June 26, 2003
Time to update.
The last three weeks have been less than special. here's a list .. not necessarily in chronological order.
My fish died.
I dropped my server, it died, it won't even POST now.
Beemer had it's "play days" In the past this was a 3 day event. (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) the village would hire a carnival to come and set up on main street. There would be bingo, and a BBQ. and on Sunday a parade. It has dwindled down to mostly just a parade. There's still a BBQ and some other "entertainment" but overall pretty lame.
I moved to Lincoln. The first week I was here I was sick for 3 days. I don't know what It was but I had a fever, sore muscles, and a headache. I felt better by the end of the week and on Saturday I drove to Beemer to spend the weekend with the family. I didn't' get anything or my dad for father's day.. I have no idea what he needs/wants and I really don't have the money to spend.
My parents purchased some blank CDRWs. Last time I was in Beemer they went to the local office max (35 miles away mind you) and picked up some disks. Prior to going shopping my dad asked me what the best way to transfer and back up files to and from the fire dept's computer and his computer. I told him high speed CDRW disks would be his best option. They have a CDRW drive that will do CDRW disks up to 10x so all they need is some disks. I told them what they need to tell the people at the store when they get there. The came home with a spool of 50 CD-R disks. I told them they want "CD re-writable disks" and I told them to be sure to get the fastest speed of those disks available. (I didn't want them buying 4x CDRW disks when much faster ones are available if you've ever tried to use slow CDRW disks you understand why. Sure, it was great 4 years ago when that was all we had but when they have a 10x rated drive.. it's pointless) Anyway, they came back and I told them they got the wrong thing.. and they relayed what they told the clerk. If they told the clerk the same thing they told me then it was the clerks fault. The asked for rewriteable disks, they didn't come home with rewriteable disks. Not only did they not get what they needed, but the CDRs were about 40 cent each. [see the bottom of this post for a side thought.. I was just typing along but decided to edit the post and stick it at the end] A few days later they went back to Office max to return the CDR disks and get the CDRWs. They called me on their cell phone and I helped them get the right thing this time :) now I'll have to help my dad learn how to use them when I'm in Beemer next. The interesting thing is that the disks came in a pack of 10. more than what my dad will need any time soon. We were talking after he double checked with me that he had the right item and mentioned backing up the hard drive. problem with that is the hard drive is a 40GB'er and a CDRW disk only holds a little over half a GB. There's currently about 6GB of data on the hard drive. It would take around 12 disks to back up all that data. My dad commented that the disks don't hold as much stuff as he thought, though I'm sure the disks will meet his needs.
That same weekend I found out that the problematic computer I worked on, in the previous post, still doesn't work. I didn't have a chance to look at it. I will probably check it out Thursday when I go back.
On Thursday I'm driving to Beemer. I'll do some laundry, and pick up my little brother. Friday morning we'll head back to Lincoln and he'll spend the weekend with me. I have a big weekend of things planed. Should be fun and my brother is really excited about it.. I'd post links to some of the things we'll see but it's late and I'm tired so if you're reading this you can just wait.
Other than that I've been living a pretty pathetic existance. I need a job but have done very very little to get one. my sleep schedule is all mixed up and ugh I don't have a lot of motivation for anything.... I'm "better" than I was a couple months ago but . eh I don't know how to finish that sentence. I was talking to a good friend tonight when I started writing this post.. she said I sound depressed. She could be right.
