Work was a little more stressful this week than normal. Stuff to work on just kept coming to me. I am expecting more any time now. Not because it's been one of those weeks, which it has been, but because I've asked for it. It's part of my job when I think or know it's something beyond the agent(s) can handle I take it and see if I can give them some guidance or send it futher up the chain to get a fix or both.
I'm gonna take a nap when I get home. Then head to Portland for Mike's bday party.
I've recently hatched a couple ideas to improve my digital picture frame. I just have to take time to figure out if they are even possible and then do them. One involves LEDs the other involves it going into stand by or off if certain condtions are met and then waking it self back up at a certain time.
I also may be getting a new to me lense from Tiffany a Canon 200mm F2.8 L. The Canon L series lenses are like the Porsches of camera lenses, I will stop the analogy there. I just have to work out the money situlation for it. As it's a good deal but not cheap.
Even though I've lived here for 3 years now I still don't have the level of comfort navigating eugene and surrounding areas that I did in salem when I left it 3 years ago. I want/need to find some new places to take pictures of/at. I've got a plan though. Google maps, and USAphotoMaps to kind of scout some places out from above then maybe drive to/by the location and a) return later for shooting b) shoot then.
Also I'll take recommendations.
I saw an aricle on digg a week or two ago. I meant to incorporate it to a post then, but I didn't so here it is now.
The BBQ was ok. Not super but ok. I decided to be a nice guy and help a couple people out. I gave Catherine's little brother a ride back to his place and then took Kristyn back to her place to get her glasses. Which took over an hour as Cat's brother, Kevin, lives in North Portland at the University of Portland. But Kristyn lives in Gladstone which isn't in Portland but south east of Portland off Highway 205 and University of Portland isn't really off any high way but it's closer to I5 than anything else that I'm aware of.
Cat and Nikki were quite drunk at one point. This was very entertaining in all sorts of ways random drunken comments and conversations between the two of them as if nobody Else in the room could hear or care but we were all listening to them and watching them as they were the most entertaining thing in the area at the time.
All and all not a bad weekend.
I think I get to do my run tonight. I've been too busy the rest of the week to get one in otherwise. I had been getting 2 or more in for a few weeks but this week I've gotten none I'm not really gonna be happy with just one but can't do much about it at this point. I may do one tomorrow morning before I head to Chris' BBQ in Vancouver.
As a follow up to my earlier post today I stopped by target and did not find a suitable frame. While this is slightly sad it also means I can save a bit of money and get a nice frame from an frame place or a crafty type store or maybe even one online.
That is all.
I may go see if I can find a frame for them after work or I may just wait until I get paid again as I'm a bit tight for money after the new monitor purchase.
After a year and change at my current residence I finaly hooked up speakers to my desktop box. Partly cause I wanted to listen to the music I was working with or thinking about burning to CD and also because well I like being in front my desktop much better now that I have this super sweet LCD display in front of me. The wide screen is almost like 2 screens in one or at least 1.5 in one.
I think may invest a USB 2.0 hub, a dual DVI video card another LCD to replace the remaining CRT (which now things it's a wide screen but looks stupid because it is all squished).
So I went on a tour of Hynix Semiconductor last night. I was there a "member"/"resident" of the Church Hill neighborhood. The fact of the matter is I'm pretty much on the opposite side of town. But I got the invite to go and me being the geek that I went.
They showed us a wafer and a slide-show/propaganda presentation and some of the plant but not really any of the processes or anything really technical in nature, which was a slight disappointment. We got to see some of the processing equipment from the hallway, with our hairnets and booties over our shoes.
I did find out that Hynix and does not grow their on silicon thus many of the processes I was familiar with would not be done at this plant/location. But they did have a few processes I was vaguely aware of such as the photo-lithography thin-films processes. But aside from that it pretty much all post what I would have done with a wafer when I was working at Mitsubishi Silicon in Salem, as I was the 3rd process in the line after growing the silicon. This is was all much further along and much more sophisticated processes and equipment. Hell people never seem to really handle wafers or the cassettes of wafers all automated and wafers on conveyor belts moving from location to location on their own. At MSA we personally physically transported the wafers to other departments and often handled many in a cassette.
