2007

Sep232007

Two Weeks

On a couple occasions, I started work on a log entry to catch up with the last few days but never got far. Two weeks have passed with a few activities of merit. Generally speaking though, I’ve just been settling into my ‘new’ routine of class and work. My classes are working out well and are sufficiently entertaining. Even my art survey class, which began rather painfully, is getting better. There has been no risk of losing consciousness during the last couple sessions.Outside of work, I haven’t been terribly busy. This past weekend, I did some work on the old entertainment center which we’ll be giving away. On Sunday, I helped Dad install a new garage door opener, which was quite an ordeal but we did get it working fine. This past Saturday, Dad, Andrew and I went to the Tulane football game versus Southeastern Louisiana. The crowd was coniderably thinner, no surprise after a few painful losses. Speaking frankly, going to the football games, something we used to do completely without fail, now seems alot like a chore with the overwhelming likelyhood of losing. It didn’t look like we played particularly well against what is another bad team, but we did win. The final was 35-27.

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Sep112007

The Rest of Last Week

Regrettably, I let a few days lapse since my last post, which is only a shame because I generally like to document the first weeks of a new term. Since last week was much like the one before that, it’s not a total loss.Wednesday’s art class was another struggle to maintain consciousness. The class was about art (and architecture) of the ancient middle east. History of that region can either be characterized as “rich” or “really f’ing complicated.” Either way you’re right. Ruling empires changed like the weather so it’s quite hard to keep up. I’m hoping the upcoming test will be confined to the basics. I had even more trouble staying awake during this class than the first. The entire class was another slideshow with commentary in a dark room. I’ll be lobbying for a little light next time.Thursday’s math class was pleasant, largely about prime numbers if I remember right. I took a day off of work on Friday to be home to take delivery on my new TV. The TV made it to my house but not inside. The driver did not ring the doorbell or call and just left a door tag, which was both perplexing and infuriating. I never found out exactly what happened because the dispatcher I spoke with was never able to get in touch with the driver. Redelivery was scheduled for Monday.On Saturday, I went to Tulane’s first football game of the season versus Mississippi State. Although Tulane looked competitive early on, they eventually lost badly to a crappy team. The final score was 38-17. In the end it was a depressing affair which tells of a long season to come. I wish Dad and I had gone to Ruston for the LA Tech/Hawaii game which was quite a spectacle. Hawaii was supposed to dominate but Tech played extremely well, but lost on the outcome of a single play in overtime.I watched a couple movies on Dad’s new TV, which looks incredible, Babel and A Place in the Sun.Today, Monday, my TV finally arrived in the morning. It looks good but I think it will take some calibrating to get the best picture out of it. It doesn’t look quite right but I can’t quite put my finger on the exact problem. Luckily the TV is very tweakable (yeah yeah, not a word) so I know I’ll be able to get it just right.I got a cab to class this evening, my first “Visual Communications” class with Mr. Matthew Martinez. The class looks to be a very basic exploration of the mass media but it should be entertaining, both with the instructor’s dry wit and hopefully lively class discussion. The class was long tonight, running until 8:15. A lot of time was spent on student introductions. The professor wanted to know why everyone joined the class. After class I walked to Der Rathskeller in the student center for something to eat. I sat with my laptop and typed this entry while casually watching the Monday Night Football game. Later on I got a cab home.

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Sep052007

Louisiana History

Today was a reasonably typical workday. It was very quiet around the office this afternoon. Dad was not in the office for much of the day because he had to be home to take delivery on a new television. Dad wasn’t around after work but Annisha was nice enough to give me a ride to Tulane this evening.Tonight was my first Louisiana History class with Kevin Fontenot. The subject matter and Mr. Fontenot himself were my primary motivations for signing up for this class. I had a cold war history class with him last semester and really enjoyed it. Looking at the students in this class, it’s obvious the man has a fan club. The first class was pleasant, although a bit longer than I might have liked. The professor discussed the Indian tribes present in the region before the area was colonized, as well as the state of affairs in France around the period colonization took place, mostly as a means to set the stage as there are significant parallels between France and what would become Louisiana.I took a cab home after class. I had a nice conversation with the driver who was from Ethiopia. He discussed a regularly scheduled civil war and his aspirations for a business there in the future.When I got home I found the Sony webcam I bought a while back was returned from warrantee repair. I bought the camera about a month ago to fix the webcam in my laptop but it was already broken. I extracted the CMOS module from the webcam and installed it in my notebook without too much difficulty. I finally have my laptop webcam working although the software I was planning to use with it is not stable. I don’t know why yet. I was up until two this morning for no particular reason.

