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In case you were curious, I got home from Chicago just fine. Flight & drive back both smooth & easy - the best way to travel. Since I've been home, I've been trying to milk the little remains of my summer as best as possible. (Short summer due to early school start - all new school building related. It will be our last school year in the 1922 building.) Our school isn't the only new construction going up - mom & dad are having a house built in the next town over. It's been fun watching the progress of that. We've been taking lots of photos and videos of it. I missed 2 weeks of the construction since I was in Wooster & Chicago, but now I'm back in the flow of things. We watched the trusses go up on Tuesday. They had the big crane out & were putting them in place and then nailing them proper. Quite fun. Yesterday they were putting tar paper on the sheathing. Mom and I watched it from the swimming pool. :-) (The "gated community" that they're moving into has a pool. And we were allowed to go swimming. Yay!) Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) judiang (who is, I believe I said before, EVIL) I wound up buying a Wii and WiiFit for myself on Tuesday. It's been fun and I've started a regimen with it. After a couple of days up, I finally went down in weight today. We'll see if I can stick with it. Just bought two other titles for it today. And unfortunately, before I bought the Wii, I reupped my World of Warcraft subscription, so I've been playing that a lot lately too. But it's been fun. Despite my playstyle (which is to focus on professions first, leveling second) I've gone from level 43 to 47 since I reupped. Heh. Anyhoo, tomorrow I intend to get a handle on my house and maybe even get back to work on my Master's Thesis. And of course I have to rewatch all of the Harry Potter movies before Wednesday. (Watched the first flick today. Gee, they were all so small then!) So anyway, happy gaming to all you gamers! And happy summer to the rest of y'all! (Or winter, as the case may be.) Tags: home, wii, wow
Current Mood:  happy
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Alas, today was my last full day in Chicago. But judiang and I have been making the most of it. We started yesterday after our vegging/YouTubing time. Judi needed a iPhone 3Gs case for her new iPhone since her case for version 1.0 interfered with the sensor. I said either BestBuy or the Apple Store would be the place to go and asked which she wanted. She decided on BestBuy. Bad idea... Remember, elsaf and her car are heading back to Michigan at this time. ( Yesterday, cont. )Today we got up at a decent hour because we wanted to catch the first showing of Up at the 600 (AMC). So we had breakfast at the cafe across from her condoplex. I had mascarpone-filled French toast with blueberries and creme anglaise. Very yummy. ( Today cont. )Tomorrow I fly home. I'm sad to be going, but am glad I get to see my kitties again! ( More pictures - glow sticks, Taste, Wii )Tags: chicago, food, games, judi
Current Location: Chicago, IL
Current Mood:  accomplished
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Alas, elsaf is driving home as I type this. It was lovely seeing her again and I hope her drive back is smooth & uneventful. After our fun time at Taste on Thursday, we spent most of the day relaxing. Toward supper time, Elsa cooked up Rogan Josh (a lamb curry) and Jasmine rice. Very yummy. Since we were nearly out of Bailey's ice cream, I went to the market in judiang's building and got us each a pint of something. We finally got Judi to watch The Princess Bride. I think she liked it, but she did miss several jokes cuz the sound set up wasn't quite right. Friday was the day of the Grant Park Fireworks, so our focus of the day was making sure we'd be ready at 8pm to get to the penthouse to watch. I took a short walk in the morning to Dunkin Donuts to get us breakfast. I also walked with Judi to take the poochies