Bits and Pieces

Okay, I haven't blogged in earnest for a while. Here, in no particular order, are some of the things that have been going on in my life.

School Daze
I'm two weeks into the very last laboratory class of my undergraduate career. My lab partners and I have spent the last four lab periods making, processing, and analyzing ammonia-ligand compounds of silver, copper, and nickel. We finished up the procedures on Wednesday; all that remains now is the write-up. I'm supposed to take the numbers and observations we gathered and use them to determine how many ammonia ligands wrap around each metal atom and what the resulting geometry is for each complex.

The other classes are going pretty well. We just had the third of four hour exams in Thermodynamics. The fourth is scheduled for the day before Thanksgiving. The syllabus for Quantum Mechanics says we have an exam on the 22nd, which is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The problem is that we don't have classes on Tuesday in QM. So it may be the day before Thanksgiving as well. That would leave me taking that exam at 9:40, followed by the Thermo exam at 10:45. The same thing happened on October 12th, and it was not a lot of fun. As for Inorganic, we have exams in kind of an ad-hoc manner. Once we finish a section, the professor lets up determine, as a class, when we want to have the exam. I don't know when that next exam will be, but it had better not be on the 23rd, or my brain will explode.

I Want to Be Ben
I've had some fun with movies recently. Nancy and I saw Fantastic Four last week at the discount theater. I really enjoyed it. I've never really read the comic book, but I've always liked the characters. The Thing is a real favorite. As it turns out, Michael Chiklis, who played the gruff but lovable Ben Grimm, was the only one of the major cast members who actually read the comic. According to IMDb.com, it was because of Chiklis that the Thing was accomplished by costuming rather than digital effects. He looked great, and even under the makeup he emoted well. Lesson: pay attention to those who know the source material.

We also saw The Work and the Glory: American Zion last weekend. I've never read any of the books by Gerald Lund, so I don't have much of a basis for comparison. Maybe that's a good thing. But I enjoyed this movie as well. It was hard to watch sometimes; there are scenes of violence and even torture, and it's not pleasant knowing that these sorts of things happened to real people and not just movie characters. The character development was good, though, even if the ending was a little abrupt. Apparently that's the way the book is, too.

We watched What's Up, Doc? on video a while back. Funny, funny movie. I'm not normally a big fan of Streisand's music, acting, or politics, but this was a really, really funny movie.

Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, I finally saw Napoleon Dynamite. It was painful to watch. I was almost that awkward and clueless in high school. Maybe more than 'almost'. The difference is that I've never been able to draw.

Open Mouth, Insert Athlete's Foot
I just read that Terrell Owens has been suspended indefinitely by the Philadelphia Eagles. What an idiot. What was he thinking? He spent most of the preseason whining about how underpaid and unappreciated he was. He was suspended for a week back then. Now he does the same thing while his team is in the middle of a potential playoff run, and he expects a different outcome? Whatever. Just shut up and cash your six-figure paychecks already. Heaven forbid you should ever have to get a real job.

The Joy of Payday
I found regular unleaded gasoline last night for $2.27 per gallon (that's 70 cents per liter, Canadian). The last time I filled my tank, I paid over $2.75 per gallon. All told, I paid about $15 less to fill the Dreadnought this time. That was a nice change.

I also bought some new sheets, pillows, and pillowcases last night. For the curious, they're striped in dark blue, less-dark blue, maroon, and white. I've had the plain blue sheets I've been using for more than a year now, and I felt it was time for a change. Even after an initial washing, the new linens are still a little stiff, but that'll get better. The new pillows are wonderful - oversized and overstuffed. Very cozy.

I also had to buy a new white dress shirt. I had only three: one reserved for very special occasions (i.e., where I'm not likely to get food stains all over it), an old one with short sleeves and a now-too-tight neck, and one that needs to be ironed every time I wear it. This new one will be good for general winter use. Hey, if you're a Mormon man, you can never have too many white dress shirts!

Music for Nothin' and your Tunes for Free
As mentioned in the last post, I've had to reconstruct my computer over the past week. In the process of doing so, I had to download a lot of drivers and programs. One of these was WinAmp. When I downloaded the newest free version, I got an offer for 100 free downloads from eMusic.com. I've never downloaded music before, mostly due to the fact that I've always had dial-up. But with my sweet new broadband connection, I decided to give it a try.

All I will say is this: you can use up a hundred free downloads in a hurry when you download an album at a time. In the end, I decided not to extend my membership beyond the free trial. Their selection of 'mainstream' music seemed pretty weak. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, as I consider the majority of mainstream music today to be carp. But I was unable to find several pretty common songs that I was looking for. They probably couldn't get agreements with those record labels. Stupid RIAA.

On the positive side, they did have quite a bit of alternative country and classical that I liked. In the end, this is what I used my downloads on:

Various composers: Glass Harmonica
Alan Hovhanness: Symphony No. 22 ("City of Light"); Cello Concerto
Ferde Grofe: Grand Canyon Suite
Ottorino Respighi: Symphonic Poems
Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash: Distance Between and Walk Alone
Lorna Bracewell: Little Miss Obvious and God Forbid
Jason Boland & the Stragglers: Somewhere in the Middle
I also got a live version of John Hiatt's "Perfectly Good Guitar".

It's Alive!
Yes, my computer is back up and running. I managed to save everything that I felt was worth saving - love that CD burner! - and cleaned up the hard drive as much as possible. Then it was time to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system.

I weighed some of the pros and cons, and tentatively decided to go with Ubuntu Linux. Yes, there were going to be some issues, mostly with software and compatibility. I have a lot of software, mostly games and the like, that are Windows specific. And Iomega doesn't have Linux drivers for its Zip 100 PPT drives, one of which I still have, and is still working just fine after a decade. But the Linux install disk came with Open Office, Thunderbird, and Firefox - all of which I use anyway. So I decided to take the plunge.

Alas, there were difficulties. I put in the Ubuntu CD and ran the installation. It copied the files over and detected hardware just fine. After about fifteen minutes, I was instructed to restart the system to complete the installation. That's where it all fell apart. The computer was unable to find the hard drive.

I took my machine in to work on Tuesday in the hopes that Allen, the closest thing I have to a tech wizard, would be able to help me fix it. Alas, he wasn't there. So I muddled about with it fruitlessly for a couple of hours. At last, I figured out how to get into the BIOS and make the computer boot from the install CD that came with the hard drive. I managed to get it to work, after which I tried to install the Linux again, with the same results. Conclusion: Ubuntu doesn't like my hard drive when it comes to partitions. So now I’m back to Windows 98. Lucky me.

Okay, I suppose that's enough for now. Good day, everyone.