2007

Nov092007

Roundabout

I got to work at 10:45 this morning. I spent the afternoon working on a couple discharge reports. Dad took me downtown so I could catch the 4:40 shuttle to campus. This evening’s math class was an introduction to Boolean algebra. The professor skipped couple chapters in our crappy book to get to it. I found the material much easier that what we were dealing with over the last couple weeks.After class, I walked over to the computer lab adjacent to PJ’s for a little while before ballroom this evening. Tonight’s tango lessons were in large part a recap on what we did last week. One new set of steps was introduced tonight in which you rotate your partner almost 360 degrees. Although I’ve been doing quite well up to now, I had a lot of trouble with this one. I’m probably just not taking big enough steps. Hopefully I’ll get it down next week.Earlier, Andrey said he and some of his friends might be going out later this evening but he didn’t have any takers when he called them at ten so I just caught a cab home. Late this evening I watched Lucky Number Slevin.

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Nov072007

Involuntary Mercy

Dad and I got to the office just after 11 this afternoon. I started to get some work done around noon but eventually got distracted with a bunch of other crap later in the afternoon and didn’t get as much done as I would have liked.Not long after four, Dad drove me down Canal Street so I could catch the shuttle to campus. During the ride I took the time to study for a test in this evening’s art survey class. The class certainly didn’t start well. He opened by saying that he’s been looking at the class’s grades and said half the class was set to fail. He went on to say the remaining lectures would be boring and “like nails on a chalkboard.” Following these kind words he picked up with the lecture where he left off last week with early Christian architecture. After he finished that he continued with Romanesque art. Not long after he stopped and tried to start the test, which composed of slides and accompanying questions. However, he couldn’t find that particular file on his CD so he deiced to just continue lecturing for a while longer. For some reason, the projector would not start up and he soon gave up and dismissed class. I caught the “7:20” shuttle downtown and Dad picked me up from Canal Street.Later that evening, I had some dinner, typed log entries for the past few days and watched Dogma.

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Nov062007

Sun., Mon., Tues.

With the exception of church I spent Sunday at home watching football and continuing the war on my computer. The Saints won, bringing their record to 4-4.I didn’t go to work or class on Monday. Dad was under the weather and didn’t leave until the afternoon and I just didn’t feel like going to class. With the time I had I finally got my computer working again. The trouble I had with getting Windows installed had something to do with the nVidia SATA/RAID drivers. I never quite fixed that problem though. I installed Windows on an old PATA drive and cloned that drive to the new one. It was a dirty fix but it worked. Getting everything running again was a pain but I didn’t lose too much since I’m pretty good at backing stuff up but I did lose a few things. I’ll have to be even more vigilant in the future.On Tuesday, I got some real work done at work. This evening’s Louisiana History class was about state politics at the turn of the century. In the second half of the class we watched the Ken Burn’s documentary on Huey Long. As such, class went later than usual. I caught a cab home and watched Boston Legal later on.

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Nov032007

Willem Brueker Kollektief

I’m skipping Friday. Nothing special happened anyway. I slept in Saturday morning, longer than I care to admit. I spent the afternoon fooling with my computer which has been the source of a lot of headache this week. While trying to install Windows on a new hard drive, I inadvertently wiped the MBR of my current main hard disk, rendering my computer completely useless as opposed to partially useless. I also watched Navy play Notre Dame this afternoon. Navy won in triple overtime, beating Notre Dame for the first time in 43 years. Later this evening, I went out to Snug Harbor and met Megan for dinner and the 8 o’clock show. I requested her company last Thursday night. I arrived early at 6:30. As I was walking up to the place I ran into an old friend from middle school, James. I made no effort to remain in touch with him after I moved out of Belle Chasse but he recognized me and remember my name, which always impresses me. I didn’t recogniize him at first, largely due to the drastically different hair.Megan showed up right on time at seven. The dinner conversation was pleasant. Among other things, Megan talked about an internship she had not too long ago. Although I hadn’t eaten anything all day, I could barely touch my dinner.We got good seats for the show about 10 minutes to eight. It wasn’t especially crowded so we could have been late and still been in good shape. We saw Willem Breuker Kollektief, a Dutch jazz band from Holland. I saw some clips of them on YouTube and they seemed to have an interesting sound. Unfortunately and oddly enough, they were much more entertaining on the internet than in person. I’m not a music critic so I can’t use big words to describe their performance. Simply put, I found the act “interesting,” but too loud and ‘busy.’ At times it sounded like little more than noise, which is saying a lot coming from a jazz fan.After the show we both caught cabs home. I got home before ten. Later this evening I watched Broken Arrow.