[side thought (see above)]:
Here's Fj's mini-guide to buying CDR disks. Buy them in large amounts. However, don't spend more than 25 cents per disk. Keep watch in the papers and other places, sooner than later a spool of CDR disks will go on sale. and/or be very cheap after rebate. (but I hate messing with rebates.. plus for you if you don't mind them) Another tip. You don't need a CDRW drive that burns CDRs faster than 16x. The math is simple. an 80 min CDR takes 80 min to fill at 1x.. ok half that for 2x (40 min) half that for 4.. etc.. ok we're at 16. about 5 min for a full CDR. Why pay extra money for 56x CDRs? get the slower ones. You shouldn't own a CDRW drive that goes faster than 32x anyway. If you do you wasted your money. When my brother built his computer about 2 years ago he spent over $100 more on a CDRW drive because he wanted the fastest (at the time a 16x12x40x (burn/re-write/read) ) 12x drives were running at about $100. I had goten one for my parents a couple months before. I told my brother that he should buy a 12x burner and wait for tie price to drop on the one he wanted. He skimped on his hard drive and got the "top of the line" CDRW drive. Well, about 12 months after I installed the 12x burner in my parents' computer it died. So we bought a new one. We picked up a 32x/10/40 drive (with software) that they currently have for about $50. Well I told him so... less than a year after my brother finished his computer a drive twice as fast was available for less than 1/3 the cost.
The last three weeks have been less than special. here's a list .. not necessarily in chronological order.
My fish died.
I dropped my server, it died, it won't even POST now.
Beemer had it's "play days" In the past this was a 3 day event. (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) the village would hire a carnival to come and set up on main street. There would be bingo, and a BBQ. and on Sunday a parade. It has dwindled down to mostly just a parade. There's still a BBQ and some other "entertainment" but overall pretty lame.
I moved to Lincoln. The first week I was here I was sick for 3 days. I don't know what It was but I had a fever, sore muscles, and a headache. I felt better by the end of the week and on Saturday I drove to Beemer to spend the weekend with the family. I didn't' get anything or my dad for father's day.. I have no idea what he needs/wants and I really don't have the money to spend.
My parents purchased some blank CDRWs. Last time I was in Beemer they went to the local office max (35 miles away mind you) and picked up some disks. Prior to going shopping my dad asked me what the best way to transfer and back up files to and from the fire dept's computer and his computer. I told him high speed CDRW disks would be his best option. They have a CDRW drive that will do CDRW disks up to 10x so all they need is some disks. I told them what they need to tell the people at the store when they get there. The came home with a spool of 50 CD-R disks. I told them they want "CD re-writable disks" and I told them to be sure to get the fastest speed of those disks available. (I didn't want them buying 4x CDRW disks when much faster ones are available if you've ever tried to use slow CDRW disks you understand why. Sure, it was great 4 years ago when that was all we had but when they have a 10x rated drive.. it's pointless) Anyway, they came back and I told them they got the wrong thing.. and they relayed what they told the clerk. If they told the clerk the same thing they told me then it was the clerks fault. The asked for rewriteable disks, they didn't come home with rewriteable disks. Not only did they not get what they needed, but the CDRs were about 40 cent each. [see the bottom of this post for a side thought.. I was just typing along but decided to edit the post and stick it at the end] A few days later they went back to Office max to return the CDR disks and get the CDRWs. They called me on their cell phone and I helped them get the right thing this time :) now I'll have to help my dad learn how to use them when I'm in Beemer next. The interesting thing is that the disks came in a pack of 10. more than what my dad will need any time soon. We were talking after he double checked with me that he had the right item and mentioned backing up the hard drive. problem with that is the hard drive is a 40GB'er and a CDRW disk only holds a little over half a GB. There's currently about 6GB of data on the hard drive. It would take around 12 disks to back up all that data. My dad commented that the disks don't hold as much stuff as he thought, though I'm sure the disks will meet his needs.
That same weekend I found out that the problematic computer I worked on, in the previous post, still doesn't work. I didn't have a chance to look at it. I will probably check it out Thursday when I go back.
On Thursday I'm driving to Beemer. I'll do some laundry, and pick up my little brother. Friday morning we'll head back to Lincoln and he'll spend the weekend with me. I have a big weekend of things planed. Should be fun and my brother is really excited about it.. I'd post links to some of the things we'll see but it's late and I'm tired so if you're reading this you can just wait.