But it got me out of the house for the evening and was an interesting time. Nobody realized I didn't really belong there aside from my invite from a member of the neighborhood.
Last night while hanging out with Chris we started talking about Honey Ryder, and streaming music from her.
Honey is the linux box that lives with Chris. She's been around in some form or another for 7 years now. Chris, myself, and a select few can stream music from her library of 20,000+ Mp3s. As she has been doing this for many years now we have learned it's pretty much just one user at a time and sometimes even that is too much as the the upload limitation can prevent a high bit rate mp3 from streaming properly. While these problems are much better now than they were even just a couple years ago because of network upgrades made by Chris' ISP.
Chris and I had both bumped into network limitiations just yesterday with honey. We were both attempting to stream music so it got jittery and crapy. Then he mentioned it happens some other times to him. So he asked if we could somehow turn the bitrate down just for streaming. Frist I wasn't sure if it was possible but I said I'd look into it.
So this morning between helpdesk calls I found MP3DownSampler on freshmeat.net and got it installed and going in less than 10 min after finding it. It works and it works pretty well. I managed to stream 3 diffrent mp3s from 3 diffrent boxes on two diffrent networks with no problems.
So my primary monitor on my desktop box died on me today. I was going to make a new MP3 cd for my car so I sent a wake on lan to my desktop from my laptop (cause I'm that lazy). When the desktop had started up I got up and noticed the primary montior wasn't showing anything but the secondary was. I shook the mouse just in case, nothing. I went into trouble shooting mode. Tried changing resolutions, checking cables, etc. I knew the monitor was having problems from how it acted a couple weeks ago. Anyways this time it started to make a rappid clicking sound I knew the monitor was very done at this point. So I drove to best buy and bought my self a pretty 19inch Wide screen. I may have to get another one to match it in a month or two once I can afford it again.
So I've returned. Weekend is winding down now. I'm unsure if I am going to leave the house again or not until work tomorrow morning.
Edmonds underwater park is pretty cool. All sorts of stuff underwater to look at and explore. I saw some big ass fish and some small jelly fish undulating about, some road cones affixed to milk crates, trails made of milk crates and or cinderblocks, large concrete blocks. There was also no shortage of ship wrecks in the area, some even large enough to get inside and explore, I left that to Chris while I just hung out while he swam through or in. Apparently we missed the truck bed and the cash register that are down there. The map also indicated a maze located some where under the water as well.
Chris and I got 2 dives in while his dad and brother where only able to get one as Chris' brother had to be to work in Salem by 5. Chris and I are pretty sure he didn't even come close to making considering they stayed around town and ate before they left and we met up with them on the free way and we didn't get back to Vancouver until 5 and they still had at least an hour to go. But Chri's brother has already put his notice in at work so worst case they he gets fired then he has more time to play before he goes off to his crusie ship job training in Hawaii.
Once back in Vancouver we unpacked and showered, changed, in a hurried fashion as Chris had made arrangements to pickup two people to go to the Oktoberfest with us at 5:30. While Chris was in the shower I made a call to Kristyn and we ended with a third person to pick up but she was pretty much on the way to the fest. After getting a bit to eat at the fest we met up with the rest of the party as planned and proceeded to the Alpine garden where I sampled all the beers except the ones that came from America cause I'd had them all before anyways. I like Spaten. We watched the crazy people on stage play cow bells, yodel, blow those giant horns in the Ricola cough drop commericals and chicken dance. Best time I've had at the Oktoberfest pretty much ever. Mt Angel knows how to party.
I left, I dove, I drank, I slept, I returned.
I still have to unpack and shower....
I also brought my water bottle into to work today in an attempt to get hydrated for the dive.
Sometime today I've got to call in a order for the rental of tanks, a BC, a regulator, and a wet suit. So that it will be ready to be picked up tomorrow morning.
I'm gonna go for broke this weekend. I'm gonna do the dive in Edmonds and then go to Oktoberfest in Mt Angel and meet some friends and have a drink or 2. It's going to be a long weekend.
From a command shell (cmd.exe)
net time /setsntp:{servernameoripaddress}
net stop w32time
net start w32time
note: In services you may want to set the windows time service to automatic so it starts on machine start up if it does not already.
