Travel

And on the Seventh Day, He Blogged…

Well, MacWorld was kinda sucky, but it could turn out ok. Last year, Apple released a new or updated product every Tuesday for over a month after MacWorld, so there could be plenty more coming. Anyway, we got the new mini ipods that suck, because although a good amount smaller than standard ipods (which are already tiny) they are $249 for a 4 gig. Hell, spend the extra $50 and buy a full 15 gig thats only a tad bigger, and holds over 3x more.

Also released were FINALLY the G5 XServes, which took so long due to cooling issues. Also, their companions, the XServe RAID, now at 3.5 TeraBytes (3,500 Gigs). New versions of the ilife apps came along as well. iMovie went from 3.0.3 to 4.0, iTunes and iDVD moved up, and oddly, iPhoto went from 2.0 to 4.0, which is needless to say odd. But the big news, and clearly highlight of the expo keynote, is GarageBand. This new iApp is the consumer version of Soundtrack, as iMovie is of FinalCutPro. Garage Band allows you to use your electric guitar, midi keyboard, and/or pre recorded loops to compose music. It features over 1000 loops, 50 midi instruments, and 7 guitar amps, and is only $49 ($29 edu) compared to $299 for Soundtrack.

So, we will see what the coming weeks bring. I am going to NAIAS Sunday, so my Tuesday update will include that, and any new releases from Apple Tuesday as well.

I was looking online for bike trails, and found a tour in September that runs from Muskegon to Bay City State Park. Thats over 150 miles, in 1 day. I said “Those people are freaking crazy.” After some thinking though, so am I. I am not saying I am going to do it, but I am going to see what I can do. If I do some training over the summer, and get some endurance built up, who knows. Start small, and work up, its not until September 6th anyway, right? BTW, anyone else crazy? (hint hint…)

What else…

Not many people reading the blog lately. Not just you people on vacation, but in general. From June 6 to October 12, I had 200 visitors. Shortly after I was put on google, and by November 15th I had 400, and 600 by December 16. So, with January 15th approaching, so should be 800 visits? Well, it seems my s*m c*ty ser*al trick worked, and I’m not even at 650 yet.

The Library is now up, and I added links to the bottom of most pages to allow you easy access back to where you came, be it to the home, previous directory, or just the top of the page. More work will be done over time, but as school is creeping up, they may slow down. Though, with advanced HTML and JavaScript coming, there should be some good stuff coming.

Well, I guess thats it for tonight, see you all Saturday.

nick

Were number drunk!

TGIF

Ok, so it wasn’t a bad week or anything, but still, maybe is more of a TGIF for you?

Anyway, went to casino last night with mom and Suchyta. Suchyta puts a quarter in a machine, gets 3 7s, wins $0 because was only 1 coin. Puts in 3 coins a few times, and it came back! 300 coins, so $75. My mom gave him some, as it was her coins. Fifteen minutes later I put a $.50 coin in machine, same thing, triple 7s and got nothing because 1 coin. Put some more coins in and it came back, $75, mom gave me like $30 of it.

Wednesday night I got a Zip 250 drive. I hooked it up to computer with my Zip100, and made a dual zip raid array. God I need a life. Better than dude who used 5 floppies though, right? Good news is I was going through Zip disks and found one of them had some stuff saved from 7600, so I got some old docs from school and stuff that I thought was lost.

I worked today, possibly last day of season. Possibly last day ever, if I get a better job over winter (HINT HINT GM, IBEW!).

I just noticed I hit 400 visitors. Sadly it was some dumb shit searching on google, probably for ser*al numbers. Bastards, LOOK ON LIMEWIRE, THEY’RE ALL THERE! Idiots.

Ok, I think thats good for now.

nick

“the Sock” moved to “Stories” section.

Road Trip

Ok, we are currently at Exit 84B heading North on I 75. I tried to post in line at the Apple Store, so I could get uploaded over their wifi, but couldn’t get iblog to work right. Anyway, I got Panther at 2:33 pm today. Installed and we headed off to Troy about 5:30. Drive down was ok, not to busy. North bound lanes were in a complete stop some places though. Hopefully that has cleared up some by now. Ate at Steak and Shake at Great Lakes Crossing. Got to Somerset and line was pretty long. Probably 200+ people. Walked around store for about 35 minutes once we finally got in. 23″ Cinema Displays are HUGE. And 17″ PowerBooks are just weird looking, they are SO wide. G5s are faster than I can believe, though so are the 1.25 G4s that are still around. Lot of people in store, compared to when I bought ibook and we had 3 people waiting on me alone. I bought a Brenthaven case for ibook. $79. Probably shouldn’t have. In fact I just realized I could have bought online and saved $20 through .mac coupon. Shit. Oh well, we’re 25 miles away already.

Panther is awesome though, lot of nice features. If you want to see some, let me know. I would be happy to show off.

In other news, car gets fixed tomorrow. Guess thats all. See you all come Monday, unless I update this post when I actually send to server.

nick

Before you insult someone, walk a mile in their shoes.
That way you’ll be a mile away, and have their shoes.

And Suchyta says “Hi, Okay, so we stood in line and answered several questions for people who kept asking why we were standing in line waiting. Some people looked at us like we were crazy. Oh well, maybe we are.”

29

Well, still running at 1.8MBit, downloading 5MB mp3s in a mere 20 seconds is awesome, when I can find hosts that are running that fast too.

I downloaded the security update for OS X yesterday, not realizing it was going to make me restart afterward. So I just minimized the installer into the dock and ignored it for a few hours. Then the computer started acting screwy and I decided that I mind as well just do the restart, though I probably could have fixed it. So the record is at 10 days, 12 hours, and 8 minutes. I had hoped to make 14 days, but the ibook gets too unstable, dirty memory problems. Maybe after I upgrade the memory it will be better.