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Sep032007

Back to School

The week started off kinda lousy with two bits of bad news involving lost mail. At item I sold on eBay was lost in transit and Paypal saw fit for me to serve as the de-facto shipping insurance and refund the purchaser, which was particularly infuriating because the item was a hard drive I bought by mistake. Since it was lost I ended up buying it twice. I later learned I could have used it to upgrade my Zune. My new TV was supposed to arrive no later than Tuesday but the shipping company said they lost it. Having it replaced costs me nothing but I’m without a television for another two weeks.School started back up this Wednesday. Dad took me to Tulane early so I had a chance to go to the bookstore and find my classroom. Wednesday night’s class is Art History 101. The professor seems nice enough and is well-rated online. If every class is like the first one though, I may have a problem. After introducing himself and discussing the class itself, he did a full lecture with a slide show in a darkened classroom. The subject matter was not necessarily boring but I had trouble keeping my eyes open, even though I was directly in front of the professor two rows up. He went up until the very end, 8:25. I’ve never had a class last that long, and certainly not on the first day.I had another first class on Thursday, Math for Information Technology. This class seems promising even though I suck at math rather badly. The professor is intelligent and approachable though so I think I’ll do fine. Several of the other students have not dealt with math since high school so I doubt I’ll be alone in my inadequacy. While I think the class will go well, it was incredibly disappointing in the scenery department.The rest of the work week was pretty dull. On Friday night, I got a call from Theresa, an event in itself, asking if she wanted to do something that evening. I agreed as I had nothing else to do. We didn’t have any solid plans at the outset but on the way I discovered Ellis Marsalis was playing Snug Harbor and decided that would make for a nice evening as she is one of the new people I know whom I have not dragged there before.It took a while to get a parking spot but we found a decent one. When we walked in there were two ahead of us who were soon seated in the dining room. Apparently they got the last seats because we were told there was a 40 minute wait. It was already getting late so we walked a few doors down to the Marigny Brasserie for dinner. I already had dinner earlier but Theresa hadn’t. I just ordered some bread pudding, which was quite good. She ordered a couple appetizers which were also tasty.After dinner we walked back to Snug Harbor. We arrived long before seating for the 10 o’clock show began, only because it started late. We were some of the first in and got a couple good seats in the back corner on the right. The show itself was very good. In addition to the master himself, his some Jason Marsalis was also there. Xylophone player Roman Skakun made a fashionably late entrance to the stage after a few numbers. Overall it was a nice evening. We were both tired after the show and went home. Theresa was good enough to give me a ride back.The rest of my three day weekend was rather dull as I was home the whole time. I think I can safely say nothing happened.

