TBQ Update

Just a reminder to all TBQ people, Chapter 12 & 13 for Thursday. Also, League IV is THIS Saturday in Redmond.

TBQ Update

Just a reminder to all TBQ people, Chapter 11 for Thursday. Also, 11 days until League 4.

TBQ Update

Just a reminder to all TBQ people, Chapter 10 for Thursday. Also, 18 days until League 4.

Renewed Commitment to Updates!

Starting this week I will be having content posted here regularly. What does regularly mean? In this case it means a minimum of one new posting per week, most likely on a Monday, although not always the case. There is actually content in the queue so I am working with a cushion to ensure that I can make this renewed commitment to regular posting.

You may also have noticed that the tbq.net site does not exist at the moment and actually has not for a few months. So for the time being the URL is forwarding to this page, so for that reason there will also be [more] TBQ related content posted here, so stay tuned.

Weird Ads

I open a new browser, which takes me to this page, as it is my homepage. I have this as my homepage for a few reasons. Primarily, if I see the same update over and over again I might be inspired to write something new. Second, I see if anyone posted a new comment since I don’t regularly check the email where the notifications are sent. And I sometimes just like to see what sort of ads Google decides to put on the page. Tonight’s surprise came when I see that there are 4 separate ads, but only one of them was in English, and the other three Hebrew.

I’m not 100% certain, but I’m pretty sure that of the very small percentage of people who this blog would appeal to, and the other small percentage of people who actually take time to look here from time to time, pretty much all of them are comfortable with the English language. I don’t recall anything that I’ve posted that would appeal particularly to the people who understand Hebrew, but not English.

I guess I could take the time to browse through translated, local newspapers from around the world and write random entries about them. I’m sure I could come up with a semi-informed opinion about the inner workings of Taipei’s city council, or what the latest Parisian, mafia member uses as fashion accessories to compliment their various firearms.

That all seems like a lot of work though, and I neglect things like this enough as it is. I did get a check in the mail this afternoon for $100.57 from Google as payment for my Adsense impressions. That alone might be enough to inspire me to write more and try to attract readers. We’ll have to see.

It's that time again...

...for a new computer! My desktop has been causing me grief for a while now and I finally decided that enough is enough and that I was going to build a new computer. The final key that helped me decided that now was the time was a donation from Aaron of the wreckage of his last computer. After playing with it for a while I realized that the CPU was good, as well as the RAM. The motherboard is dead, as well as the 400GB hard drive that I tried using. I few days of research led me to the DFI Blood Iron P45 T2RS motherboard, actually I liked the X48 better as it had full speed Crossfire and Firewire, but the extra $75 wasn't worth it to me.

My computer was almost top of the line when I built it in 2005, which makes it a dinosaur in computer years. Four video cards, a burnt out motherboard, and three CPUs later, I've finally decided that its days as my primary machine are over. I'm currently in the process of taking the hard drive and copying it onto a virtual computer, so that I can use that particular setup whenever I need something off of it, rather than just keeping the machine around anymore; it's time for it to go to that great recycling center in China.

So the new computer is clock-for-clock 63% faster than my Athlon 64 4000+ that I've been using for the last 2 years. It is also a quad core Q6600, which means that it can multitask much better than a single core, which is great if anyone has ever seen the 75 processes that I'm usually running. Throw in 4 gigs of DDR2-1066 RAM that I cannibalized from my server, my Radeon 4850 that I'm recycling from the desktop, my Audigy X-Fi Platinum sound card also from the desktop, my Thermalright Ultra-120 extreme cooler, and a random hard drive and I'm good to go. I'm still waiting for the proper mounting bracket to arrive so I can attach the cooler to the new motherboard, and then I'll be good to go, Yes I am recycling my Quantum case, I like it too much to let 30KG of steel elegance just go to waste. I might replace some of the fans with colored, glowing ones, but I haven't got that far yet.

Week in Review

Wow, the week is over. Once again, it went by too fast. What have I done in the last 7 days? Lets see…

I saw Glenn Beck with Bonnie, Tasha, and Brenda last Saturday. It was fun seeing all of the people there, and slightly disappointing that there weren’t more protesters outside. We almost didn’t get in since they ran out of tickets before we got to the window to buy them. After waiting around, and after many people had left, someone came out and told them to take our money and let us in. So we did get in after all. I also bought a Gadsden flag while standing in line for tickets. Thanks Bonnie for taking us.

