005 unless otherwise noted). This is a picture taken from underneath carport from the back yard looking towards the front yard.Here is a close up of the side door with the calapsed car port and limbs. Here is a picture taken by Kc of the carport later in the day while we were cutting up the massive tree.Here is the results of the damage done by Big Joe Duke, Ryan, Kenny, and myself. In the forground is the limb which penetrated the roof and was shown yesterday being inside Kc's room. Here is a closer look at the corner of the house after we got the limb off of the house and you can see the makeshift tar paper (felt) thrown up there by the landlord to try to cover the holes before a quick shower. This is the other side of the same gable showing the quick patch with plywood. Here is a look towards the ceiling showing the limb jutting through the ceiling.Here is the hole in the livingroom ceiling. Poor ferrets, they were maybe five feet from this when the tree fell and came through the storm fine and dandy.This is Wednesday afternoon after the landlord left. We finished cutting up and moving the tree across the road. Here is the large pile across the road from our house. Most of that pile is the tree from the front yard. There are a number of smaller limbs from the back yard on the right as well as a matress and box springs.This is pile number 2 or as I have dubbed, The Big Joe Duke pile as we were all wearing down we were moving limbs from the car port area to here. Now as you saw the split limb yesterday, I have to applaud this limb. It may sound weird but as best as we can piece together the events when the tree top fell this limb is key. It takes a lot of force and pressure to split a limb like this. So, here are the events as best we can deduce: Probably the winds wore on the top and due to several lightning strikes over the years weakened it and finally one of the gusts blew it over. This limb is key as it used to stretch over the house giving the house quite a bit of shade. The winds from the south/south east would push the top toward the house and thus this limb. The tree top fell and hit this limb, this limb held long enough to divert the limb towards the front yard and splitting under this tremendous pressure. After this split, the end of the limb stuck into the roof in the livingroom (which is consistent with hole because the limb struck, rebounded, then came back down to hide it). So, this limb seems to be what saved our house from much more devestation.
Fuel prices are skyrocketing around the south due to tremendous demand, since 20-25% of America's domestic oil production is off the Louisiana coast the demand is outweighing the supply locally. People are nuts: cussing, fights, and even in some places people have pulled guns. Mobile police are being diverted from some of their other duties to help police gas stations and direct traffic. The lines are miles long, SUV's all over the place, people are being limited to 20 gallons at some places. Lets hope that this is relieved soon.
New Orleans and Mississippi are hard hit what few pictures I have seen, it is horrible. I watched one of the WKRG streamed news reports it showed a poor man totally devestated and clearly in shock, holding his child telling his story to a reporter that he was holding his wife by one hand and she said that he could not hold her much longer that the water was going to sweep her away, she then said to take care of their child, then she was swept away and he has not been able to find her. Probably the worst story, not caused directly by the storm I have heard so far, is a man in Mississippi shot a woman (I think his sister possibly) in the head over a bag of ice Tuesday.
My starter has messed up, so whenever I can get someone to give me a lift to Autozone i'm going to see about replacing it and helping anyone I can.
God bless everyone affected by this tragedy and everyone who is selflessly giving time, money, supplies and support to those affected. Once again thanks BJD, Ryan, and Kenny for their help.
You can call me Mr. Wright if you would like.
These are random thoughts from a tech nerd. Do not confuse what I say with documented facts these are simply my thoughts about life, the universe and everything. These glimpses into my psyche do not necessarily reflect the views of my family, friends or employer.
