My salad was definitely not enough for lunch, I’m still hungry, it’s going to be a long afternoon. At least this time I carried the dressing separate so it didn’t get all soggy.

I got quite a bit of computer time this weekend, so much that I had to consult my “To Do” list to find something to occupy my Sunday afternoon.

I decided to work on R2Q5.

As I’ve mentioned in this entry I was having trouble with R2Q5 locking up. It looked like a RAM problem, and after mentioning it to Michael he said that he had the same problem when he had tried to install Windows on it. Definitely a RAM problem.

So I finally got around to debugging that. I opened it up and took out the ram chips to see if something was obviously wrong with any of them. There wasn’t, but one was not as tall as the other two, so I took that one out. That motherboard has always been weird about ram that isn’t completely identical, even if they are all 128MB chips, maybe one is pc100 and the other is pc133 and it gets all cranky.

After removing the chip I booted up and did some updates and played around for a couple hours using as much ram as possible, which was not hard, it’s only got 256 now. I then left it on while I went downstairs to watch a movie. It was still running when I went to bed. When I woke up this morning I checked on it and it’s still up. No freezing in over 12 hours, yay! Success!

Now I can really start testing other distros without worrying about hardware issues.

Which reminds me, I want a tv capture card now. We were over at ‘s place on Friday and he showed us a new feature on Myth that allows you to speed up recorded shows 1.5 times, cool! It was really smooth, I was impressed, you could watch a show that way if you were willing to pay attention. And the commercial skipping has gotten much better.

Since we had the Myth Box running we decided to watch some shows he had recorded. We missed the pilot of Law and Order: Trial by Jury because I was just too tired to stay up and watch it Thursday night, so we were able to watch it. Not a bad show, and it’s the show that Jerry Orbach was working on before he passed away. He looked really old, it was a bit sad to see, since he looked fine at the end of his last season on the original Law and Order.

So even if I don’t have cable to record a ton of shows, I could at least record Law and Order, The West Wing, and Nova. And I’d like a DVD-rom for our Myth box, the PS2 really is a horrible DVD player (as we were reminded ONCE AGAIN last night when the stupid thing wouldn’t finish playing the Harry Potter DVD!).

And now it’s time to get back to work.

Lots of things have changed since gimp went 2.0 and beyond. At first I said “oh neat” and then when I started using 2.0, then 2.2 a few things jumped out at me that were really good or really annoying. I thought I’d use it for a couple weeks and see if it’s just my brain saying “change is bad!” so I didn’t like things, but there are some good and bad things that still linger:

Bad

• “Create a New Image” dialog – I liked it much better when the “Advanced Options” didn’t need to be clicked on, since I almost always edit these.
• When you save images it’s not nearly as intuitive as it used to be. “Browse for other folders” and “select file type extension” should be open by default like it used to be.

Good

• Last modified date when opening images, better support for “thumbnails” without actual thumbnail directory existing (I HATED that and always turned that option off)
• Zoom options embedded in image windows, this is nice since I’m always zooming.
• Crop shading, this went from “oh neat but I don’t care” to “this is actually pretty nice”
• File, Edit, etc menus embedded in image window (right click still works)

Unfortunately the bad is outweighing the good in my opinion, it’s just not as user friendly (with the exception of my last “Good” thing). I can get used to these changes, but I think it will make it harder for someone new to the program to learn things.

While compiling these lists I was doing quite a bit of image editing, first going through a whole bunch of fish pictures to find a few that could go on our new subdomain for our fishtank: http://fish.bevilacqua.us. The layout is the same as it was for Munch’s site, but the content has changed. Content… gosh there isn’t much. I’m sure we’ll think of things to put on it eventually.

I was also editing images I took when I went on a walk to the library yesterday. I wanted to get the “feel” of an old, small north-eastern town in the US, and Schwenksville personifies that well.

I’ve put all the good pictures I took up on a new section of my website: Downtown Schwenksville.

But I couldn’t help thinking while walking down the road taking pictures of public buildings with my digital camera “I hope someone doesn’t call the cops and think I’m a terrorist!” You may laugh, but in the past month I’ve heard of two similarly silly local stories where someone saw someone “stranger” taking pictures of $a_public_building and called the police to investigate. Really, there wasn’t any other evidence that something bad was happening, just some guys taking pictures. And don’t even get me started on all the Grand Central Station pictures nonsense (oh noes I’m a terrorist!). As if I don’t have enough real things to be afraid of, but I digress.

After the nice walk yesterday I wanted to have a nice dinner. So I went to make some more of my oh so delicious mushroom-crust quiche. It all came together nicely, but I decided to use a glass dish instead of a metal one. I am not sure why, the glass one looked nicer I guess?