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Aug272007

Zune

The past work week was a woefully unproductive one, although I wouldn’t say I was especially bummed about it. We had a new intern start at the office this week, someone who will be entering the medical billing field. They won’t learn much at our office though, as we generate our bills manually with Excel. Apparently our clinic was a last resort. There was also an unusual amount of melodrama at the office this week that didn’t help either.Over the course of the weekend, I went with my parents to a couple furniture stores and Best Buy to shop for a new TV, something to put the TV on and maybe new living room furniture too. I helped Dad make a great choice for the TV but they’re still undecided on the furniture, even though we had been to several places in the last couple weeks.Recently, Woot.com had a deal on the Microsoft Zune, a first foray into the DAP market for just $150. Although I initially wanted to like the device, there were some serious shortcomings that kept me away. The crippled Wi-Fi and lack of DivX support are unfortunate. However, at such a bargain price, I figured what the hell. I received it on Saturday, earlier than I expected. That worked out well because I’ll have another new toy to play with next week.For me, using the Zune was a tale of two experiences. The Zune itself is a great little piece of hardware. I think the doubleshot injection molding look is attractive and the unit feels quite solid. It doesn’t budge at all when you try and twist it. The screen looks sharp but it’s not bright enough to be easily visible in broad daylight. The player’s interface is fluid and dynamic without being too flashy. I especially like the emphasis placed on album art in the now playing screen, as I already have a respectable collection built up.While the hardware itself is fine, the software associated with it just plain sucks. I was already biased against it as I find the idea of needing a dedicated program to load content on a DAP repulsive. There’s no good reason all MP3 players should not function as USB mass storage devices and enable drag-and-drop from Windows explorer. A lot of the ‘features’ of the software were just annoyances to me. Although I didn’t have serious issues loading my music the first time, the program later stalled in the middle of transfers and does not have a resume function. I had to transfer about 20 gigabytes of music in incremental steps to avoid having to pick through my collection repeatedly. There were some other small headaches that I learned workarounds for over the course of Sunday night.The state of the software is almost tragic because once you have your loaded on the Zune, it’s a pleasure to use. Too bad you have to wade through a mound of crap to get to that point.

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Aug212007

Week of August 13

Jeff was in town from Michigan this week. The family and I went out a couple times this week. We went out to dinner at Luizza’s in the middle of the week. This weekend we all went out to Mid City lanes to go bowling. Paul Varisco and the Milestones were doing one of their reunion shows, which was the primary motivation for going. The music started at 5:30, a lot earlier than their earlier shows. As for the bowling, it was fun but I have absolutely no aptitude at the sport, if it is one.As I mentioned last week, I felt a need for a bigger TV with my new HD-DVD player. I sold my 26 inch LCD to a co-worker and ordered a Samsung LNT3253H from Amazon. It was nice to get free shipping but it will take nearly two weeks to arrive. So I’ll be ‘roughing it’ for a short while. I also recently purchased a pair of Sennheiser HD-595 headphones which sound great. .. not that I have the highest standards as this is my first set of headphones priced over $20.

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Aug122007

Week of August 6

By and large this was a quiet week and hot. Some of the days were not as productive as I would have liked. There were a couple days where I got a lot done though. My family left town Thursday afternoon so I ran the office both those days. Luckily, both days were uneventful so I didn’t have any serious problems to deal with.I had the house to myself this weekend. I didn’t have much luck finding company for something to do and it was much too hot for me to be motivated to go anywhere by myself so I just stayed home. Between chores, my computer and the TV, I managed to waste my time quite nicely.The HD-DVD player I ordered, a Toshiba HD-A2, finally arrived this Friday. The first thing I watched with it was the first three episodes of Planet Earth, the BBC miniseries. The pictures were absolutely stunning, both just being incredible material and the high resolution of my new hardware. The only trouble now is I want a bigger TV.

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Aug062007

Damn! It’s Hot Outside!

August first is a bit of a physiological barrier. The end of summer finally seems near. Lofty goals set at the beginning seem dead. This week I finally got around to paying my bill and registering for classes in the fall. The class I want on Monday night is full but I’m optimistic. Beyond that I’m ready to go.This past Friday was a rather hectic one at work. I ran the office myself for a while and we had a ‘problematic’ new patient. He held up our schedule quite about, no doubt to the displeasure of our other new patients.I was at home for the better part of the weekend, although I did accompany my parents to a huge furniture store to look for a new sofa. They didn’t find anything they liked and they don’t stock futons so I didn’t see anything interesting either.I didn’t get that much in the line of work accomplished today. I went to the post office to mail some things. Dad and I stopped for lunch on the way to the Metairie office. I barely made a dent in the dictation today. Tomorrow might be better.After work Dad and I went to Don’s house in Kenner to return the computer I foxed for him a while back. I only expected to be there a few minutes but they had a problem with the net access and it turned into a two hour affair. We finally got home shortly before nine.

