robglazebrook.com

I spent 45 minutes this morning before my shower writing an update, but my computer decided to lock up before I could get it saved. I’ll do my best to reconstruct it from memory. :)

I’m fairly sure that Saturday night was a blast. Megan and I went out with Justin, Mark, JJ and Amy to a party where many other people I know but whose names would take too long to type out were present. Other than that, my memory of the details is a little hazy. *g* We got home around 2am, and Megan headed to bed cause she had to work Sunday morning. I played around on the computer a bit first, but headed bedward shortly thereafter.

Sunday morning, Megan actually made it up for work, though rumor has it she wasn’t the happiest nor the healthiest little server in server history. :) I’ll leave the rest of the story as hers to either tell or not in whatever level of gratuitous detail she sees fit.

As for me, I got up at the stroke of 8:30, which I found plenty early considering I had nowhere to be. I spent the first few hours of my day, aside from rehydrating, updating my PDA. I installed an entirely new version of the OS, moving from Sharp ROM 2.38 to 3.10. It’s a similar move as that of going from Windows 2000 to Windows XP: it’s a little faster, a lot prettier, and a helluva lot more customizable. I can create, destroy and edit menus, I can turn off my wireless card when I’m not using it, and I can change the background and icons (though that part requires Photoshop on the PC and a little manipulating on the Zaurus). Fun stuff. You can see a poor attempt at a picture of it here:

Click to Open

Zaurus 5500. Via Webcam

Gimme a break on the quality, kay? All I had to work with was my webcam. :) As you can prolly see, my penchant for the color blue has been sated.

After I installed the new OS, I started cleaning a bit. And then a bit more. And before I knew it, Megan was home from work and I’d been cleaning for four and a half hours straight. I was a busy boy. *g* The kitchen got scrubbed and scoured, the living room got beautified, and the ‘office’ and ‘dining room’ (both also known as The Other Side of the Living Room) were cleaned and rearranged a bit. Megan was so impressed she took me out to eat at Carlos O’Kelly’s. :) The only room I didn’t really get to that needs a lot of work is the bedroom, and so I mentioned to Megan that, since she has today off work and all… *g*

Yesterday evening found us in Target, where I found a new TV stand that I just obviously couldn’t live without, so I spent last night putting that together. The stand was on clearance for $19 down from $37, so I couldn’t very well pass up that deal, now could I? Our old TV stand has become our new computer stand, and our old computer stand has reverted back to its original form, that of a cardboard box.

And thus, you are caught up to right-now. I typed 1/3 of this entry on 1/2 of 1/2 of my monitors at work, and the other 2/3 on my PDA while I installed virusscan for someone in their office. Technology is fun. :)

Hello, hello! I’m writing this entry from the relative comfort of my couch via my precious new PDA. :) I was planning to have to write an eentirely new program for such updates, but it turns out that Opera (the built-in browser) renders MovableType in a perfectly acceptable manner, so I really don’t see the need to waste my time.

I had an incredible day yesterday. Lorenzo and I started benchmarking our new cards just as soon as he got back from class. So far, according to 3DMark 2003, the Radeon is clearly the superior performer. NVidia still wins in the “pretty component” category.

After a couple hours of benchmarking, Lorenzo and I put our powerf new cards to good use: we now both have dual 19″ monitors. I have an effecive desktop soze of 2048×1024. *beams*

I also got the keypad to work in Doom on my PDA. I played Doom, complete with sound, the entire bus ride home. When I got back to the apartment, the office was already closed, so I didnt’t get my wifi card until an hour ago. But installation was easier than I could have imagined, and I’m already loving it. I used VNC to control my PC from the couch; how cool is that?

Okies, time to go before I drain the battery. Sorry for the likely misspellings: I have no spellcheck on here yet. :)

Okay, so it was my intention not to update again until later this evening, but all of a sudden, I have too much to say, and I’m fairly certain I’ll pop or burst or something equally violent and unappealing if I try to keep it all in.

Geeks of the world, you are jealous of me.

I just got the opportunity to partake in one of the most wonderful, self-indulgent practices rituals of the modern government-run institution: the End of the Year Purchases.