Well it was a huge mistake.

After cooking for 30 minutes (out of a 25-30 minute cook time in the recipe) in the oven it was starting to get crispy around the edges and I removed it from the oven. It looked good, but when I flipped it over to cool on the cooling rack it came out as a drippy mess. Noo! The egg didn’t seem to cook all the way! I was pretty upset, I was really looking forward to eating this quiche and it smelled so good. It was after 6, I was hungry and so we decided to go out. First thought was chinese, so we looked up a local chinese place, printed out directions and went out.

T
urns out this chinese place revolved around take out (complete with one of those light up menus over the cash register). Groan. We left.

We went to a plaza right off the Royserford 422 exit and saw a Steakhouse “Great!” we thought. But when we got in there it was packed and there was a 100-110 minute wait. Gah!

By this time I was pretty hungry, and Michael really wanted steak, so we headed over to Skippack to the Roadhouse Grille. Yum! It was a bit more crowded than I would have liked, but the food was delicious. I got some Alaskan Cod and Michael got a Steak special and a couple glasses of wine (I didn’t feel like drinking). I finished my meal with a slice of chocolate malt ball cake and Michael had a cognac. He had both wine and cognac? Yep, and I drove home. As I got into the driver’s seat I realized I’d never driven with Michael in the car before! I’d followed him home when returning rental cars a couple times, but never in the same car. It was a strange feeling

We were home a little after 9. And I was exhausted.

And now it’s almost 3pm on Sunday. This weekend is going by too quickly.

I called Annette last night, since it was her 16th birthday. She wanted to go out and get mexican food at her favorite restaurant with a friend, but I guess it was too far away and my mother didn’t want to drive there. They went to McDonalds instead, poor thing. That’s worse than my 16th birthday.

During the conversation I did learn something very interesting though.

My other sister (Heather, 21) is engaged! She went to Alberta, Canada to see her boyfriend a couple weeks ago, and while she was there he proposed, with a nice ring and everything.

They met online and have been together since fall of 2001 (shortly after Michael and I got together), she’s made a few trips up to Canada to see him, he’s come down to Maine to see her a few times (stayed for almost a month last summer). I haven’t met him, but she seems really happy, and that’s what’s important. From what my mother says, she’s planning on moving up to Alberta to live with him, and getting her Canadian citizenship (I’ll have to look into and talk to her about getting a dual citizenship, which I’ve heard you can get if you have family in the US).

At first I thought “Moving to Canada, on the other side of the country? Insanity!” But I guess it’s not so bad, at least she’s finally getting out of Maine.

I’m happy for her.

Mmm Friday.

It’s my youngest sister’s birthday today, she’s turning 16. Egads, 16! This is a big birthday for her because in Maine you can drop out of school without your parent’s consent when you’re 16, and she’s been claiming she would for a couple years. Because of her recent change of schools and tutoring I’m hoping that she’s changed her mind, but I can so easily see her getting upset and annoyed one day and quitting on a whim. I’ll give her a call tonight to see how she’s doing.

The week slowed down a lot for me after tuesday, which is great, I’m not feeling mopey or stressed out anymore. I’m really looking forward to movie night tonight at ‘s place. Michael is going to stop by the beer store this afternoon, and hopefully swinging by the liquor store as well to get me a bottle of wine. I’m in a wine mood.

Which brings me to another subject, Pennsylvania’s liquor laws.

Pennsylvania is a “dry state” which basically means they have stupid alcohol laws.

All “Wine and Spirits” shops are state run, and often have strange hours. Just last year they opened a few on Sundays, which was quite a radical change.

You can only buy beer in restaurants that have a liquor license (and there are plenty around here that don’t) or at a “Beer Store” where they only sell beer by the case. Many establishments have skirted the law a bit by opening “restaurants” that sell cheap take-out food and have TONS of beer by the bottle and six-pack, but those are mostly in the city.

It’s all very strange. I guess they established this model because they are against drinking, thinking that if you limit the places and times people can buy it at you might limit their drinking somehow. I think it’s done the opposite, at least in our case. When you buy beer you can’t just buy a six-pack to enjoy for the evening, you need to buy a whole case (and now that I have a whole case in my fridge you better believe I’m going to drink it!). When we drop by the liquor store we stock up because going to the store when it’s open is a pain and who knows when we’ll have the time to come back?

I should look around for alcoholic statistics nationwide (most of what I find just deals with under-aged drinking), taking into consideration rural vs city areas (because we all know that there is nothing to do in rural america except drink </sarcasm>). Does Maine have a higher rate because you can buy hard liquor in some grocery stores? Do Pennsylvania’s crazy-feeling laws actually make fewer people drink?

