robglazebrook.com

At 11:59pm last night, I sent the email officially entering me into the Department of Statistics website redesign competition. Now, I suppose only time (or possibly time followed by a prize) will tell whether or not I’ve been wasting my free time these last few weeks. Well, perhaps ‘waste’ is too strong a word. I mean, I did learn some new stuff during the course of the template design process, but you know. I’m talking about wasting my time doing productive things when I could have just wasted it having mindless fun. :) There’s a definite distinction to be made there.

If any or all of you would like to take a look at my entry, click here to head to my copy of the design. I’m sure, if I’d had more time to mess around with it, the overall concept would have improved. But I didn’t have more time. So the site exists as it exists. As such, don’t feel obligated to tell me if I screwed something up. Let the judges find, or not find, such errors on their own.

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I’m about 80% of the way through Orson Scott Card’s Xenocide. Actually, I would have had more time to work on the Stat site, had I not been reading. Unfortunately, I was at a section of the book at which I was fairly certain my brain would have simply shut down and refused to do any labors unless I let it get just a couple of more pages read. So I complied with my brain, however unwillingly, and read while my templates waited patiently.. :) Megan just finished Ender’s Game last night, and she liked it, so I’m sure she’ll be starting down the series right behind me.

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Oooh! Guess what I bought? Lots of stuff, actually. Wednesday, I bought this router on eBay:

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SMC Barricade. Via SMC

It’s a cable router, it’s a 3-port 100mbps switch, it’s a firewall, and best of all, it’s a wireless access point. :) It retails for $130 or so, but the gods of eBay have smiled upon me, and I picked it up for $42. The wireless access will come in handy for when I buy a wireless card for my new….

ZAURUS 5500! *beams* I ordered it from a store in California yesterday afternoon before I left work, and it’s already on its way. My new PDA should be here next Wednesday. Hopefully, I’ll get a new wireless card in the next day or two so I can play with that, as well. I got the Zaurus for $225, which is more than I wanted to pay, but substantially under the retail price of $399, so I think I made out well.

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Oddest website of the day: <------N-A-I-L-S------>
Put your mouse over the guy. Click the guy. Click the circle to the left. Click on the ‘A’ for archives. Browse the archives. Discuss.

And then (and only then (would that be thenn?)), have a good afternoon.

Megan and I went jogging for a bit yesterday evening. Actually, we’ve gotten decent exercise the last two days in a row… both evenings were spent in Moore park, which Danielle suggested and Megan and I have taken a liking to. There isn’t much there in terms of nature and/or wildlife (proliferation of bunnies, which is Ames-wide, aside), but the paths are perfect for making good time on. Saturday, we didn’t jog at all, because we didn’t know the paths were going to be so perfect for it, and I was wearing a rather (too) well-fitting pair of jeans. So instead, we walked around the park (literally around, since the paths stick to the perimeter) for a couple of miles, then walked around campus for an additional couple of miles. Sunday evening, we did jog a bit, but not an excessive amount. We decided to only run until we were tired and shagged out, and not past that point. I figure, we have a better chance of coming back to do it again if we do it that way.

My redesign of the Statistics website is roughly 75% done, which is good, since it’s due this Friday. Unfortunately, I didn’t work on it nearly as much as I should have this weekend, so I’m going to need to bust my bottom sometime this week getting everything done. Even more unfortunately, I’m not going to have all my evenings free this week for such purposes. It’s not that I’m super-busy or anything, I guess. I’m just being more social this week. Tonight, I’m heading to Nat’s for a Pasta Party (whatever ~that~ means…). Either tomorrow night or Wednesday night, our neighbor Trisha is coming over for an evening of revelry whilst her significant other is away. And, Friday, I hope to go out with friends, since I haven’t the last two weekends in a row, but I guess that’s past the deadline anyway and therefore moot to the point I was making. What was that point again? Oh, yeah. Website. Long paragraph short: It’s looking good, just gotta get it done.

Yesterday was Father’s day, so happy belated Father’s day, Father. *g* Of course, he’s on vacation with Mother for the rest of this week, so he won’t see this until (at the earliest) then, and probably never. So my belated nature hasn’t screwed things up this time.

Yesterday was also my ex-roommate Justin’s birthday, so Happy Belated Birthday ex-roommate Justin, and Happy Justin’s Belated Birthday everyone else.