Sunday was Amy and Shaun’s wedding. That was fun. The band really could have used more practice and the reception was really long. The food was good, the speeches were entertaining, and the slideshow was fun to watch as well.

Didn’t do much during the rest of the week except look for a real job, earn a few bucks, and run errands for grandparents. I really should have spent more time watching TV, reading, and relaxing but there isn’t enough time in the week for that.

Hooray for Dumb Surveys!

Doing one of the countless surveys I regularly receive I noticed that the survey program was much more dumb than usual. The first set of questions asked me which fast food restaurants I had visited in the last 4 weeks and how many times I frequented said restaurants. I filled in that I had gone to both Taco Bell and Arby’s once in the past month. Then the survey goes on to ask which of the McDonald’s coffees I had ordered in the last month. There wasn’t an option to say that since I don’t drink coffee I probably wasn’t going to be ordering coffee.

Since I had just told the program that McDonald’s wasn’t one of the two fast food places I’d visited in the previous 4 week, the program should realize that I’m probably not going to be ordering something from a place I haven’t been. Some better programming on their part will allow them to save substantial time in collecting and processing survey data, and save the time of those taking these surveys.

Epic Freeze

The evening of Friday, December 12, 2008 was the beginning of the coldest period of time I remember here in Seattle. While attending a performance at Kent Meridian High School the temperatures dropped and it snowed a couple of inches in an hour’s time. In most of the country, people wouldn’t think much of seeing snow in December, but this is Seattle. We don’t get much snow around here and usually not while it’s still technically Fall.

What made this weather even more unusual was that it was cold, really cold. For us to get snow we need moisture in the air, which usually comes to the region via southern air currents. Cold weather comes from the arctic, but that air is almost always very dry. This particular weather front had both, with enough cold air to cool off the warm southern air, and enough moisture in the air to blanket the region in snow. Both the huge quantities of snow that fell, and the cold temperatures lingered for several weeks. Snow was on the ground at my house for almost 3 weeks, other places had it longer. I noticed last night that there are still patches of snow at church that have not melted yet, 5 weeks later.

So far this has been a rather typical January. It’s a few degrees cooler than usual, but still above freezing most of the time. January and November usually fight it out for the title of “Wettest Month of the Year” and this January is getting a strong head start. Combine that with the tons of melting snow and many parts of the region are seeing dangerous flooding. But if we didn’t have Al Gore’s global warming invention to protect us from the extreme cold, we would probably be frozen solid right now.

And It’s December Already

Wow, November went by fast. It seems like we just had Halloween and now Thanksgiving is already past us. So what have I done so far this month? I voted against a bunch of politicians and measures that still managed to win. I worked and went to school. I managed to study my Bible Quiz material and work out every single day during the month. I had two Thanksgivings last Thursday, at Brenda’s grandparents’ house and the other at my house. I was also stuck at the top of Mt. Baker Highway thanks to the steering rods sheering off the bolts in our van(thankfully while we were parking in the ski-area parking lot and not when we were driving the icy, winding, cliff-side roads to actually get to that parking lot) which means that our van is only drivable if you’re trying to drive it straight since the front tires won’t turn. And last night I was detained at the US/Canadian border since my ID is apparently no longer considered proof of citizenship. Good times, good times. More to come in the next day or two after I finish my Psych paper and my IT presentation.

Goals

I set two goals for myself today. The first was to run 5 miles; the second was to finish my Mark book. As of a few minutes ago I finished the first goal by going 5.32 miles in 61 minutes. The second is one I haven’t started working on yet today. I’ll just have to update this again before I go to bed to let the world know that I’ve either completed my set task or gave up in miserable failure. Expect new update within the next four hours…

Update

I have 15 of 42 pages completely done, so I'm much farther behind that I want to be, but I'm tired and am going to bed now.

Three in a Row

Last night was the third night in a row I went to bed before sunrise. I’m really tired of my work schedule right now, but not because of the hours. I’m tired of it because I’m really tired on the days that I want to do things with people, because it means getting up many hours before my body is ready to wake up, thanks to being used to going to bed between 5 and 7 in the mornings.
What else seems important right now..? My parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary this past week. I got my truck fixed with my grandpa’s help so it should get me from point A to point B for a few more years to come. I acquired a new computer thanks to eBay; I’ll completely finish it with parts from Fry’s Labor Day or Thanksgiving sales, but I’ve got more than enough parts sitting around to make it fully functional until then.