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Jul312007

Out With the Old, In With the… Less Old

The summer is passing as it does, work is dull and that’s about it. We did make a rather fundamental change around the office in switching to a digital voice recorder. The cumbersome nature of microcassette tapes has been a consistent source of drama over the past few years. I’ve been trying to convince Dad to give this a shot for a while and it seems to be working well. It has rained quite a lot lately, almost every day.A couple weeks ago, I sold my Sony Vaio SRX77 laptop and bought a slightly newer Vaio, a TR series. It was hard to part with the old one, as I have put a lot of money and effort into it over last couple years. However, I got over it as soon as I had my new one in hand. The switch was cheap when you factor in the sale, but I’ve been putting a lot of money into it since then. I upgraded the hard drive, DVD burner, added RAM and have attempted to buy parts to fix the camera. I’ve spent a lot of time these past two weeks getting my laptop set just so. I also spent time with a couple other computers for work. One of them was broken and listed the spare parts on eBay along with a few other items, including spare parts I had left over from my old Vaio.

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Jul172007

July to Now

Having let yet another few weeks lapse since the last entry, I suppose I should really rename this column to simply “The Log” since there’s nothing daily about it anymore.Generally speaking, this month has been going by rather quietly. With little diversion, the routine of work is generally unbroken. I’m home in the evening maybe watch a movie and talk to Krystle. It rained on the fourth of July and the family and myself went out to dinner and a movie, Ratatouille. I bought a new keyboard for my laptop a couple weeks ago and got a great deal on it. I may sell my little Vaio this week, however as I think I can get a good price for it.This past weekend, I bought a new Dremel and did some on my computer case, cutting out the fan grills in the front and back. This increases airflow and reduces noise. I’ll be posting some pictures of the work online soon. I recently bought an old Sony portable CD player, the D-EJ01, circa 2000. It may be the only portable CD player with a slot-loading mechanism as opposed to a lid. I got a good price for the unit that originally retailed for $450. It had some problems but I was able to fix all of them, which was pretty awesome. I’m not sure why I bought it though. It’s not like I have much use for a CD player since I already have two DAPs and my phone.

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Jun302007

The Police: Live in Concert

Once again, I am starting a post talking about how I haven’t been posting, with another two weeks gone by. There have been a few occasions worthy of their own entries. On June 20, Dad and I went to the last Wednesday at the Square concert which featured Bag of Donuts. They’re kind of a mix of a KISS tribute band and your basic cover band with a slight New Orleans flair.This past weekend, my family drove out to Slidell for a family gathering of a purpose I cannot recall with guests I mostly can’t recall either. It was interesting enough with good food. I really do wish I could remember the people who were there. I’m bad with names.Aside from those two days, it’s pretty much been business as usual. Work is what it is. I’ve started work on the next version of this website. That is to say I’ve been thinking and doodling.This evening, the family and I went to the New Orleans Arena to see The Police in concert as part of their reunion tour. Dad bought tickets for the concert as soon as we first heard they would have a concert here in New Orleans, which was almost as much of a surprise as The Police doing a reunion tour.I’ve been a causal Sting fan for a while and I know Dad has been fond of his music as well so for many years so this was a real treat. Although I’ve been to more than my fair share of live musical performances, tonight was my first concert of this variety with one band in an arena/stadium setting.The concert opened with a 40ish minute set by Fiction Plane, a band headed by Sting’s son, Joe Sumner. They were a perfectly decent opening act.What can I say about The Police concert? It was totally awesome. I could say that ’cause it was. I’m not a music critic so I can’t eloquently comment on the conundrum between altering the music for artistic purposes and being just a human jukebox. What I can say is the music sounded great and I had a really good time. There will be a review or two that will say it better than I can.I was up rather late (or early) that night as I just wasn’t even tired until three.