Yesterday was also ALSO the one-year anniversary of Megan and I getting back together after spending a couple of months sorta-but-not-really apart. Technically, we were broken up at the beginning of the summer until June 15th. I say technically, because neither of us saw other people, and we continued to see each other. We had plenty of good excuses to do so: for the first few weeks following our break-up, Megan was boarding with my grandparents. When she moved out of my grandparent’s house, it was to move into a new apartment… with my sister. :) So we always had lots of excuses to see each other. Not that we wouldn’t have made new ones up if there weren’t already convenient reasons. *g* So anyway, Happy Belated One-Year Anniversary of Megan and Me Making Official Again That Which Was Previously Unofficial. I can see why they don’t have cakes for such occasions… there’s no way anyone would ever write that in frosting. :)

Guess what? I should be able to get my new PDA soon. I’m scouring eBay as I type. I’m sure you’re as breathless with anticipation as I am. :) I got my first healthy paycheck of the summer Friday, so I can finally afford my new electronic necessity. *g* I should get a WiFi card around the same time, and since campus is quite nicely covered with wireless access, I should be able to blog just about anytime. :) Assuming the battery can hold out a full day.

Stay tuned…

Yes, we have made it home. Both of us. Alive, even. :) I’ve just been a bit low on free time. At least, free time I’ve felt could best be used by writing here. We got home around 2pm Wednesday afternoon. The rest of Wednesday was spend unpacking, grocery shopping, and then enjoying each other’s company with the Holy Trinity of luxuries missed while camping: Pizza, Air Conditioning, and DVD’s. Thursday found me up and out of bed by my usual 6am, at work by 8am, and in the middle of a miniature crisis by 8:15am. I spent all of my time at work Thursday redoing much of what I’d done on the website the week before. Eventually, I headed home, and… worked. Silly me. I must have missed it or something. It was all web-stuff, though, so it wasn’t too bad.

Anyway! On with the important stuff. The following is a primer of sorts, on What You Should Know before you ever choose to visit Maquoketa Caves State Park.

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Yahoo! Where are you?

Yahoo! is a wonderful resource of the early 21st century. With it, I was able to not only graphically plot an exact course between my front door and (the mailing address of) Maquoketa Caves, I was able to print off the text-based driving directions, as well. We trusted in Yahoo!. We trusted so much, that we decided to navigate by text directions alone, not even bothering to take with us the graphical directions. We trusted so much, we decided it wasn’t any big deal that we didn’t own a map of the great state of Iowa. Why would we need a map?! We had Yahoo!

Yet today, I (somehow) stand before you to remind you that Yahoo! is, in fact, a computer. Yahoo! is a machine that has never ~once~ been required to travel the paths it suggests to unsuspecting users. Yahoo!, being the logical non-entity that it is, gave us the shortest possible distance to our destination. To this machine, it was no big deal that it led us through the heart of Cedar Rapids, through mile after mile of downtown traffic, construction, and stoplights. It wasn’t important to the -machine- that four of the last six miles to the park were spent speeding down an old gravel road in excitement, anticipation, and maybe a touch of confused fear (a big state park without a paved entrance?). And it wasn’t at the least bit important to the machine that the last two miles of our trip were spent on a Level B no-maintenance road with ruts deeper than my Kia’s tires are tall and six inches of mud and filth from the torrential rains the night before while we slid, sometimes at right angles with the road, down hills, across bridges, and within inches of the encroaching edges of our lives and sanities. And then, when we had successfully traversed the path Yahoo! offered with our skins and minds intact, the machine couldn’t have cared less that the directions actually led us to the back of the park, not the front, and we had no idea whatsoever how to negotiate our way between the two.

Notes on getting to Maquoketa:

There are three versions of Highway 151. 151 South and 151 North (Business) are the first two versions you’ll come about, assuming an eastward trajectory on US-30. The OTHER 151 North, the one that skips the heart of Cedar Rapids and opts for high speed travel instead, is ten or so miles further east. It’s worth the drive. They come out within a few feet of one another.

Maquoketa does, in fact, have a paved entrance. Instead of turning off HWY-64 when Yahoo! suggests you do so, I suggest you stick it out for a few more miles. 64 leads to a lovely little road called HWY-428, which in turn leads directly to the entrance of the Maquoketa Caves campsite. Your car, assuming it isn’t a Jeep, will thank you.

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Duck! (Wait… that’s no duck…)

Caves are cool. Literally. And they are also dark during the daytime. This makes them a great place to go and explore during the hotter hours of the summer day. This also makes them a nice habitat for… you guessed it… bats. Now, admittedly, we only saw one bat the entire time we stayed in Maquoketa. Megan was the first to see it. She let me know of her find by shrieking “BAT!!!” in something that was simultaneously both scream and whisper. She then vacated the cave, leaving me in it. Luckily, I don’t have (quite) as much fear of our furry, flying friends as she does, and survived the ordeal quite alone. It’s interesting to note that, after Megan saw the bat, she was only coaxed into two more caves, both of which were so large that the ceiling was in no way a threat.