for their morning walk. More relaxing, then lunch at a nearby diner/delicatessen Eleven City Diner. I had an open-faced Reuben and fries and cream soda. Very tasty. Judi and I played pool in the afternoon. This time we were even on wins. She won solids/stripes and one of our 9-ball games. I won the other two 9-ball games. Alas, that's the only kind of pool I'll be enjoying this trip. Although the temperatures have been ideal, they haven't been swimming-pool comfortable. On our way home from the diner earlier, we'd picked up fixings for grilling steaks and making more ice cream. So for supper, we had grilled rib eye, baked taters, and the rest of the pineapple from Tuesday night (when Elsa grilled us burgers w/ grilled pineapple & onions and mozzarella). Then at 5 till 8, we headed up to the penthouse. The place wasn't at all crowded and we quickly found great seats on the balcony with a view to the Lake where the fireworks would be shot. Then we remembered the radio, so I went down to get it. Unfortunately, it didn't pick up the station like it did down in her condo. Bummer, no synchronized music for us! Still, the fireworks were brilliant. hergrace called us back (we'd left a Happy Birthday greeting on her answering machine earlier in the day) and we all got to chat with her while watching the Boom Boom Boom. It was almost like having her there as well (though she couldn't see them). Glad you had a nice birthday, Steph! This morning we got Elsa all packed up for her trip back. Then she drove us to Chinatown for Dim Sum at Three Happiness. Yummy as ever. We popped into Freida's bakery for some (more) sesame buns and then hugged Elsa before she headed off. Judi and I took the El back. Now we're fiddling with YouTube and posting videos of fireworks. Behind the cut I have (I hope) the video that I just posted as well as a few photos. I'm impressed with what my phone can do! ( Fireworks photos & video )Tags: chicago, elsa, food, judi, photos
Current Location: Chicago, IL
Current Mood:  cheerful
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Today we got to the Taste of Chicago! Yum! But before we did that, judiang and I went to her workplace in order for her to turn in cases she flexed on and pick up some new cases to flex. We got to the office block at quarter till 8am, so I wasn't let allowed in her offices. So I popped into the Starbucks in her building and had a caramel steamer and read a book on my mobile. It was kind of fun sitting and looking out at the city view. So of course I took a picture.
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Starbucks View
The view from Starbucks when I had a caramel steamer this morning. |
She came down to get me once visitors were allowed in. I read some more and enjoyed looking out her window. (I also fixed a certificate which had fallen from her wall. Yes, I'm anal.) Her office is on the 9th floor and you can see over the El (elevated train). I, of course, took a photo.
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De Trains! De Trains!
View of the El from Judi's office at her workplace. |
When Judi was done with her work, it was after 10am so we decided to walk to Taste of Chicago. elsaf e-mailed her requests, so once we'd grazed for a bit, we picked up her requests. Here are things that I tried: - Potato Pancake w/ apple sauce from Manny's Cafeteria & Deli - alas, reheated rather than fresh.
- Irish Egg Roll from Abbey Pub - my favorite 2009 Taste item so far. Basically a Reuben in a filo dough that's been fried.
- Grilled Anjou Pear Salad from The Grill on the Alley - tasty, but a little too tart.
- Jambalaya from Blue Bayou - alas, they were already sold out of the Bananas Foster Bites.
- Potato Pierogi and Cheese Pierogi from Polka Sausage and Deli - very yummy and the cheese one was sweet rather than savory.
- Mustard-fried Catfish and Peach Cobbler - had a bite of these two items from Judi's purchases.
- Baklava from Costa's - wanted to end on a sweet note, so I did.