We just got back from the university book store with $1400 worth of goodies to play with. Among all the other, smaller niceties (including $150 worth of books I got to pick out and a new 256MB USB Key drive), we nabbed three items for our own personal gratification:

My boss, for himself, got a Tungsten C, one of the beautiful new PDAs from Palm that features a 400MHZ processor, a built-in keyboard and 802.11b wireless access. Though we didn’t realize it at the time, this gives the three of us (Lorenzo (my co-worker), Dwight (my boss), and Rob (my self)) an excellent opportunity to test the three major PDA operating systems: my boss’s Tungsten runs Palm OS 5.2, Lorenzo just purchased a new Toshiba e740 (though it hasn’t arrived yet) running Pocket PC 2002, and my pretty new Sharp Zaurus 5500 runs a version of Linux called Embedix. We’ll also get to test the various virtues of PDA wireless access: Lorenzo’s and Dwight’s both have built-in wireless, and my CompactFlash wireless card should arrive this afternoon. :)

For Lorenzo’s work system, we picked up an NVidia GeForceFX 5600 with 128MB RAM. We both have nice new Dell Optiplex GX280’s with 2.8GHZ processors and a gig of RAM to play with, but the graphics cards sucked. That’s no longer a problem.

And so we can test the differing virtues of the two graphics card giants (this is how we rationalized it to Dwight), I got an ATI Radeon 9600PRO, also with 128MB RAM. We’ll begin testing them, I’m sure, over the lunch hour. :)

Wow. My hard heart (whoops) is still racing with the fun and geeky excitement of it all. Today, I think, the hardest part of work will be the part where I have to leave.

(be sure to read the previous entry, posted a few short hours ago)

Tuesday was my little brother’s 17th birthday. Nothing like having a ‘little’ sibling celebrate a birthday with big numbers to make one feel old. :) Megan and I drove down, crawled our way (figuratively) through miles and miles of construction and traffic stopped on the Interstate, and arrived precisely on-time, whereupon I ate three hamburgers, a hot dog, a large piece of cake and a huge bowl of ice cream. Yummy. Gah. He had more cute girls there than I ever had at a birthday party whilst I was a teenager. Then again, any number larger than zero beats me.

Tuesday also brought me my new wireless broadband router, which I set up shortly before leaving for Will’s party. It was pretty simple to set up, though figuring out how to pass ports through from the router to my computer (for things like FTP and VNC access) was a bit more complicated.

Wednesday, my new Zaurus 5500 arrived while I was at work. :) It’s still taking me a while to learn all the new stuff, but I’m catching on slowly but surely. I don’t much care for the built-in calendar, but it’ll do, I guess. Until I find a replacement. Yesterday, I installed Perl, VNC, and Doom. *grin* I still haven’t figured out how to use the Zaurus controls on Doom, but the demo ran while I was punching away at the keys, and the graphics look excellent. I still haven’t bothered to test the sound.

Yesterday, I had my first real meeting with my first real client, so I guess I’m free to talk more about it now. His name is Dr. Stephen Aigner, he’s a professor in Sociology here in the department, and he’s starting a new consulting company called Aigner & Associates. And I’m his web guy. :) He let me set my own terms for employment, and while I think I was very fair, it sounds like I undercut my competition by well over $20 an hour. *grin* Ah, well. I set my fees low on purpose, with the understanding that I don’t have much professional experience yet, and most of what you pay for when you pay a professional freelancer’s fee IS that professional experience. When I know more, I’ll charge more. Until then, my clients are doing just as much for me as I am for them.

Still haven’t heard anything from the Stat department regarding their contest. In fact, I never even got a confirmation email from the lady I sent my entry to. Hrm. Mebbe I should send a follow-up email.

I’ll write more later tonight. Hopefully, I’ll be posting my first entry from my new PDA, as my wireless card is supposed to arrive today. We’ll see.

Those of you who have known me for a long time, know that I used to be a lot heavier than I am now. Those of you who know me well, know I did this in part through diet pills containing good ol’ ephedra. Those of you who know me intimately, know that I’ve continued to take ephedra products regularly for the last several years.

Well, I don’t know if I’m happy to say it or not, but I would like to announce that, for the last several weeks, I have been completely ephedra-free.