We should just abolish these silly laws, and the drinking age. I think they often turn out doing more harm than good. I drank much more before I turned 21 than I do now, and I know that’s true for most people.

The other day we were listening to the radio and a brilliant young musician said he had a lot of trouble reading sheet music because he is dyslexic.

What the hell, is half the world dyslexic? Why do I keep running into and finding out about people who are? Is this the neurological equivalent to ADD/ADHD? Is every late bloomer dumped into the “dyslexic” category?

When I was in elementary school I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Both my parents were dyslexic, so it didn’t come as a surprise to them. For a very long time I never questioned this diagnosis. I was put into special ed classes, and it took me a few years to get up to speed with my peers as far as english language skills go. Then, when I was in 8th grade, I won an award for doing far above average in a state-wide reading comprehension test.

Today I read all the time (my love for books borders on obsession), I write all the time. For a while I assumed it was because the special ed teachers were properly trained to deal with my condition and did very well with teaching me in the proper learning methods for dyslexics. I thought I had gotten so good at using these techniques that it natural to me. But now I wonder. Why are so many people diagnosed with this? Do I even really have it?

I’ve been doing some research and I am starting to think I don’t. I found a list of “Common Signs in Adults” here. It doesn’t sound like me.

# May hide reading problems. I no longer have reading problems.

# May spell poorly; relies on others to correct spelling. I am not a poor speller.

# Avoids writing; may not be able to write. I love writing, even considering it as a career.

# Often very competent in oral language. Nope.

# Relies on memory; may have an excellent memory. Nope, I have to write everything down.

# Often has good “people” skills. HAHAHA!! No!

# Often is spatially talented; professions include, but are not limited, to engineers, architects, designers, artists and craftspeople, mathematicians, physicists, physicians (esp. surgeons and orthopedists), and dentists. This is rather broad.

# May be very good at “reading” people (intuitive). Nope.

# In jobs is often working well below their intellectual capacity. Ok, that’s true.

# May have difficulty with planning, organization and management of time, materials and tasks. Quite the contrary. I have excellent time management and planning skills, and can be sickeningly organized when I want to be (which is not often, I’m lazy).

# Often entrepreneurs. Nah, I tried, but it was too stressful.

Other sites have said things like “dyslexics learn better by hearing” but it’s not at all that way for me. Give me a book, some dry examples, google and a goal and I’ll be able to tackle whatever you throw at me. Explain it to me aloud and I’ll be scratching down notes as fast as possible so I have a record of it to refer to.

So now my only excuse for having a hard time learning to read is that I’m a late bloomer (there is probably a cool sounding techical term for this). I can live with that.

The past few days I’ve been feeling weird.

I think it comes from a bit of stress over the weekend. It’s not even a lot of real things, I just have a horrible tendancy to blow things out of proportion in my mind and freak out about them[1]. Usually I can go through some meditation and relaxation techniques and make my brain feel better, but I just had so many things on my mind this weekend that *something* would creep back into my mind each time I started feeling a bit more clear-headed.

Luckily everything that was on my mind has been resolved in positive ways!

So I should feel better now.

But I don’t.

Perhaps I need cake.

[1] This is a problem I’ve been dealing with for years. I’m much better than I used to be. In high school I didn’t know good meditation and relaxation techniques so I’d let everything build up until I’d break down in an exhausted mess. Now I’m able to control most of my worries, unless there are too many.

I started putting ads on my site for google adsense on January 29th. So it’s been a month.

How has this trial period gone?

I’ve made $24.62.

It’s not going to allow me to buy a shiney new BMW, but it’s money I didn’t need to work for. Yay free money!

Over the past year or so I’ve been tuning into WYBE every Saturday night at 11pm to watch Dr. Who. I looked forward to this, since I had only seen bits and pieces of different seasons and this gave me the chance to see them all.

When I tuned in last night they had bad news for me. They had been running Dr. Who for 5 years (“Over 500 episodes!”) and were shelving it. Next week they’ll be playing another British SciFi show: Red Dwarf.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Red Dwarf, but I’ve seen them, and I own all but seasons 3 and 4. They’re taking away The Doctor and replacing it with a show I’ve seen! Arg! Big meanies %(

Yesterday Michael spent the day doing taxes and other paperwork, so I did some reading. I finished M.Y.T.H. Inc. in Action, and then discovered that there are 2 books between that one and the one I’m borrowing from some friends! Oh no! So now I’m on a quest to find Sweet Myth-Tery of Life and Myth-Ion Improbable so I can finally get started on the book I’m borrowing, Something M.Y.T.H. Inc.. I also found out that there are more NEW Myth books! Myth Told Tales, released in May 2003, Myth-Alliances, released in August 2003, and Myth-taken Identity, which was just released this past September (full list of Myth books here). He now has a co-author, Jody Lynn Nye, and the reviews seem relatively mixed… for the latest one people are really complaining. On the whole I think it’s good though, I love this series and was sad when I thought I was coming near the end of it.

