Saturday, August 30, 2008

FOOTBALL

FOOTBALLFOOTBALLFOOTBALLFOOTBALLFOOTBALLFOOTBALLFOOTBALL

Oh glorious football has begun. Please no commentary about any broadcasting quibbles, coverage, etc. here. All I'm doing here is expressing the pure joy of the season beginning today. I've been waiting all summer for this!!!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Preseason's Over

Definitely harboring mixed feelings about this one. Exhausted and glad to be able to sit and rest, but it's my last one ever. All good things do eventually come to an end.

Next up: FOOTBALL!!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Preseason Has Begun!

Leadership sessions and fundamental review today, as well as a nice little 2.5 minute run -- roughly a half a mile or so 'round Munn.

I've been fighting this crazy headache thing for about a week. Finally gave in tonight and bought some Excedrin for the painkiller+caffeine duo and it seems to be helping. Bag of ice does wonders as well. It's not debilitating, thankfully, but annoying and distracting.

No more house centipede sightings, but I also left my light on when I went out for the football gig this evening to try to prevent them coming out after sunset, since I'm not unpacked enough to start putting poison down on the perimeter.

Annnnnd it's late. There's a tornado show and a replay of the ASU victory over the skunkbears. Up at 7:30 am.

This is why I shouldn't hook up cable till Preseason's done.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Belated . . .

Happy Birthday, Sasquatch! We miss you!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Meet the Mystery Boulder





















. . . Teh Prof says it's a "typical gneiss," but I've never seen a "typical gneiss" look like this thing. Our hand samples must be a little too . . . perfect.

EDIT: To clarify, our hand samples are also never boulder-sized.

Busy Weekend!

Friday:
-Rode past Dem Field ony my way to work and saw they had the lines painted and Grounds was mowing the field. Marching season has begun!
-Spent the day (while at work) trading the occasional e-mail back and forth with my research professor regarding my intentions to head up this weekend to gather some field samples.
-Left work early and headed to my research prof's office to discuss field work in person.
-Nearly had to can researching what appeared to be a very promising site. Prof makes a call and finds that the technique used in the last published work at the site is considered outmoded now, so research is ON!
-Headed home for the night.

Saturday:
-Breakfast @ Sophia's Kitchen with Webmomster. Omelets and delicious chocolate chip pancakes. Walked to and from.
-Back to the house to load the Guyz into the car and take off for the Great White North. Got the dogs out of Webmomster's hair so she could get some work done around the house.
-Reach the cabin, say hi to the Commander, fall asleep on futon? Check.
-Walked the beach, said hi to the amethyst rock and the mystery boulder, and got rained on. Cool but not cold. Gathered a half-cup of blueberries just before twilight.
-Wrestled with the futon. The futon won.

Sunday:
-Zzzzzzz.
-Eat.
-Say hi to Jan, load up car, listen to conversation, realize what time it is, take off for home.
-Wrestle with horrible traffic from Bay City to Grand Blanc.
-Ate a delicious dinner and checked out Frumious's new casing, being a hard drive independent from the FrankenBook. Copied music and photos (4.51 GB . . . wow) and documents (oh my) to the BlackBook.
-Decide to stay the night since Nook's out with friends till ?? and don't want to disrupt.
-Stay up too late to write this? Check.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

So It Goes . . .

. . . The final disassembly of my trusty iBook of the last ~4.5 years. I'm typing now from a brand new "BlackBook" (black MacBook). As I've gotten it configured, it's started to feel a little more like "home," but won't be fully so till I can get the data off of my old computer. With a little elbow grease and a little case to run the hard drive from my iBook out of, making this computer "home" shouldn't be too hard, hopefully.

Once I can find my way to an open wireless network, I can get online from the brand new iPod Touch that came with!

Friday, August 1, 2008

Undead Frankenbook - Posting from the MSU Library

Alas, the solder job was my last stand. I can't keep fixing it like this. Not an hour after I posted last night, I had the Frankenbook running in my room, and I jogged it - nothing bad (normally), mind. It promptly went into "I'm gonna sleep because I think the lid's closed" mode again (and again, staying as such), and this is making me think there's another component near the lid catch that's broken, and a. I don't want to do any more surgeries; they are exhausting and interfere with energy levels I should be putting toward running, and b. I don't know if I can fix that part anyway.

So, in light of the "Nothing Else I Can Do" situation and the Frankenbook's undead state, I'm currently *under orders* to pick out a new computer. Now comes the other tough decision: do I buy a new computer this weekend, or wait till the end of September for the big product line upgrade? I've been looking at the features rumored to be appearing in as early as a month and a half (probably right after the back to school deal ends, which is September 15th).

The MacRumors blog has entries pointing to a major redesign of both the MacBook and the iPod Touches (options available to me RIGHT NOW with the student discount).

Rumors surrounding the MacBook upgrade include:

-Transition from plastic case to an aluminum case (not in favor; heat & impact protection issues. Metal will not protect the guts of the computer during a drop/fall as much as plastic. Given how this Frankenbook deal started, this is a concern of mine).

-Glass trackpad. I can only assume it would make the trackpad similar to that of the touchscreen on the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Personally, I'm VERY intrigued. No one knows what this will look like yet, what it will be able to do (multitouch is pretty much guaranteed, but will it navigate like the 'pods?)

-Structurally (aside from the metal casing), the new MacBook is rumored to have a more rounded shape, similar to that of the Air. Dunno how that affects the tensile strength/impact resistance of the metal case, which is something I'd like to discuss with an Apple tech as well.

-One of the BIG rumors is that this is going to be a transitional model to a "tablet"-style laptop, so there is potential (as always) of significant software/firmware bugs.

Currently, the iPod Touch features music/movie capability, full-screen touch, aluminum casing on the back side, WiFi connectivity, and the ability to surf Internet/e-mail. The back to school deal allows for the possibility of an 8GB model only. Small capacity.

Rumors for the iPod Touch include (and I'm only throwing this in as a residual interest related to the back to school deal. And I'm totally in love with these things):

-Possibility of the addition of GPS. Given the lukewarm response with regards to the GPS introduced in the 3G iPhone, I don't care about this so much. (It doesn't provide turn-by-turn nav ala Garmin because the antennae are too close together.)

-Capacity/price changes.

-First upgrade since Sept. 07 release.

No one appears to know much more than that regarding the iPod Touch. Hopes are for it to be rid of the aluminum backing and have 3G connectivity. Many seem to think it will start to emulate the features currently seen in the 3G iPhone without actually being a phone: camera, 3G, GPS, etc.

So this is what I'm mulling over today. If the Store were closer, I would not hesitate to go there TODAY (since I'm not at work -- power's out in the building I work in) and pulling some rapid-fire questions at the techs/reps. Looks like maybe Sunday morning, I'll zip down to Troy to ask about data backups and do some heavy questioning with a possible purchase, hopefully back to East Lansing in time to partake in some grueling-but-refreshing Series rehearsals in the afternoon.

Additionally, a few links for your amusement (still on the computer topic):
MacBook Touch? (LOVE comment #9)
Interpretations of the rumored glass trackpad for the new MacBook