We started at 11am on the dot and were leaving the Taste at 12:05. :) Tags: chicago, elsa, food, judi
Current Location: Chicago, IL
Current Mood:  full
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Normally by now, we'd've been to Taste of Chicago by now, but the weather hasn't been all that amenable for it. Not a problem, there's lots of fun stuff to do in Chicago. Monday we headed for the Bongo Room for breakfast. Alas, their tasty eggs Benedicts are for the weekend only, so I had to make due (heh heh) with French toast covered in blueberries & cream. Very very yummy. (Benedicts, what Benedicts?) We were slow moving at the start of Monday, but eventually headed off to Target to get some essentials. Since judiang moved into this apartment in 2005, she's had her cable box & DVD player sitting on a cardboard box on an end table in the living room. I finally harassed her enough to get at least something different (poor Judi always having to suffer my harassment - dunno why she puts up with me!) We found a set of bookshelves which looked like they would work (at least until she finally finds the perfect piece for there). One thing the bookshelf does is gives her remote a better line of sight for turning the peripherals on. Since the bookshelf took up so much room in elsaf's car, we returned to the apartment to dump off the Target purchases. Poor http://www.zolajonesdesigns.com/Judi was sat in the backseat nearly bent in two for the ride back. But once the car was emptied again, we returned to our route. Whole Foods was next followed by Jewel/Osco for the final purchases. We had lunch at Whole Foods (I had pizza) and grilled hot dogs for supper. Tuesday was Visiting Jason Day. Jason Loper is the owner & bag-maker of Zola Jones Designs, a wonderful store on Montrose Ave. He graduated in my sister's class and is the closest thing I have to a little brother. When he came to Alumni this year (you know, I never did finish writing about that weekend...) I told him that I had to FINALLY visit his shop this time to Chicago. So Elsa drove us to Montrose and we walked the short (but noisy, thanks to all the street work) walk to Jason's store. We all found stuff at the shop to buy and then we went to Glenn's Diner (his recommendation) for lunch. The seafood bisque fettuccine (w/ shrimp & scallops) was very yummy. On the way home, we popped into Michaels (a craft store) and Best Buy. Judi picked up a knitting starter kit at Michaels and Elsa has been teaching her to knit. (Sometimes with amusing results.) I bought some science toys at Michaels as well (mostly sodium polyacrylate-related items). Best Buy provided us with the wiring we needed to hook up external speakers to Judi's living room AV system. Too tired to attack the Taste for supper, we ordered Connie's Pizza instead. Mmmm, pineapple pizza! We christened Judi's ice cream maker with Bailey's Irish Cream ice cream. But we needed to let it solidify more, so we went to the clubhouse to play pool. Well, Elsa knitted, Judi & I played. I taught Judi how to play 9-ball and she beat me 3 out of 4 times. The pool shark! Today was cold and rainy, so we decided to make it Movie Day. But first, we had a leak to worry about. Judi's guest bathroom had a leak that we couldn't figure and it was getting worse. The building repairman arrived and determined it must be the toilet. So we left him to it while we headed off for some Cajun food & funny movie. Heaven on Seven was our lunch destination. I had shrimp po' boy and the etouffee of the day: chicken & crawdad. Tasty tasty. We watched The Hangover and were all entertained. Now Elsa is knitting, Judi is cleaning the bathroom where the leak was, and I'm typing this. Doesn't look like supper will be the Taste, but it'll be wonderful cuz it's something Elsa's gonna grill for us. Yum! Current Mood:  satisfied
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Well, back in my favorite Big City (well, favorite enough), Chicago. Flew from Columbus to Midway today and arrived in time for a late lunch with judiang. We originally headed for Howies, a hamburger joint near her place, but when we got there, the place was closed. A handwritten sign said that the owners had vacated the premises and wouldn't be reopening. I'm sure the story behind that is interesting, whatever it is. We headed across the street to Zapatista instead. Since it was late for lunch, we decided to split a lunch. We got enchiladas suisa with chicken. It came with refried beans and rice. Tasty tasty. Judi had a virgin margarita that wound up being more foam than beverage. We headed for Judi's apartment to await elsaf's arrival. She was driving in from Michigan. We watched several episodes of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares on BBCA while I got online with her wireless network. Elsa arrived shortly before 6pm, which was within her predicted window. After she rested up a bit from the long drive, we walked to Ma & I, a Thai and sushi place a couple of blocks from Judi's place. I ordered pad thai with a starter of California roll. Yummy! Across the street from Ma & I is an ice cream place, Marble Slab. So of course we had to go there for some ice cream. I had a waffle cone with Swiss chocolate ice cream and birthday cake batter ice cream. Very yummy. Now we're vegging out in Judi's den. We watched the end of Aliens and will soon be watching the first two eps of Supersizers for this season (once Judi gets the DVD burned). Tomorrow should be a fun day - we may head to Taste of Chicago. More yummy food! Current Mood: relaxed