April Update

April Snowfall Brings May Floods? It doesn’t rhyme but that’s life. After having the coldest end of March in Seattle’s recorded history, we’re probably having the coldest April too, and most places around here have had snowfall in the last 24 hours, as well as several times during the past three weeks. How is it that when we have unusually cold weather in spring they weather people say it’s just a freak weather pattern? Yet when we have an unusually hot period in the summer it can only be global warming! I’m contemplating building a fire in the wood stove tonight so I don’t freeze, since it gets cold at night (33F at the moment and falling).

I never got to my Sakura-Con update so I guess I’ll give a brief summary now. It was AWSOME! We went all three days and managed to go to the opening and closing ceremonies. They were very cool, but too loud for comfort, which is why I was very thankful for earplugs.
Brenda and I spent most of the time watching AMVs in the AMV theater and a few anime episodes in one of the anime theaters. There were also thousands of cosplayers dressed as their favorite characters from dozens of different series. The whole experience was very fun, equally exhausting, and I’m going to preorder tickets for next year as soon as they’re available. Also, I’m designing my Syaoran costume for next year as well.

In the political news, I really dislike the presidential candidates, but hate McCain the least so he’ll probably get my vote. Not sure if there’s a point in voting for a Republican candidate in Washington since we’re probably the largest Socialist stronghold in the country. Unlike the rest of the country, candidates don’t even have to pretend to me remotely conservative here to get elected. “Elect me and I’ll raise the taxes of everyone who makes more than you to pay for social programs that benefit you” is all a candidate needs to say to get elected around here.

In more important news, our Bible Quiz team got a wildcard invitation to the Regional finals in Spokane. This is the first time we’ve sent a team since I got involved in 1997. They have a long was to go if they hope to go to Nationals but now they at least have a shot.

I still like my classes this quarter and they’re not very hard. The hardest part is the leaving at 07:30 to make it to the first one.

That’s it, nothing else is really going on that I can think of at the moment. I should have my ads fixed soon so that they show up instead of the public service announcements. Then I’ll get my three cents every time someone visits my blog, which adds up over time.

School is Done

School was done on Wednesday so for almost 2 weeks I don't have to go to Bothell during that time.  I also got an A on my marketing final, so I'm pretty happy about that.  I have no clue about my other classes but I'm not really worried about their grades either. 

This coming week will be spent recharging my body from the many abuses and neglect it received while trying to finish the quarter and trying to get back onto a semi-normal sleep cycle. 

I'm shooting to get back into a normal running regiment this week although the weather is still fairly lousy outside.  I did manage to fix my treadmill so that should inspire me to actually get up and do it. 

Until next time...

Live Writer Test

I just downloaded Windows Live Writer and thought I've give it a test.  Instead of typing up most posts in Word, running them through FrontPage for a quick format of any code in the post, and then posting to Blogger, this should allow me to do everything in a single window.

Today was the last day of class for the quarter.  Next week I've got a Business Finance final on Monday as well as a Marketing Management presentation to give on my instant clothes dryer.  On Wednesday we're supposed to be in class to see the other presentations and then the quarter is complete.  Spring quarter begins April 1st.

Guy Fawkes Day Again

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
Gunpowder Treason and plot ;
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
'Twas his intent.
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below.
Poor old England to overthrow.
By God's providence he was catch'd,
With a dark lantern and burning match

Holloa boys, Holloa boys, let the bells ring
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip Hoorah !
Hip hip Hoorah !

A penny loaf to feed ol'Pope,
A farthing cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down,
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar,'
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head,
Then we'll say: ol'Pope is dead.


Four-hundred two years ago Guy Fawkes was caught attempting to rig the Parliament building to explode during the opening session, attempting to kill the entire body and King James I. James was a Protestant and did not answer to the Pope which enraged the Catholics in the country. A group of them believed that killing the king would return the religious rule of the Roman Church to Britain. Naturally they failed and were executed.

Been busy with work, not as busy as I should be with school, and generally slacking off just enough to maintain a shred of sanity. I haven’t been able to run everyday, but still trying to keep it up regularly. Way behind in TBQ memorization already, I’m considering throwing in the towel for the year and getting a head start on next year’s material. Guess that’s all that new now, hopefully more regular updates this week.