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Nov012007

Tango

Work this afternoon was rather unremarkable. Like most Thursday’s, the office was pretty quiet. Dad dropped me at Tidewater in time for an early shuttle. After I got to Tulane I spent some time at the student center before making my way to Tilton.Class this evening was again about mathematical induction. I didn’t really understand the subject last week and this one was no different.After class, I walked over to Fogelman Arena where Tulane’s basketball team played Loyola University this evening. Loyola was thoroughly outmatched as they aren’t even in the NCAA, but it’s a convenient game to play since Loyola is literally next door. I only stayed for the first half. Tulane had about a 12 point lead when I left.This evening’s ballroom session was the first of four weeks of tango lessons. Attendance was pretty decent. Several familiar faces were missing but there were a handful of new people. Compared to swing, I found the simple tango steps to be a lot more manageable and I did pretty well this evening.Shortly after ten, intermediate salsa lessons started. I won’t be participating in these but I wanted to hand around for a few minutes and see just how complicated it was. Suffice it to say I would have been in way over my head. After I left I called a cab home and made it back before 11.

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Oct312007

Mon., Tues., Wed.

Work so far this week has been rather unremarkable so I’ll just briefly summarize my night classes and consider myself caught up.Monday’s visual communications class was a bit dull, some of it was about photography, a subject I already have a working knowledge of. It was spiced up a little bit in that one of the students, who previously has not hesitated to express her disdain with this class had another little outburst, which was actually rather funny. Tuesday’s Louisiana history class wasn’t bad. Professor Fontenot discussed reconstruction in Louisiana and the Bourbon period. He often pointed out the similarities between politics then and now. We got our mid terms back at the end of the class. I got an 85 B, which wasn’t bad. I did fine on the short answer questions but my essay wasn’t sufficiently detailed for full credit.Art Survey on Wednesday was a bit brutal. Being Halloween night, I figured Mr. Bayer would be merciful and keep class short so students could go out and do whatever that evening. Quite the opposite occurred. The instructor started class by saying he thought were behind and had a lot of cover not a good sign. The lecture about Byzantine and early Christian art ran longer than usual. For the most part, we looked at slides of churches and elaborate decorative paintings as mosaics. After the lecture, there was a 10 question quiz on Roman art, which we covered during the last couple classes. This was like the first test in that we had to look at slides and answer accompanying questions, so it took about 20 minutes.

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Oct292007

WTF?!