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When it Rains, We’re Camping

There’s no two ways about it. My family is cursed, and that gene or whatever it may be has been passed on to me. It started raining our first night at the campsite. It didn’t stop for fifteen hours. Admittedly, there were no tornadoes, no large hail to speak of, and the wind and lightning weren’t that much of a threat. I’m assuming it had something to do with my bringing an innocent victim into the fray with me. Perhaps it appeased the rain god.

Notes on camping with a Glazebrook:

Bring a grill, charcoal, and lots of lighter fluid. Yes, part of the charm of camping is cooking over an open fire. This act loses its charm when your firewood is sitting in a puddle of water and you’re stuck deciding between fasting for the afternoon and a lunch of raw, half-frozen hot dogs.

When you take off your shoes, put them somewhere impervious to water. Shoes retain water better than… (reviews possible feminine jokes, examines possible punishments, decides against it). Shoes retain a lot of water. Especially when there’s a lot of water for the retaining.

Stake down your tent. This isn’t, it seems, just to prevent large bears and/or gusts of wind from taking the tent on a joyride. This also helps keep water on the outside, and dry things on the inside.

When your pillow is soaked, your clothes are soaked, and your only non-soaked blanket smells exactly like the generations of dogs that have used it for a bed, you’ll understand that an air mattress is worth its weight in gold, not air. Have one. Have two, if you can afford them, just in case.

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That’ll do for now. I’m setting up a pretty new Macintosh G4 with dual 1.2GHZ processors and a gig of RAM, and also working on two websites. Have a good day.

We’re awake, our bags are (almost entirely) packed, and we’ve just a couple more hours before we load everything into the car (well, the loading will probably start soon) and head east for five or so days at Maquoketa Caves State Park.

Yahoo! has suggested we shun the pacifier and safety blanket of the Interstate highway system and stick to Highway 30, so I guess that’s what we’re going to do. Highway 30 to US-151, 151 to US-64, and 64 to the second star on the right and straight on ’til morning. Yahoo! predicts the drive will take us a little over three hours. I tell you all this in case we get lost somewhere along the way, and a search party is necessary. *g*

Seriously, though, we should have a good time. There are several miles of hiking trails through the park. Oh, and don’t forget the caves. Plus, we’ve (I’ve) packed writing paper, playing cards and several books on the assumption that our family curse (which my mom can explain in further detail should you need it) has darkened my shadow, as well as those of my parents.

I spent yesterday trying to bring things to a nice stopping point, and I think I succeeded decently. The Sociology website is completed except for user testing and debugging, which can be done in my absence. The site is active, so just click here to check it out, if you should so desire. The Statistics website (despite my last entry’s reservations, I’ve decided to give it a shot), though still not much more than a concept in my mind, is starting to take physical form. I should have enough time after I return (late Wednesday, is the plan) to have it completed by June 20th, the due date. Here’s a sneak peek at my concept site so far:

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Stat Concept. Screenshot

Clicking on the image won’t make it any bigger, because I’ve been feeling particularly paranoid about my work recently. It’d make me sad if someone stumbled upon my proud displays while I was away on a camping trip and decided to make my design their own. I’ve seen a lot of good ideas stolen recently, and I don’t wanna take any chances. Yes, I trust all of you regulars. But I get fifteen to twenty non-regular random visitors a day on average, and I do ~not~ have sufficient reason to trust them. :)

I also finished The Fall of Hyperion late last night, so that’s one less book to pack. M’ris was right; I preferred the first book to the second. Mostly, I think, because this book reminded me of some of those parts I didn’t particularly care for in The Matrix: Reloaded (are both books and movies italicized, or am I making up rules as I go?). The parts where we are given mountains of dialogue discussing incredible ideas, with absolutely no supporting evidence. We are supposed to trust and believe the Architect in the Matrix because he is the Architect and he, not we, are In The Know. We are supposed to believe Ummon of the Core because it is Ummon, not because its argument is supported by things we can see. True, the novel probably would have been twice as long if all of that additional material had been shown to me instead of told to me, but I probably would have enjoyed the twice-as-long read twice as much.