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Last summer during B-WISER we decided to remove the computer class (7th grade girls are pretty much on top of computers these days) and replace it with a course on energy and environmentalism. One reason was that we could get more grant money, but another, more important reason, is that we felt it was a useful subject to teach the girls about. As I was the one teaching computers and was one of the proponents for the new class, I got to be the teacher. Lucky me! Actually, I think I've come up with a good set of experiments and demonstrations for the course. Thanks to one grant we received, I have a $500 budget for the class. This is good - I've managed to get compact fluorescent light bulbs for each girl to take home as well as some solar-powered flashlights. (No, you don't have to run them in the sun. When the battery dies, charge it up & it works in the dark again.) One of my co-workers at the camp works with the Ohio Energy Project and she's got some other goodies for me to give the girls. With the labs written now (finished 'em yesterday) and most of the supplies purchased (got all the different fuels today), it's just a matter of getting the experimental apparatuses built and tested. And tonight, father and I (well, mostly dad) built the prototype for the solar panel apparatus we'll be using. We had a few problems due to the solar panel wiring (well, more of a metal foil strip than wire) breaking on one side of the panel. I actually managed to figure out how to know if we soldered it correctly (hooking it up to the voltage probe and moving the copper wire until the voltage changed - then we knew we had the right spot). Hopefully I can avoid breaking the foil off of the others. Tomorrow I've got more work to do on 'em, as well as buy more hinges for the rest of the solar panel apparatuses since we know now they work for my needs. I also will have some soldering to do - need to make some alligator clip wires since 6 of my voltage probes have a funny way of connecting. But having a working prototype makes me feel good. Of course, camp starts Sunday... Heh. You know, over the years I managed to reduce the amount of stuff I had to bring to B-WISER down to a minimum. But now with this new class, I've got a carload of stuff I'll be bringing. (And one idea was getting an energy bike to the camp. I don't think so....) But as I've designed the class to use my Vernier LabQuests as much as possible, I'm really excited. Current Mood:  excited
Current Music: Pet Shop Boys / Shameless
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On Friday, I had checked the times for the Strawberry Festival and for Sat & Sun, the booths were to open at 10am. So the folks and I decided that we'd go on Sunday when many folks would be in church. The plan, take one of the shuttle buses from the Meijer parking lot to the festival. The reality? Although the booths opened at 10am, the shuttle service didn't start until 11am. Whoops! No matter, I drove us toward the festival and found parking at the old Hobart offices - just a short walk across the bridge to the levy where the festival is held. Though dad was a little disappointed he didn't get to ride a school bus (that's what they use for the shuttles), the convenience of the parking was worth it. We got to the levy shortly before 10am, but many booths were already opened. We perused the various crafts and when we got to a booth selling strawberry smoothies, mom & I bought one to share. A few booths down, Panera was selling strawberry danishes (basically cheese danish with sliced strawberries on). A nice breakfast, IMO. Once we'd been most of the way through the festival, we went down to the lower levy to buy the (now rather over-priced at $8 a dozen) strawberry donuts sold by the Troy Music Boosters. So I only bought a dozen donuts. My favorite lemon/strawberry shake up booth is on the lower levy, so I bought my shake up and we perused the booths there before heading back up. Deciding what to have for lunch wasn't easy - lost of wonderful choices. But the booth selling crawfish etouffee won my heart, stomach, and money. I also had to get the strawberry sushi. It was basically strawberry sashimi sliced onto sushi rice. ;-) Very tasty, actually. The folks got lunch as well and let me try their roasted corn on the cob & sammiches (grilled chicken for mom, BBQ beef for dad). Tasty. I actually bought a few items - unsurprisingly foodstuff. I got some fudge-caramel sauce (for ice cream, etc) that was tasty, some jalapeño jelly (which wasn't nearly as hot as the habeñero jelly they were also selling), and a huge bag of kettle corn. I've eaten about a third of the bag so far. Heh. We got back to the car at noon, so it was a pretty successful day. We avoided most of the crowd by going early, had decent parking, and got out before it got too warm. We rock at Festivalling! Tags: dad, festivals, food, mom
Current Mood: full
Current Music: Enter The Haggis / Lancaster Gate
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It's lovely out right now, likely to continue into a lovely day in the lower 70s°F. We're down to the last week of school, but that doesn't seem to make me any more caught up. Indeed, I sometimes feel even further behind. (The treasurer's assistant assures me that "being caught up" is an illusion. I think she's right.) Still, I have moments of calm before the panic, and this is one of them. So I'll take some time to write more about the Super Weekend of Fun that I had when my sister et al came in for Alumni. ( Pre-Weekend Planning )( Thursday before Alumni )Well, time for me to go to church. Dad is preaching (actually, lecturing is probably a better term) about Evidence at the UU church in New Madison. If I didn't dress up, I'd wear my "I [heart] Evidence" shirt. Heh. Tags: amy & rachel, birthday, dad, food, mom