Being too lazy to write individual posts for each day this weekend I’m summarizing. With the exception of Tulane’s homecoming game, the days kinda blend together anyway.On Saturday, Dad and I went to Tulane’s homecoming football game. We played Memphis in what was largely a back-and-forth game. Tulane should have played better but a couple of incredibly bad calls robbed Tulane of the win. On Tulane’s first possession, Tulane drove the ball right down the field, largely in the hands of Matt Fort, a Heisman-worthy player on an otherwise unremarkable Tulane team. At the goal line, Fort lost the ball after it hit the ground and it was called a fumble. The officials appeared unaware of the rule stating the ground cannot cause a fumble in the sport of football. Coach Toledo went as far as to call a timeout hoping the play would be reviewed but it was not.At the end of the game, Memphis had just taken the lead 28-27 with less than a minute left. Tulane had a fighting chance to get the ball up field and kick a game-winning field goal. On a running play, Matt Fort got a few yards and managed to get out of bounds. The clock was stopped to move the chains and then restarted, even though it is not supposed to run again until the next play starts. Time expired prematurely and the officials ran off the field. I think I can speak for most Tulane fans and say we were shocked and angry.I spent a good deal of time fooling with my computer this weekend. After buying a few new drives I attempted to move the OS to another drive but cloning the old drive and fresh installs always yielded the “a disk read error occurred” error message, very odd for a drive that I know is functioning perfectly. I eventually just gave up and will be unloading the drive. In the course of working on my computer on Sunday I broke the SATA connector on one of my brand new drives. It’s not drastic damage but since it’s virtually impossible to get spare parts I’m basically out of a hundred bucks.When my computer was in one piece, I played Portal, an awesome little game released as part of the Orange Box. Since the game seemed portrayed as ancillary I wasn’t expecting much but the game was actually quite fascinating and entertaining. It may be one of the only first person shooter games that doesn’t involve any weapons. Over two nights, I also watched Dersu Uzula.

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Oct252007

Quiet Wrap-Up

I worked from 11 to 4:45 this afternoon. I got a couple reports finished up and got the rest ready to mail out today. I was distracted today by an ebay purchase. I won a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 Mark I lens for $150. My research tells me the older mark I lens is better than the newer, cheaper Mk II. I think I paid too much though, in spite of the apparently excellent condition. This is an old, discontinued lens and the price seems to be rising as the years go by.Dad dropped me off on campus at about five this evening. We got our first tests back today. I got a C, which is what I was expecting. The average was a D but I think one or two people dragged it down considerably. The lecture tonight was about mathematical induction, which I didn’t quite grasp.After class I went to the computer lab adjacent to the PJs across from Aron and waited for this evening’s activities. Attendance at this evening’s dance lesson was rather dismal. It may have had something to do with the homecoming activities across campus tonight. There was only one female aside from the instructor when we started although a few more trickled in with applause later. This evening was largely a recap on the last couple weeks and the final session on swing dancing. I think I would have done reasonably well had I not been without a partner so much. Near the end, we were shown a means to “cheat,” performing the same dance in a more relaxed fashion with fewer steps. I think I did just fine on this.Andrey and his friends intended to go out later this evening but not for a little while. Andrey took me to his place nearby, which I had not seen before. He shares a shotgun double with a guy who wasn’t there. It’s a nice little place but devoid of wall decoration. Veronica was already there. We’ve met several times before but this was the first occasion I’ve had to have an actual conversation with her. Later on Patrick showed up and we eventually went over to Vera Cruz where a lot of familiar faces were. I felt my presence there was rather superfluous though and I left to go home at about midnight.

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Oct252007

13-1

Dad and I made it to the office before 11 this morning. The time I spent working was on discharge reports, although I didn’t mail any today. At about one I took a lunch break and went over to Venezia. I had the shrimp fettuccini alfredo. We left the office at quarter past four. Dad dropped me at Tidewater to catch the shuttle. During the ride I studied the chapter in the art book about the Etruscans, as there was a quiz on the subject in class.This evening’s art survey class was about Roman sculptures and paintings. The latter didn’t take long as very few survived antiquity. After the lecture we had the quiz, which I don’t think I did very well on. There were no questions on any particular works of art, which I did study. What I missed was some terminology about various structures.Dad picked me up after class. He was still in the neighborhood. That evening I watched the Rockies get their ass kicked in game one of the World Series. Later I started watching a movie before Krystle called.