Jason is dead, has been at least a week since I saw him online or anything. Heck, I’ve seen troy since I saw jason, and Troy is only on like every 3 months. Well, maybe more, but only like 2 or 3 times since school let out at end of april. Anyway, RIP Jason!

Everyone is leaving for school. CMU, MTU, and , uhm, pretty much everyone I know goes to those two actually. Poor saps, delta doesn’t start until Sept. 4th, HA HA! (Nelson style) Maybe they will read blog more this way, being so far from me and all.

My financial problems are fixed, so I will be going to school this semester. I’m glad, I wouldn’t accomplish anything otherwise.

I have posted 2 entries to new blog, to see how it works, and done some updates on the website. I will post a list of all 14 people who viewed this blog on the final post on Sunday, August 31st, 2003. Funny how it worked out that way. Anyway, I am looking forward to it. I can play with the design more, since its just an HTML template, and can put pictures and stuff right in the blog. Will be cool.

An update from a while back, when we went to Mt. Pleasant to get mom’s car, we ate at Genji Steakhouse and Sushi Bar in Midland. Very Benihana like. Sushi was small and expensive compared to Hello Sushi, though a greater selection. And price was high, considering that they really just stuff you with sticky rice. I suggest if you want to try it, go for lunch, it’s cheaper.

How about that black-out. We lucked out, lost power for about 3 seconds because 2 of Consumer’s generators got knocked off from the surge. Really makes you realize how dependent we are on electricity though. Gas pumps, card swipe door locks, elevators, traffic lights, cell phone towers, so much that we take for granted and don’t even think about needing electricity.

My Uncle John is in town, the rich one. Came in this morning, leave tomorrow night. Staying at a friends house though, so makes it easier on us. He was here this morning, but I was still sleeping so missed him. Sure he will be back though. I haven’t seen him in 7 years, wow.

Ok, I think thats about it. I will be back on Tuesday for number 30. See you all then.

nick

22

Well, I guess I can tell you all now…

But I will wait, for the hell of it.

So what is there…
We went to Tawas today with DJ and Pat. Showed them all the stuff on the way. Water intake in northern Arenac County, Alabaster where the gypsum is mined, Omer. You know, all the good stuff.

Ok, now I’ll tell you.
My mom went to the casino Tuesday night and was playing $.50 machines, but started running low. So she moves to $.25 machines. She’s playing one, and sticks a few quarters in the machine next to her. Ching, ching, ching – Jackpot.
A 2004 Chrysler Sebring Convertable LX, $26,500. her cost, $.50 and $1,700 in taxes.
So there you go. It’s a beautiful car, that’s what we took to Tawas today.

Ok, not much else, can’t even think of a decent quote to end with.

See you all later, Wednesday…
nick

The G5

Well, I was late. I have a good reason though, several in fact, and here they are:

Yes, its coming. The leaked specs were all true too. Up to dual 2.0Ghz 64 bit PowerPC 970 processors, up to 8 GB of DDR RAM on an 8GB/s bus, 3 PCI-X slots, an AGP 8x Pro slot, Serial ATA, Firewire 400 and 800, USB 2.0, an external Wi-Fi antenna port, optical and analog audio in and out, and more. All this for $2999, or just $1999 for the single 1.6Ghz. Plus, the preview of Panther, Mac OS X 10.3. This too will be an exciting release, as it sports 100 new features. Panther will be available by year end, and the G5 by august. AND, a new version of ichat, and a new $149 firewire webcam.

I was rather tired last night after all of that, and then I was in Caseville today delaying the update further. But here it is, so there you go.

What else, uhm, the website. I haven’t worked on it in a few weeks now, so figure I minds as well just post what I have, including some new pics. Should be up soon, hopefully before next post, you’ll read why. So there is that.

Also, I am now counting down to my massive 1 month super-fantastic-over-hyphinated-gala-o-rama-celebration. And, this is the 10th update, making it an extravaganza itself. The 1 month anniversary will be on the 27th, 3 days for now. So, I am not going to correct the schedule, but instead leave it to its now altered state so that there will be a post on the big day. Was it a coincidence that this happened, or was it planned? You may never know, unless you read the next sentence. It was a coincidence, I actually just realized it.

And finally, I need to complain about something. Hmm, I wonder what (sarcasm, so hard in writing). The G5. You should see it. IT IS THE UGLIEST COMPUTER APPLE HAS EVER MADE. Seriously though, the sides are not all that bad, and the back isnt so bad either, but the front, eghh. Its just so, well, plainishly ugly. I dont know, I just think the case needs some more work. Also, it only has room for 1 optical and 2 HD bays. The Quicksilver had 4 HDs, and optical, and a zip and the Mirriored Drive Doors had 4 HDs and 2 opticals. The Industrial Design Group needs to get their stuff together and go back to work.

Ok, thats it then, go away until the big party.

nick

First Real Post

Ok, so my first real post. Should I post something meaningful, intelegent, or that even makes sense? Hell no, you should know better than that!

But anyway, my mom is back from Cancun, she didn’t enjoy it much. Either she just got a bad room or Cancun isn’t all its made out to be.

Also, I am LOVING my new HP. The OCR actually works and it is making it much easier to just scan in old reports and the like rather than re-typing them all. It does have some flaws, but still much simpler.

I hope to post at least every oter day from here on. If not for you all (whoever you are) to know whats going on in my life, then for so I can look back at previous posts later.

Till then,
Nick