Chatonka

I woke up to my cell phone alarm on Friday morning at 7AM, quite drowsy and not at all feeling ready to take an engineering exam. However, when I rolled over to look out the window all I could see was whiteness. Wait a minute… it was snowing!

Huzzah!

This is what I had been waiting for, I thought, and jumped out of bed to see how hard it was snowing. After realizing that I didn’t have my glasses and couldn’t actually see anything, I fumbled around my desk until my hands found their metal frame.

Huzzah! It was still snowing, and I could actually see the flakes!

At 7:05 the ground was covered, and the thought of walking around in the snow got me moving quickly. One of my most favorite things to do is to be outside while it’s actively snowing, and another is being up in the morning, so when put together I was definitely excited.

While walking to my class I got this as a view of the science center:

My morning view of the science center

As you can see, there is a fair amount of snow on the ground. That picture was taken at about 7:50AM.

My exam went… decently (more on that in another post) and I spent the rest of the day enjoying the snow. And by that I mean being cooped up inside all morning and all afternoon in classes and labs, thinking about the snow.

In the evening I snapped this picture at sunset.

This is what my view looked like by sunset

It’s the view outside of my dorm. I’m pretty sure that it’s one of the best views on campus, and that makes me feel very lucky.

Hopefully the snow won’t melt immediately (it’s still here as of sunset on Saturday).

This is a great photo showing my desktop. Often it’s that clean, but as with everything, it goes in cycles of cleanliness and dirtiness.

A cameraphone (N78) picture of my workspace

This second photo shows a tree on campus that I think is beautiful in the fall. It has a circle of leaves below it and contrasts nicely with the green grass.

A beautiful tree on campus

So, anyways, I wanted to take this desktop on the plane.

There are a few problems with that statement. Number 1: Desktops are fragile. This meant that I needed to have it as carry-on luggage, as big and bulky and non-wheeled as it was. Number 2: Desktops are heavy. This meant that I used the Antec straps that came with a case that I had purchased earlier. Number 3: The black glossy Antec Sonata case is scratched quite easily. This means that I decided to cover the case with a white cloth covering.

Lets recap for a moment. I’m now walking into the airport with three bags. I have my backpack, with my laptop and other electronics (a LOT of other electronics). I have my large red duffel bag that is packed with winter clothing and a rather large, but rather light sleeping bag. And lastly, I have a large heavy metal box that is covered in a white cloth. That last object sounds like the definition of sketchy. Anyways, I managed to put the duffel bag underneath the plane, so I was left with more or less a bag full of electronics and a box full of more electronics. Going through security was very funny. I could see the reactions on the employees - I’m guessing they rarely (if ever) saw desktop computers come through as carry-on. After a thorough check of my luggage, security finally let me go.

I managed the rest of the flight without much trouble, although some of the other passengers certainly looked at me with a quizzical eye. And I definitely got a workout carrying that computer along with the rest of my bags up four flights of stairs.

I’m extremely pleased to have my desktop here with me at school. As cool as laptops are, a desktop is a constant. It doesn’t run out of battery, it has a nice dedicated large screen, a good mouse and keyboard (ugh, the pointing stick was beginning to get very old) and some wonderful speakers.

A few weeks ago I finally found the magic combination of settings that allowed my Kubuntu laptop onto the college wifi network. This worked great everywhere on campus except my dorm. (of course, the place I need it the most)

My way around this was to set a manual IP based off of a friend’s IP. This worked, but was quite sketchy, and a number of things weren’t as they should be. For some reason I couldn’t access anything in the school’s domain. Outside internet services were fine, but I couldn’t even get to our homepage. If that weren’t strange enough, my bandwidth seemed to not be capped at the normal 120KB/s but rather at a lofty 2MB/s! So, I didn’t complain, and used my phone’s 3G tethering when I needed to use school email or other school services.

However, it seems this rift in the network is gone, and from my dorm room I now get a normal dhcp address and normal internet. Although I lament the loss of my extreme speeds, it’s much nicer to not have to worry about how I’m going to connect.

Edit: Well, it seems I have spoken too soon. I’m back to the old behavior.

Well, it’s that time of year again. Cake and birthday presents of clothing (Yay Linux shirts last year and Yay long sleeve goodness this year) and strangely a lot of reflecting.

Saturday was a ‘Big Day’ as Burnz, or rather Burnz’s father, would so awesomely say. From waking up at 7:10 to a CS lab to 5 miles of walking in philly and finally to watching the Matrix for the first time, I would say that I was quite busy. My feet are sore but I can legitimately say that I’ve been ‘in philly’ now.

Tomorrow… well that’s really today after I sleep… I want to find time to:

a. Chill in my Hammock. It is sweet, that’s all i can say
b. Actually do my engin homework a little bit earlier.
c. Have some 16 feet A Cappella Awesomeness
d. Cake!
e. The cake is a lie, and of course there is no spoon. Anyways, that’s a throwback to portal. Sort of. Ok, more than sort of.
f. play guitar. It’s so fun
g. make some birthday resolutions… hrmmmm
e. Have fun and be myself

I think I can get to all of them =). Goodnight.

When I got to Philadelphia a few weeks ago it was certainly still summer. The days were hot and sunny, and the nights were the kind where you would wake up sweaty. Even with three fans going non stop it was still more intense than any of the camp nights I spent in northern Minnesota.

Luckily, that’s finally changing.

We had two torrential rains in the past week (I’m pretty sure that one was a result of the hurricane) and after they were finished the weather was noticeably colder. Last night was even cool enough that I was able to sleep with my comforter on and not overheat.

Now it’s time to see who isn’t used to the cold =).

I finally got a new cellphone to replace my ageing Nokia 6682. Beforehand I had decided that I wanted to have a phone that worked on the super-duper 3g networks that now permiate Minneapolis and Philadelphia. With the N78 I also lucked out and got a 3.2MP camera, GPS, a headphone jack, 2gb of memory (MicroSD slot) and a really cool looking phone. I am a big fan, and I’ll be sure to post more about it later.

Honestly I think that Symbian S60 has vastly improved since the days of my 6682, and everything just seems more fluid now. Oh, and GPS + google maps + 3g is _the_ best thing since sliced bread.

Just a quick note to say that I’m back from working up north where I had spotty internet access. I’m now in an interesting transition week before heading out to Pennsylvania to start school. I can resume blogging now that I’m ensured a connection and I (hopefully) have some free time.