Here is a short list of some time servers.
I don't know many if any people in/around Eugene that I'd trust to go camping with. I mean like trust like to not steal my shit but like if there is a problem how will they react. Like do they know how to pitch their own tent, do they have their own tent?, How much hiking can they do?, are they going to annoy me for the weekend? I should make a few calls and see if I can maybe get something going on in early October as I think this month is booked up, if not for me then for Chris and other peoples.
Since I got my Nikon L4 I've been really wanting to get a card reader. I've got one for my canon which uses a compact flash card. But the L4 uses a SD card. This meaning to unload photos from my camera I've got to attach the camera to the computer and use the stupid proprietary Nikon cable to do so. Also the camera must be on thus using batteries to tranfer the photos taken. I've seen a Sony, maybe even 2 sony's come on or be powered by the USB for file transfers.
But I don't want just any card reader. I want a super card reader. The probleem is I don't know if there is such a thing. I want a card reader that has a feature or 2 that really stand out from the rest. I checked all over amazon last night and I didn't find much.
I've considered getting a regular one and hooking it up to my server or another box and having it auto-mount the card and share it on the network and map drives to it. Maybe use this inconjuction with another script or two to make a backup and upload to flickr all at the same time.
So if you know any better than average card readers let me know.
Got an invite to dive at Edmond's underwater park on Saturday and to Oktoberfest after the diving. However I'm not sure I'm gonna have enough for the equipment rental, beer/food at the fest, and my regular bills/responsibilities. Recently I've been a bit closer to the edge of my financial means partly cause of the $1,100 recently spent on my car for repairs and partly because of gas used to visit Portland, Vancouver, and Salem recently.
I may do just Oktoberfest, Maybe just the dive, maybe visit Salem, or just hang out around town this weekend and find other ways to spend my moneys and then try not to spend it.
I didn't get enough sleep last night. I went and spent the day in Portland. Got home around 11:30 and got up at 6. Now I'm sleepy and fending off the urge to take a nap.
I've had an craving for sugary sweet lately. I've done fairly well at not indulging my sweet tooth. Why I've resisted I'm not 100% sure. It's not like I'm fat or really out of shape or anything.
I had a dream that I had somehow purchased a M5 or M6. I remember being at a dealer ship then nothing until I was at a garage realizing what I purchased. Realizing I didn't know how much I spent or would have to pay monthly. Someone I was apprently hanging out with, that I don't really know admired it for a moment. We discussed it a bit and I had pretty much decided to return it or find out how much it was going to cost me. Then we went to a Walmart and I woke up. Weird stuff.
Hanging out with Becky is always kinda lame. She's a decent friend and everything but she just has too much going on when I'm around. Often including lots of her own friends and places etc. Putting me way out of my zone. Knowing only one person in a strange place and that one person is more conserned with the other friends and activites.
I do much better in smaller groups. Where focus is the group not everything else and everyone else in the place.
I should take this weekend that as of right now has no plans and clean my humble little studio up. It kinda looks like a closet full of clothes has exploded and perhaps a computer technical support team left half their equipment about because something came up that meant the had to leave in a hurry. But alas it's all my stuff all of the damn place.
But Cat wants me to go to Salem. So I might go see her.
The monitor seems to be ok now. Which is good cause I can't really afford a new set of LCDs right now. Hopefully it says ok.
That is all.
It seems since I started running; I've had less to say here, or over at vox.
I wonder if this is because running is as therapeutic as it is, for me at least. I don't think my life has gotten much less exciting in the last month or so. Some aspects are perhaps more interesting than they were a month or two ago. Others perhaps not. Maybe I just hvaen't felt like sharing as much. Hard to say.
Nathan got to work around the same time I did. He claimed he had too much weekend. I told him I never want to hear those words again. I understand but for diffrent reasons.
Anyways I hope ya'll had a great weekend and have a great work week.
I was on my way home last night when I called Catherine to see if she was gonna be free to hangout as Salem was going to be on my way home. Turns out she was hanging out in Vancouver with Chris so I got my self turned around and met up with them and ended up staying the night at Chris' place.
It was a long weekend. Could have been better. Could have been worse.