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Jun122007

June to Now

Again, it’s been a couple weeks since posting. There have been a couple days worthy of their own entries but I never got around to it. For the most part, it’s been business as usual. Work is work.I spent a lot of time in the last couple weeks working on a couple computers, both mine and Aunt Dionne’s. I was expecting the format/reinstall job on Dionne’s laptop to go rather smoothly, but it was not to be so. I thought it was just virus-infested but the hard disk was physically bad. I was originally just gonna let the bad sectors go but that was too trouble so I replaced the drive, which took a while with the online ordering. Even with the new drive I couldn’t get the recovery discs to work on the new drive so I installed Windows with a vanilla disc.The same day I finally got Dionne’s laptop working, my own desktop computer failed. Process of elimination narrowed the problem down to my motherboard, which wouldn’t properly recognize my SATA hard drives. When either of them are connected, the computer automatically rebooted after a 0x000000a5 error. Although I was hoping not to buy any more PC hardware for another year or so, I replaced the motherboard with an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, which is about as good as you can get for the now dead Socket 939 platform. It’s a nice board but I was hoping my next board purchase would be an upgrade to a new platform. Anyway, $145 later, problem solve and I ha my computer back up and running yesterday. To go with the newly fixed computer I rearraged the desk a bit, moving the tower to the corner of the room. I also got a new desk chair, an AK Designs Octane desk chair, a huge improvement over the crap I had before.This past Saturday, the family got out of the house and went to the Tomato Festival in the quarter, which was a nice little event with music, cooking demonstration and Creole tomatoes for sale. It was an interesting event and a lot of people turned out for it. We wandered a bit and saw a couple cooking demonstrations, including one by Paul Prudhomme. Later thatg afternoon we had dinner at The Gumbo Shop and then went to see Ocean’s 13. It was much better than 12 but not as good as 11.Other than that, there isn’t much to speak of. Dad and I went out to Wednesday at the Square and saw Trombone Shorty & Orleans Ave, which was pretty entertaining.

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May282007

Memorial Day

The family and I went out to a little Memorial Day party this afternoon. We drove out to Destrehan to the parent’s house of one of Mom’s coworkers. I’d met Jessica once before but I didn’t actually know anyone there. Most everyone there was in Jessica’s family. Her parents have a sizable house with a pool, not bad at all for hosting gatherings. The weather was nice and the food was good so I can’t complain. We were there until about four and then left. On the way home, we stopped in Metairie to visit the family there, both at Aunt Doris’ and Aunt Dionne’s house. While I was there I tried to work on Dionne’s computer, which has several issues. I ended up taking it home to work on. As I was repairing in this evening, I noticed some physical disc issues which complicated things considerably. Later thing evening, I talked to Bianca and then Krystle on the phone before bed.

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May272007

Wet Indy, Roller Skating and Otra

I stayed home from church this morning and spent the better part of the afternoon watching the Indianapolis 500. It was an exciting race, when the cars were actually racing. The race was delayed several hours by rain halfway through and later ended early by rain. Dario Franchitti won the 500 on lap 163 as the rain started pouring again over a caution flag spurred by a multi car crash just before.While the race was still going on, Bianca came over for a while. We were there until Andrey picked us up to go out for the evening. Andrey brought up the idea of going roller skating, which I was fine with, although it’s not something I excel at.We went over to Skate Country in Gretna. It was quite crowded this evening. I’m not sure if I should have been surprised. Overall, it was pretty fun, although I was thoroughly reminded that I’m out of shape and can’t roller skate. I do much better on ice.We went to a nearby caf for a while afterward. I got a little something to eat while I was there. At about ten, we took Bianca home. After stopping quickly at my house, Andrey and I went out to the Dragon’s Den on Esplanade. Otra was playing this evening. I’d been planning on going to this show for quite a while. Dad had been there a good while when we arrived late. There was a healthy crowd for the cramped venue, but you could move around. The band actually sounded quite good in the tight quarters. We were there until 12:30 when we went home for the evening.

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2007

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