Current Mood:  calm
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For 10 years or so elsaf and judiang have been joining me at my folks' cottage at Lake Loramie every Memorial Day weekend. To me, summer doesn't officially begin until I see the girls. Half of that has been fulfilled with Judi arriving last night at the airport. Elsa is currently driving south and probably has another half hour to hour yet to travel. (She's been texting updates to Judi all day.) Today, Judi and I have been indulging in lazy. It's been lovely. After eating Judi's second Cinnabon (she couldn't resist them at the airport yesterday and bought a pair) for breakfast, I headed off to Wagner's grocery for foodstuff. Then Judi and I lazed the morning away. After Elsa's text around noon, I figured it would be a good idea to "turn on the fire" so we could have lunch. Judi and I grilled hot dogs and accompanied them with baked beans and snackies (homemade Chex Mix and not homemade Munchies). Tasty tasty. After lunch, I installed Ubuntu 9.04 (netbook remix) onto our test 10" Acer netbook (by "our" I mean the school's - we have it for 30 days or so to test out and can do what we want with it during that time). Damn, Linux has gotten easier & easier to install. After running Live Linux to see if it could detect the wireless card (it could), I installed it. Hell, even the onboard video came works! Although I like the default look of 9.04, I'll probably revert back to the normal look. I decided to read awhile as the partition software worked its magic on the Acer and wound up falling asleep. But I didn't sleep long and was back working on the Acer and then decided to work on getting supper ready. The pork was already marinading in my own mango concoction. I have just finished getting the veggies ready (green peppers, Vidalian onion, pineapple) for grilling. Elsa gets a break tonight, but tomorrow night she's gonna be cooking up a storm. Or something. :-) It's lovely to be sitting outside, looking over the lake, and typing on my itty bitty netbook. Listening to my iPod too. Heh. I am a geek. Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: The Rutles / Love Life
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May (the month) hit like an avalanche, but thankfully, I feel like someone's finally handed me a shovel and I can dig my way out. As my absence of LJ posts has indicated, I've been very busy. I want to document my busy weekend from last week, but it will need to go into several posts or y'all will tl,dr me. (Well, you still might, heh.) One of the most important things that happened last weekend was due to a letter I wrote back in December. I've intended for a number of years now to nominate my father for the Newton High School Hall of Fame, but knew he'd prefer if I didn't and also figured he'd avoid going to the alumni banquet to receive it if he got it. So I'd figured I'd wait til his 50th reunion, knowing he'd attend that one. But my superintendent came to me this December saying it was certainly time that my dad was nominated as he was very deserving of it. So I decided to do it. The rest of this post will be the letter I wrote to the nomination committee. (I've munged the name(s) a bit, but the rest of the letter is just as I wrote it.) ( Click here for the nomination letter about my dad. )I'm proud of my daddy. :-) Current Mood: proud
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I intend to come up for air next Wednesday. But for now, thanks to procrastination and my weird problem with closure (in that I avoid it), I've got two final papers to write and turn in (one due Tomorrow, the other next Tuesday) and then I'm done with my last proper semester. Everything after this is just thesis. So anyhoo, I'd better start my paper that's due tomorrow. (OK, so it's started, but so far it's nothing more than a few quotes and the beginning paragraph.) Who knows, maybe I'll even finish it tonight. Then I can let it sleep and look over it tomorrow to see if it's shit or not. Heh. (Thankfully, I've only missed 1 point in the course so far, so hopefully I can do well enough on this paper to get an A.) My other final paper (min 15 pages, 10pt font, double spaced) is currently only an outline. I know what I'm doing this weekend!* :-) *Yeah, yeah, procrastinating so that I wind up writing the bloody thing Monday night...Tags: masters
Current Mood:  stressed
Current Music: Mark Ayres / Sifting Dreams
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Although I never figured myself as reading eBooks, this has actually come to pass. Although Amazon.com's Kindle is tempting, I'm quite happy to use my phone (AT&T Tilt with eReader software) to read books these days. So far I've read a novella and novel by Lois McMaster Bujold (which I'd purchased through Fictionwise.com, eReader's parent company, now owned by Barnes & Noble), Jane Eyre, The Cricket on the Hearth, and The Jungle Book. Apart from a dictionary and thesaurus (which I bought from eReader.com) and the two aforementioned Bujold tales, I haven't bought any other eBooks. But I now have quite a library on my phone thanks to a number of legal (believe it or not) sources. My sources, let me show you them!