Anyway, I started reading Dragonflight, the first of the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy. My sister Heather was really into this series, and my friend was always telling me I should read some Anne McCaffrey. I’m about 100 pages into it, and it’s good so far, even if it took some time to get into. I don’t know much dragon-lore, and all the terms she used were new to me. I found myself flipping back to the glossery half a dozen times in the first five pages so I could understand what they people were talking about. But it’s all good, I tend to like it better when you’re dropped into the story and not having everything dryly explained (as long as it’s not *too* hard to keep up with terms).

And I’m close to finishing Heinlein’s Time Enough For Love. It’s been very difficult to get through, I’ve been poking at it since August, and after page 200 I’ve just been dreadfully bored. The first parts really gave me things to think about, what if you could live 2000 years? How much differently would you view the world in that time? How wise would you really become? How would you handle the loss of people in your life dying because they don’t live as long as you? But then the book sorta degenerated into being all about Heinlein’s views toward sex and relationships. Sometimes plot would come back strong, but then another woman would enter the story and it’d be all about sex again. I don’t have a problem with books that talk about sex (as long as it doesn’t turn into a bad romance novel) but I KNOW what Heinlein’s views on sex are (open relationships are good, sex is fun and not shameful), and being beat over the head with them over and over again in a book like this just gets dull. I still like Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land was amazing, Friday was fun, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was just great scifi), hopefully the next book of his that I choose to pick up will be better.

I spent some time today going over my techie resume, which is separate from my normal resume these days. I hadn’t updated it in a while since I hadn’t been looking into web development positions lately, but it’s good to have it dusted off for the interview tomorrow (which I’m less nervous about now).

Tonight we’re going over to Michael’s mother’s place, she needs help with her computer and said she’d feed us, yay I don’t need to co
ok tonight!

I’ve sent out some globals on Xelium, but I thought I’d mention it here on my livejournal too. Xelium is having a “contest” to decide the new design for the website. The current website is here:

http://network.xelium.net

The design is great, but it’s old and not expandable. So we’re doing a complete overhaul and looking for a designer.

Winner gets a vhost on Xelium and of course credit for the design, with a link to their site in the footer.

More details here: http://network.xelium.net/contest.php

The woman who is training me at work recommended that I bring in a cdplayer/radio to listen to while working, she told me it made the day go by quicker. So the next day I brought in a discman and some old headphones.

OK, so they weren’t headphones, they are “earbuds” and I haven’t a clue how old these things are. They’re Michael’s, I found them in a box while we were living at the apartment, I used to take the discman with me on walks and the earbuds worked nicely back then.

When I got to work I discovered that the right input doesn’t work (no doubt due to the exposed wire on that side which I patched up with electrical tape), but that’s fine since we work with only one in our ear anyway so we can be somewhat alert to what’s going on around us. And the soft stuff on the buds is gone, no big deal.

All week I’ve been saying to myself “Gosh, I should pick up some new ones.”

But we haven’t been anywhere near a store that would sell such a thing, and I didn’t think about it much because these worked good enough for now.

Until today.

I was listening to a Bjork CD and it sounded like it was skipping. I’ve had this CD for a long time, so I sighed and assumed it was going bad. I took it out of the player, and put in and old All About Eve CD. It skipped. Wait? Is that skipping? Nope, it was the sound… my earbuds were dying! I moved the wires around, tilted my head, twisted the wires, played with them for about 20 minutes but the sound problems were just getting worse. Eventually I gave up, it was annoying and wasting my time. It was 11:30.

So now I’m working from 11:30-5 without any music! It wasn’t so bad the first day I was here without music, but now that I’m used to it it’s making my day crawl. It doesn’t help that work today is slow, so the day would be going slowly anyway.

What sort of music do I listen to at work anyway? I brought in quite an assortment last week, trying to find what would amuse me most. Turns out that “chick music” puts me in the proper mood, who knew? Bjork, Ani DiFranco, All About Eve, Jewel, and even Alanis Morissette (post Jagged Little Pill). It’s funny because I hadn’t listened many of these songs in a very long time (with the exception of Bjork). I’d put this whole pile of CDs to a “chick music I outgrew when I graduated high school” pile.

Well, lunch break is almost over, hopefully they’ve found something for me to work on all afternoon.