Okies, as I’ve been typing, Megan has started to load the car, so I should probably go. I’ll speak to you all again on Wednesday. We’ll have our cell phones with us, but we’ll only be turning them on periodically to conserve battery power, so leave a voicemail or send us a text message via the improved Message Me script. Did I ever mention the improved script? You can message either Megan or me with it, now. And it looks prettier, too. *g*

I’m off!

Just to ease the fears of all, I thought I’d pause for a moment and let you all know that no, I hadn’t died after all. M’ris sounded a bit worried in her last email (which I’m sure I only aggravated by not responding to), since I mentioned the possibility of my death, followed by a period of silence. :) I’ve simply been working a lot, reading a lot, playing a lot, and spending a lot of time with my girl. Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time left over for the act of communication. I’ll take a stab at it for a minute, anyway, while I’m alone here at work.

The Work:

I’m finishing up the last bits of the Sociology website, in-between periods of work on the inevitable and unavoidable corrupted/hacked/infected systems of various sundry professors. The website, in my opinion, looks nice. Even if most of the content is a bit aged. *g* It’s my job to post the content given me though, and not create new content, so I’m not going to worry too much about that. I’ll post a link to the new site once it’s up. Did I ever show you what the new site was going to look like? If not, here’s a sneak-peek snapshot of the homepage I created for someone:

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Soc 2.0 Screenshot

I was also hoping to create a new website template for the Department of Statistics, which is currently holding a website redesign contest, but the entries are due on the 20th of this month, and I really don’t think I’ll have the time. Which is too bad, because the prize money is significant ($200 for 2nd and 3rd place, $1000 for first place. I may enter something, just in case their limited number of entries gives me a chance).

I also may have found a couple of clients, which would be very nice. The first is a consulting firm run by a professor here on campus. I’m not giving out any more details than that until I know more myself. :) The second is a custom computer parts manufacturer here in Ames. That one is only a possibility at this point, as we were both rather inebriated when discussing it, so you get no more details there, either. Now, I need to decide what I would charge for rates. My first client suggested this formula for developing estimates: I decide approximately how much time the job would take, multiply that by how much I think my time is worth, and then double that to make it worth my while. And while that certainly works to my benefit, it really works against my own good nature. Hell, if it were up to my nature, I’d design all of these websites free of charge. Then again, if everyone lived by my ideals, I wouldn’t have bills to pay, either. So goes life. I have needs, they must be met, therefore, I must charge for the work I do. It’s unfair to both them and me, but so goes life. :)

The Read:

I’m trying to read more, because I know I don’t write well when I don’t read, and I need to get back into the habit of writing, and writing well in particular. I’m taking two writing classes next semester, and I don’t want to go into a workshop situation rusty and untried after a period of many months. I started reading a book on information architecture recently, but I gave up on it after I’d finished 60% of it or so. The book was dry, and the information was old. It wasn’t worth my time. So now, I’m reading The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, a great SF novel that I once started but never finished. I’ve read (and adored) the first novel in this series, Hyperion, so I’m sure I’ll love this one and move on to the others once I buy them. One phrase in particular stuck with me from the original Hyperion. It made me laugh, and think, and so I quote it here as I remember it, so please excuse the crudeness:

In the beginning was the Word. Then came the fucking Word Processor.

The Play:

If you’re a gamer with a decent PC, you might want to consider downloading Activision’s latest release, entitled Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. It’s intended to be a prequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which was released a while back. The game is multiplayer only, and at this moment has only six campaigns. However, it is totally standalone (you don’t need RTCW to play the prequel), and it is totally, completely free. When you download the game, you download the full version, free of charge. Rumor has it, Activision never got their single player campaigns worked out as well as they liked, so they dropped the planned full-fledged game, and decided to release the multiplayer portion free of charge. This is totally unlike anything ever done before by a major gaming company, but it’s a decidedly nice change of pace. :) Interested? You can get it here.

The Girl…

And I are going camping next week. We’re not 100% sure on the dates yet, but we’re planning on heading to Maquoketa in northeast Iowa and spending a while there exploring the caves, hiking the trails, and enjoying each other’s company outside of the apartment walls for a change. My mom has been kind enough to give us camping chairs for Easter, a tent as an extremely early birthday gift, and an aging cooler just for the helluvit.

Speaking of my mom, she has a new blog: The Bear’s Den. Check it out. I’ll probably link to it eventually, but only after I determine exactly how personal she’s going to be and whether or not it’s the stuff I wanna know. :)

So. I’m alive, just busy and generally uncommunicative. Eventually, I’ll respond to all the emails. Probably. :)