- Project Gutenberg - Perhaps the greatest electronic library online there is. Thousands of out-of-print books have been hand-typed (or scanned and edited) by volunteers and are now available as text, html, and other versions. I've added a number of classic authors to my collection, and the non-purchased books I mentioned above are all from Gutenberg.
- eReader & Fictionwise - Both of these companies have free eBooks to try out. Some are classics, but some are more contemporary. I've downloaded a selection of these, but haven't read any yet. The difference between the two stories is a matter of format. eReader.com only sells eReader-format books. Fictionwise sells a variety of formats, including eReader and pdf. They overlap for the most part (as might be expected).
- Baen Free Library - I was surprised (and delighted) when I discovered that science fiction publisher Baen Books had several eBooks available for free, trying to encourage people to try now, get hooked, and buy later. I'll probably be one of those types of people. :-) Although they don't offer the eReader format (whose software I like best out of the two programs I've tried, heh) they offer .rtf which I will discuss later. Anyhoo, I've got one of the Mercedes Lackey books started on my phone.
- Scribd.com - As a new convert to Twitter, one of the things I love best about it is finding out about new stuff from links that people post. Wil Wheaton (who's fun to follow on Twitter) posted a link to a novel available on Scribd.com and I've downloaded it and a few others. Like Baen, Random House is trying the drug lord method of book selling - offer free samples, then charge when they're hooked. You can read the books at the Scribd.com site once you've made an account, or you can download a .pdf (if the author/publisher allows) of the book to read later. I've downloaded a number of .pdfs for checking out later. I may wind up putting them on my Netbook (for which I've downloaded FBreader).
If you're looking for free eBooks, hopefully something in the list above will help you in your search. ( Format Wars - a geeky discussion of eBook formats )Tags: books
Current Mood:  nerdy
Current Music: Scott Joplin / Gladioulus
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The best way to learn how to work with a new operating system, I think, is to have something not work right and then try to fix it. If everything is working perfectly, you learn nothing about the workings of the OS. Ubuntu on my Dell Mini has been working perfectly in all of the stuff I will likely use it for. However, one of the reasons I wanted a Linux-based netbook was to see how easy/difficult/whatever it would be to use for my classroom computers. Since most netbooks come with XP Home, which will not work properly on a domain (no easy way for kids to access their accounts) I thought maybe Linux might be a solution, provided I can do everything with Linux that I currently do with Winders with my students. And I'm thinking more & more that netbooks will be the way to go when I get my new classroom in 2010. (No room for PCs in my new room and netbooks are half the cost - at least - and half the size - at least - of normal laptops.) The Ubuntu on my Mini had everything I'd need in my classroom (a word processor, spreadsheet, web browser, pdf reader) except for Logger Pro. Logger Pro is a graphing program by Vernier that goes one step further than their earlier (and still brilliant) graphing program Graphical Analysis: it can interface with the LabQuest handheld units which we use in physics. LabQuests allow you to connect various scientific probes to it and gather data which can be viewed on the LabQuest or uploaded into Logger Pro for further analysis and eventual pasting into word processors for lab reports. Vernier already had Logger Lite available for such a purpose, but Logger Lite doesn't do all of the analyses that I use in physics nor can it be used as a stand-alone graphing program. So I checked on Vernier's website recently to see if there were any plans to port Logger Pro to Linux. And sure enough, there was a link to join their beta testers on Logger Pro for Linux. I joined the group, deleted my VirtualBox Winders 7 and stuck Ubuntu on there. It installed peachy keen, but I just couldn't get the virtual USB to connect to a LabQuest. No matter, I had a Dell Mini on the way, I'd test it then. The Mini arrives