Other than that I've been living a pretty pathetic existance. I need a job but have done very very little to get one. my sleep schedule is all mixed up and ugh I don't have a lot of motivation for anything.... I'm "better" than I was a couple months ago but . eh I don't know how to finish that sentence. I was talking to a good friend tonight when I started writing this post.. she said I sound depressed. She could be right.
[side thought (see above)]:
Here's Fj's mini-guide to buying CDR disks. Buy them in large amounts. However, don't spend more than 25 cents per disk. Keep watch in the papers and other places, sooner than later a spool of CDR disks will go on sale. and/or be very cheap after rebate. (but I hate messing with rebates.. plus for you if you don't mind them) Another tip. You don't need a CDRW drive that burns CDRs faster than 16x. The math is simple. an 80 min CDR takes 80 min to fill at 1x.. ok half that for 2x (40 min) half that for 4.. etc.. ok we're at 16. about 5 min for a full CDR. Why pay extra money for 56x CDRs? get the slower ones. You shouldn't own a CDRW drive that goes faster than 32x anyway. If you do you wasted your money. When my brother built his computer about 2 years ago he spent over $100 more on a CDRW drive because he wanted the fastest (at the time a 16x12x40x (burn/re-write/read) ) 12x drives were running at about $100. I had goten one for my parents a couple months before. I told my brother that he should buy a 12x burner and wait for tie price to drop on the one he wanted. He skimped on his hard drive and got the "top of the line" CDRW drive. Well, about 12 months after I installed the 12x burner in my parents' computer it died. So we bought a new one. We picked up a 32x/10/40 drive (with software) that they currently have for about $50. Well I told him so... less than a year after my brother finished his computer a drive twice as fast was available for less than 1/3 the cost.
June 08, 2003
Blogger is back up! (yay)
Last Thursday I moved out of the house I was staying in in Omaha. I signed a housing contract on UNL campus for the next 10 weeks. Monday my super-frantic job hunt begins. I don't expect to take any classes but I might. A day or so ago it was decided to raise tuition by 15%. Ouch. The tuition increase begins in the fall. I'll have to think about it. The first 5 week summer session begins Monday, I'm so painfully broke I don't see myself taking classes during either of the two sessions.
I went fishing Friday morning, but the fish had other plans. It was nice to get out and do something.. I only fished for about an hour then my brother got bored. Since the fish obviously weren't biting we found other things to do. We saw quite a few fish jumping, some of them were big, that was cool. We didn't get any bites, but we each caught a tree. I thought about going fishing again this weekend but sleep was more appealing. If I expected to catch anything I need to go out much earlier in the morning.
I worked on a computer this weekend. The same stupid computer from before. Last time I replaced the video card. (I was happy to get money for the never-been-used spare I had on hand) This weekend I replaced the modem. I couldn't tell if there was a physical problem with the modem or if the drivers are just crappy and wouldn't reinstall for me. For reasons unknown my brother took winME off the machine and put win98(1st edition) on. They sent along the recovery disks this time which was great because I could reformat the hard drive and reinstall drivers. It was frustrating for a while but I finally fixed the thing by installing a spare modem I had on hand and using generic drivers. It finally worked!! (I won't dare tell them that this spare modem came from the computer that they threw out some time ago.) I'm still using that machine as a linux box to learn on and a server. A while back I was in Beemer and accessed my server remotely to bring in some files. Whatever files they were they were for my brother or something.. he was there with me, as was his girlfriend. Though I know he doesn't entirely know what it means he said something like "So you have your own server?" I reply "Yeah, in fact it's the machine that that [gf's family] threw out." I got mostly a blank stare... then I realized again that they have no idea what is involved with such things. Though my brother's gf doesn't ever talk to me. If she has anything to ask me my brother does it for her. She had a question about the fact that I read lips (after she apparently noticed how much I did it during thanksgiving) and taking ASL. It may have been better if she just asked me but I figured she was too shy to ask something like that. I can understand why she wouldn't ask me directly in that situation but she doesn't ask me to fix her family's computer either. Though perhaps this is a case of my brother trying to fix it first, then going to me when he can't resolve the issue. He's the reason it had win98 on it. It would be cool if other computers around here broke down or something.. I could really use the money from from fixing them. People still ask me for computer advice from time to time... though I know I can't really talk computers with any of these people. Last Xmas some one in the family asked me what was new, one thing I mentioned was that I bought a domain name (it was a big deal to me (mylastname).org and it was previously owned. I was lucky to have it) Though, I only had to say that once to realize not many people have any idea what it means.