No, I haven’t stopped taking pills. Old habits die hard, yadda-yadda, and I’m more than a little scared to stop taking dietary supplements entirely. But I have switched to ephedra-free versions, which rely more on caffeine and gingko biloba (NOT, I’ve just been informed, Balboa, which is a ficticious boxer) and all that other stuff in place of the stuff that actually works well. *g* I did this in part because I’d been planning to make the switch for a while now, and now was as good a time as any. I also did it in part because I know that ephedra products scare those of you who don’t take them, and I’d feel bad if my grandma suffered a heart attack over the products *I* were taking. And, probably the biggest factor of all, I think our local Target store has completely stopped selling stuff that contains ephedra. Silly store.

But the good news is, I’ve been off the e-stuff for several weeks in a row now, and my weight has stayed below 185. I consider 185 my personal cutoff. If my weight heads above this self-proclaimed imaginary line, I start watching what I eat, cutting out anything that tastes good, and working out harder. I feel much better when I’m closer to the 180 mark. Really, I’d prefer to stay entirely below 180, but that doesn’t seem to happen. Yes, I’m sure that this all sounds fairly anal, but I think I have more than my fair share of my moms obsessive-compulsive genetics, and I’m not fond of cleaning, so this is what I’m left with.

Speaking of not being fond of cleaning, I think that this robovac is going to be one of my next major purchases. I love gadgets and loathe cleaning, so I can’t think of many things I’d more like to own. *g*

I saw a really dumb-slash-simultaneously-interesting show on HGTV yesterday called Operation: Organization (I watched it while I was working out, so it’s not like I was totally engrossed or anything). They take homes of people who organize like I do, and bring forth order from the chaos. I was impressed. Did you know you’re supposed to throw away junk mail? Yah! I tried throwing away junk mail once. Didn’t work. The trash was full. So I gave up. *g*

I’ve decided, somewhat all of a sudden, that I like background music. I’ve never been one for listening to music. I mean, I ~love~ music, but I never think to listen to it. I’m just as content listening to my thoughts as I am listening to anything else, so sometimes I don’t notice when I’m sitting in silence. Like when I drive in the car. I once spent an entire year of driving almost every day, without ever once turning on the radio. Someone riding with me, I think it was my sister, happened to ask me about it, and I realized I didn’t even know if the thing worked. *g*

Anyway, back to the music. I’ve decided I like background music. Unfortunately, my MP3 collection, which used to be in the tens of gigabytes, no longer exists. I think I have maybe half a dozen now. And I’ve never had a CD collection. But anyway. A friend of mine (Lorenzo) showed me RadioStorm.com, and I’ve been hooked since. Streaming commercial-free internet radio. I turn it on at home, where my cable modem’s connected to the computer, the computer’s connected to the receiver, the receiver’s connected to the surround sound speaker system, and that’s the way of the Lawd! And finally, I have a use for an always-on internet connection. Always-on music! :)

I finished Xenocide, so I’m taking another crack at T.C. Boyle’s East is East. I got about a third of the way through it last time before being distracted by something shiny (or something… I don’t remember why I stopped reading it). It’s been long enough that I’m starting over from the beginning, though my place was still marked. I almost panicked this morning when I realized that I had to leave for the bus stop RIGHT NOW and I didn’t have a book to read along the way. I used to think carrying a book around everywhere and reading in-between places and things was a little weird. Now I can’t imagine it any other way. I just need to get myself a notebook to carry around with me wherever I go and maybe I’ll have a shot at being a writer.

Speaking of writerly things, I think I need a dream-journal. Yano, a notebook to keep by the bed so I can write down my dreams. I dreamt a hella-good idea for a book that woke me out of a sound sleep at three in the morning today, but by the time my alarm went off at six, I’d already forgotten it. Silly dream.

Speaking of three in the morning, that’s what time Megan found me Saturday. I’d fallen asleep on the couch. She convinced me to go to bed, but I guess she couldn’t convince me to get undressed, because I woke up later that morning with my clothes and glasses still on. My glasses had pressed neat little angry-eyebrow lines into my forehead. I guess Friday night was a good time. Saturday evening was equally enjoyable, but Megan was there to steer me to the correct resting place.

And now that I’ve probably said too much, I guess I’ve said enough. :)