and I play and learn and eventually get around to installing Logger Pro. Which, unlike on my VirtualBox, doesn't go well. Indeed, after the drivers supposedly installed, the Logger Pro program told me it didn't have all of the dependencies on the machine and wouldn't install. I posted to the beta forum and waited for the Easter holiday to be over. Sure enough, I got a response Monday from one of the Vernier techs. A couple of e-mails passed by, I learned a lot about installing & uninstalling using dpkg, and the first Vernier tech put me in touch with one of the actual Linux gurus who's working on the software. While corresponding with him, I've learned to do even more things, such as unpackaging i386.deb files and repackaging as lpia.deb files, compiling a new driver using make, and stuff like that. I thanked the tech at Vernier for getting the opportunity to do all this stuff in order to learn more about Linux. His e-mail to me today started with "You rock!" That made my morning. Anyhoo, after work today, I built a kernel specific driver for my Dell Mini and tried Logger Pro (which I had gotten successfully installed yesterday after the i386 to lpia conversion) with the LabQuest once more. And there it was! Data from the LabQuest (temperature probe attached) on my Dell Mini. I was so excited, I boiled some water, called dad up to come over for a Geek Emergency, and reconfirmed Newton's Law of Cooling with a cup of boiling water and Logger Pro. Dad was as delighted as I was. (We are geeks, remember.) So anyhoo, success with Linux and Logger Pro. I'll continue to test with other probes. I'll be interested to see which dialog boxes are too large for the netbook screen. (I know the interface list is just slightly too large, but that may be something we may not use in my class.) So anyway, according to one Vernier tech at least, I rock. :-) Tags: computer, geek, netbook
Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Enya / River
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I waited and waited for Acer to get the right combo for their Aspire One (Linux, SSD, *and* a 6-cell battery) but they never could. Then Dell started lowering the price on their 9" Mini and it was tempting. And then they had a one-day sale with a further $50 off their Linux, SSD, 4-cell Mini. And they had red ones. So I had to order it. (8GB SSD & 1GB RAM for the curious.) It arrived today. Woohoo! Dad's arrived yesterday and we all agreed it was really cute and cool. (His is white.) He's decided that he loves Ubuntu. Had the easiest set up of a computer ever. My own experience today was equally pain free. I took photos during the opening and all that, which I've posted to my Pagefillers Gallery. Here's a photo of the red lovely (downloaded & edited on the Mini, then uploaded to Pagefillers.com): I've only got two complaints about the Mini so far - funky keyboard arrangement (apostrophe and dash are in odd places) and the beta version of LoggerPro for Ubuntu wouldn't install. (Not too worried about the second issue - the purpose of the beta is to get it working for as many Ubuntu and Linux users around - I'm sure the folks at Vernier will get it sorted out.) Dad's got a complaint about his - his screen keeps going black for no apparent reason. Hopefully Dell (or Ubuntu, if the Dell tech he chatted with tonight actually knew anything) will get his issue sorted out. Since I've been working a lot with Firefox add-ons of late, my Mini does much of what my main PC and laptop do. I've got the TwitterFox add-on to keep up with the Twitter folks I follow. I'm using the SyncPlaces add-on to keep my bookmarks synced between the three devices. Like with my laptop, I'll stick with webmail for e-mail. For non-Firefox programs, I've got Pidgin for AIM, Drivel for Livejournal writing (it's like a bare-bones Semagic), GIMP for image editing, F-Stop for getting images from my camera, etc. I was even able to installed my supposedly Winders-only laser printer on here. Cool beans. Oh, for music, I figure I can use Pandora and Last.FM. Although the speakers are considerably tinny, with my earphones hooked in, it's really nice sound. I was tres impressed. It hooked up to both my WiFi and dad's without a hitch. Oh - and the most astounding thing? It came with a recovery DVD! I didn't think any computer company sent a recovery DVD along with the machine anymore! (OK, so no DVD drive