I move to Lincoln tonight. For some reason I don't really feel like driving and unpacking. My jeep is packed already, I just left most of my stuff in there. I'm still unsure about what I'm going to do about school and work and money and stuff. I'll figure something out... hopefully I'll find some kind of inspiration soon.
Last Thursday I moved out of the house I was staying in in Omaha. I signed a housing contract on UNL campus for the next 10 weeks. Monday my super-frantic job hunt begins. I don't expect to take any classes but I might. A day or so ago it was decided to raise tuition by 15%. Ouch. The tuition increase begins in the fall. I'll have to think about it. The first 5 week summer session begins Monday, I'm so painfully broke I don't see myself taking classes during either of the two sessions.
I went fishing Friday morning, but the fish had other plans. It was nice to get out and do something.. I only fished for about an hour then my brother got bored. Since the fish obviously weren't biting we found other things to do. We saw quite a few fish jumping, some of them were big, that was cool. We didn't get any bites, but we each caught a tree. I thought about going fishing again this weekend but sleep was more appealing. If I expected to catch anything I need to go out much earlier in the morning.
I worked on a computer this weekend. The same stupid computer from before. Last time I replaced the video card. (I was happy to get money for the never-been-used spare I had on hand) This weekend I replaced the modem. I couldn't tell if there was a physical problem with the modem or if the drivers are just crappy and wouldn't reinstall for me. For reasons unknown my brother took winME off the machine and put win98(1st edition) on. They sent along the recovery disks this time which was great because I could reformat the hard drive and reinstall drivers. It was frustrating for a while but I finally fixed the thing by installing a spare modem I had on hand and using generic drivers. It finally worked!! (I won't dare tell them that this spare modem came from the computer that they threw out some time ago.) I'm still using that machine as a linux box to learn on and a server. A while back I was in Beemer and accessed my server remotely to bring in some files. Whatever files they were they were for my brother or something.. he was there with me, as was his girlfriend. Though I know he doesn't entirely know what it means he said something like "So you have your own server?" I reply "Yeah, in fact it's the machine that that [gf's family] threw out." I got mostly a blank stare... then I realized again that they have no idea what is involved with such things. Though my brother's gf doesn't ever talk to me. If she has anything to ask me my brother does it for her. She had a question about the fact that I read lips (after she apparently noticed how much I did it during thanksgiving) and taking ASL. It may have been better if she just asked me but I figured she was too shy to ask something like that. I can understand why she wouldn't ask me directly in that situation but she doesn't ask me to fix her family's computer either. Though perhaps this is a case of my brother trying to fix it first, then going to me when he can't resolve the issue. He's the reason it had win98 on it. It would be cool if other computers around here broke down or something.. I could really use the money from from fixing them. People still ask me for computer advice from time to time... though I know I can't really talk computers with any of these people. Last Xmas some one in the family asked me what was new, one thing I mentioned was that I bought a domain name (it was a big deal to me (mylastname).org and it was previously owned. I was lucky to have it) Though, I only had to say that once to realize not many people have any idea what it means.
I move to Lincoln tonight. For some reason I don't really feel like driving and unpacking. My jeep is packed already, I just left most of my stuff in there. I'm still unsure about what I'm going to do about school and work and money and stuff. I'll figure something out... hopefully I'll find some kind of inspiration soon.