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Oct232007

Cold

Following yesterday’s rain and very humid air, it was exceptionally cold outside today, all day. Dad and I got to the office before 11 this morning. I got a few reports send out this afternoon but not as many as I would have liked.Dad took me to campus for about 5:15 this evening. Tonight’s Louisiana history class dealt with Civil War era Louisiana. I was a bit distracted answering questions about plasma TVs over IM. After class I waited around for the student practice session this evening but nobody ever showed up. I’m not sure if it was cancelled or I was the only one interested in coming. I got a cab and was home before 10.Later this evening I watched The Scarlet and the Black, a surprisingly good made-for-TV movie about Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty.

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Oct232007

Deluge

The greater New Orleans area was inundated with rain throughout the day. Several parts of the city flooded resulting in destroyed cars and damaged homes and businesses. Due to the weather, Dad and I never made it out of the house this morning. Dad sent the nurses home early although I’m sure Bianca had a hell of a time getting home from Metairie. Schools across the city closed early, including Tulane.I planned on skipping class today and seeing Ann Coulter speak at Tulane. Dad and I were brave enough to try and drive to campus this evening but turned around and came home once we reached a portion of General De Gaulle Drive that was flooded and impassible. After watching the local news that evening, we were certain we made the right call.The two 500GB hard drives I won on eBay last week arrived today, along with the Netflix DVDs I thought were lost. I installed the drives in my computer this evening and set up a RAID 1 array for mirrored backup. Generally I have two copies of everything but this makes certain of it. Even so I’m still screwed if the house burns down so I’m considering keeping a drive at an office with rsync for remote backup.Later this evening I watched last Friday’s episode of Stargate: Atlantis and talked to Krystle on the phone for a short while.

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Oct222007

Sunday at Home

I slept in again this morning. I was at home all day today, not doing much just watching TV. The Saints won. The raiders lost. The Red Sox are going to the World Series again. This evening, I finished playing Half-Life 2: Episode 2. It was a fun game but I though the ‘tragedy’ at the end was completely pointless.

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Oct212007

Jindal Wins

I slept in this morning and didn’t get up until almost 11. At around noon, I walked over to Eisenhower Elementary to vote. The Louisiana governor’s race ended with today’s election. There were also a large number of other positions on the ballot including several other local officials and four constitutional amendments. Educating myself on the election was just like studying for a test.Later this evening, I went to Snug Harbor with Christy to see The New Leviathan Oriental Fox-Trot Orchestra. They play vintage American popular music from the 1890s through the early 1930s. They are an entertaining act and I was curious to see how many of their members they could fit on their cramped stage.Christy arrived 15 minutes after the show started. She said she was waiting for me at Canal Place I guess I should have specified exactly where we were meeting. The show was a lot of fun. Although the music played certainly isn’t anything I’d buy on CD, it’s very entertaining to see performed live with the talent they have. There were 18 musicians on Snug’s tiny stage.After the show, we had dinner at their dining room. A couple parties up front made things unusually loud and it was a little hard to hear conversation. We both had the fried shrimp which was quite decent. It took a while to get it though. Most of the talk over dinner was whatcha-been-up-to stuff since I haven’t seen her in a few months.After dinner we walked a while, through the quarter on Chartres to Canal Street. We stopped at the pelican bar at the Sheraton. We remained there until about one, talking about different things like movies and her Dad’s return to law school. We shared a cab home. Late that evening I talked to Krystle on the phone a short while before bed.

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Oct192007

Office Pictures

Dad and I arrived at the Mid City office sometime around 11 this morning. We visited all three offices over the course of the afternoon. He wanted pictures of every office to show some folks. We went out to the Metairie office and then to the west bank. Dad had a meeting scheduled with on the west bank at four but the lady never showed. We left for the day at 4:30.Before heading home, we stopped at best buy to pick up a wall mount Dad’s TV. We were there a little while so I had a chance to look at a number of other things.This evening, Dad and I attached the wall mount to a large wood panel that goes with the TV stand he bought. The TV attaches to the back panel and that panel sits on the stand. The final product looks pretty good although the TV sits a little below the horizontal center. Later on I played Half Life 2: Episode 2 for a couple hours and then talked to Krystle for a little while before bed.

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2007

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