on here, but I figure we can copy it to a flash drive if we ever have to.) My next task will be to find DirSync or something similar because I'd like to set up the 4GB SD HC card I've stuck in the SD slot to backup my Documents folder whenever I click a button on the desktop (or similar). Don't think I'll be filling this little duffer up with a lot of stuff, so the 4GB of space remaining will likely be sufficient. (I can see this coming in handy when doing research/book reviewing in the library when I finally get started on my Masters). Well, I've found a drawback with GIMP on this Netbook - some of the windows are too big for the resolution so I can't see to change file types or other little things like that. I was going to make a new LJ icon, but I'll have to do that on my laptop or PC. Tags: computer, geek, netbook
Current Mood: nerdy
Current Music: Mark Ayres / Ancient Enemies
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I've spent most of my Spring Break working on things that have been lingering in my house/college work/etc. Although there's still a lot more I wanted to get done, I'm pleased with some of my progress. But for me, Spring Break just isn't Spring Break unless I go SHOPPING. I was hoping to get doon sooth to Ikea (a good hour and 20 minute drive) this spring break and today wound up being the day. The original plan was me, mom & dad. But alas, dad has caught the cold that mother got when she flew down to Florida last week. Mom was mostly recovered, so she drove the two of us down to West Chester (that's south of Dayton, but north of Cincinnati) with my phone telling us where to go. And it got us there just fine. This Ikea is fairly new and still has the New Store look to it. We arrived right at noon. Which was good, cuz we were both hungry for lunch. I got the Swedish meatballs with gravy & lingonberry preserves along with smashed tators. There was also a fizzy peach drink which I picked up. Mom decided on their veggie wrap and the garlic tomato soup and some of that peach fizzy drink. We agreed we'd get dessert after shopping. If you've not been to an Ikea - well, it's an adventure. We started putting little things in our bag as we wandered. Mom checked out kitchen cabinets and their arrangements, I just liked looking at the neat-o furniture. We tried out a few sofas and were impressed with the comfort. I got to see the TV stand I'd been eying on their website. I decided I'd get it and we even found some nice green boxes which would fit on it. (It's not going to be a TV stand, it's going under my picture window as a set of shelves.) After we picked up the very heavy TV stand and purchased everything, we dumped it all into mom's car then returned to the store for dessert. I got the chocolate cake (which elsaf would hate - it's basically layers of chocolate mousse separated by oreo cookie crumbs) - it was delish! Mom got the almond cake, which was also lovely. So lovely we decided to pick one up in the little Swedish food shop. And a few other items. The little dessert (and coffee for mom) perked us up enough we were game to finally see Jungle Jim's. Aunt Becky has sung its praises before. And it was indeed impressive. It's like a Trader Joe's x 3 plus a regular grocery. We had a nice time in there, despite the fact that we were getting sore feet/legs/etc from all the walking about. They even had pork pies - so I had to get one. The prices were pretty reasonable as well. All the stuff that I got and it was under $40. Oh, and when we finished shopping, it was 6pm. So we shopped for 6 hours straight (with a few times eating and/or driving to the other store). We had a long drive home which is when the sun finally decided to come out. Indeed, the closer we got to home, the sunnier it got. Heh. I ate my pork pie and had some salt & pepper potato chips left over from Christmas when A&R were in town. Mom and I finally finished 'em. I think the pork pie had more meat in it than the ones I'd always buy at Harrod's in London. Heh. Two more days left of Spring Break. I'll probably go back into productive mode tomorrow. (Well, I'd better! For one thing, I want to put my new TV stand together and stuff books & things on it.) But today was a nice break from productivity. Tags: shopping, spring break
Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: The Pogues / Haunting
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