First day of the new semester

Well it's that time of year again, excited and hopeful about all the new classes, but after one day realize they will be monotonous, nothing like described, and full of busy work.

The past few weeks have been exciting, and somewhat demeaning. You may remember my relatives that decided to drop by and ended up breaking a bunch of stuff, well I guess I managed to maintain my composure and politeness, because they invited me to spend a week at their house. They said they had a "Guest House" I could stay in, so that was pretty cool. When I got there, tired from the drive, they showed me the Guest house, which was really more of a barn/work shop, from the outside it looked like a barn, but it had a wood floor and no livestock, however it was full of wood, old insulation, and power tools. The first night I woke up to the sound of rodents chewing on stuff, and in the morning , there were droppings all over the bedding. You might be thinking that's pretty bad, but it gets worse, I went to the main house which has the kitchen to make myself some breakfast, the silverware tray was full of droppings along with all the cabinets, and that pretty much ruined my appetite for the rest of the week. Towards the end of the week I was starting to feel ill, and after getting home, spent the next few days split evenly between my bed and the bathroom.

I also moved into a new apartment, so packing everything up, and driving it across town and then unpacking took a few days, and then there was some mix ups with the internet. Seems when I called and ordered it for the new place, they thought it was a brand new building with no wires ran yet, so they sent an installed out, who didn't show up. The next day when he showed up he noticed that everything was already done, and that the "Install Kit" he had was only for new installations. So another 2 days and some tech shows up with a modem and such and can't get it to work, so he leaves and another guy shows up, plays around with some wires outside and finally it's working.

Cats

Still haven't been able to try my perch fly, I've been fishing just not for perch, and haven't been doing very well anyway. So on the topic of cats, I have noticed recently that there are a few cats that end up in my yard, and sometimes at night they wake me up with their fighting or whatever it is cats do. Then today I go outside to pull some weeds, it seems they have been using my yard as a litter box. So now I am pretty mad, I mean these cats have collars on, they belong to people, and these people think it is okay to let their cats roam the neighborhood, doing their business where ever they want? Don't get me wrong, I'm not "anti-cat", well maybe a little, buts that's just because I'm allergic to cats. Now I am wondering if there is a way to repel cats, maybe start out by yelling at them, or spraying them with the hose, and if that doesn't work maybe an electrified fence with 25 foot guard tower so I can keep watch.

Environmental Ethics

This past semester I took an Environmental Ethics class required for my major. Previously I have taken Forest Inventory classes which mainly focus on trees, Wildlife classes which as you can imagine involved learning about mostly native species, how to count them, populations and such, as well as a bunch of other what I would consider "Science classes" having to do with natural resources(hard facts not feelings). Going into Environmental Ethics I was hopeful, I thought there would be in depth discussion and analysis of environmental issues using facts and figures to rationalize or justify decisions. I soon realized this was not the case, the reading material was made up nearly entirely of Native American creation stories, fictional stories about unrealistic interactions with wildlife, and several manifestos by radical environmental groups. The discussions were even worse, stuff like "How can we think like a mountain"? Our grades were mainly based on writing assignments, where we were given several topics to choose from, but most of them had no basis in reality, basically creative writing exercise. Every time I picked the one that could be somehow related to documented research or knowledge I had gained from studying natural resources. I think it really annoyed the teacher, he always commented that it was interesting and no one has taken that approach before, however in terms of a grade it didn't end well for me. Looking back requiring that class for any science major is ridiculous.  So I am curious about other people who may have taken Environmental Ethics classes or any other required class that was pretty much useless.

New perch Fly.

So my uncle is doing much better, walking around the house and telling jokes which is much better then when he got out of the hospital. I searched around the internet for various perch flies and found a pretty nice youtube video of one, so I decided to tie something similar, some variations just to avoid having to order a lot of new materials.



In the video they suggested a #1-2 hook I went with a #4 just because we have been seeing smaller perch lately and have had trouble getting them to stick to the larger hooks. For The tail I used craft fur and gold krystal flash and trimmed it shorter, once again because the smaller perch have been grabbing the the tails on the worms rather then where the hook is. For the collar I used an orange hackle just to get a bit for color on the fly, and the wing I used undyed bucktail because I didn't have any brown craft fur.

I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, and unless the fish are biting it is hard to tell if it will work, but hopefully in the next few days I can give it a try.

Still a few more days.

So my uncle is doing good, but understandably it is still pretty hard for him to get around the house and cook for himself and such so I had the day off to get some of my own stuff done, then I will go back for a few days. I did find some wi-fi, either the guy was crazy about torrents or it was to far away, because it was really slow and I kept losing the signal, so it was pretty much useless for anything other than checking email.

Gone for a few days.

I had hoped to make some progress on finding, tying, and testing a new lure, but I haven't had much time  to research. A few days ago one of my uncles had knee surgery and was released from the hospital today so I agreed to spend sometime at his house helping him out. Unfortunately he doesn't have internet, which I find hard to believe but I guess since he doesn't have a computer... hopefully I can get on someones wi-fi otherwise the internet withdrawals might drive me crazy.

New Lures.

Well the relatives decided to stay an extra day, but the cooked so that was cool. They also attempted to play rugby in the yard and broke a bunch of plants, but they needed trimming anyway.I did manage to go fishing every morning for the last 4 days, first 3 days the fishing was great, but this morning there were few clouds and a lot of sun on the water which can mess things up sometimes, and the current was bit slower. Caught a fish my first cast but a wave knocked it against a rock and a shell or barnacle broke cut the line, then no bites for the next 2 hours, so I went home.

I want to start tying flies that look like either a small fish or one of the invertebrates that is around here, then try to catch a fish on that. Kind the the next level of tricking a fish, having it bite something you made yourself rather than bought at a store. So hopefully by the next post I will have something picked out, probably won't have anything made yet since I'll need to order some materials.

Relatives. Why me?

So some family from out of town was passing through and decided to invite themselves to stay the night. Really not much trouble other than not having enough food to feed them and such. It was my aunt and uncle, and their son who is a sophomore in high school. During dinner he told jokes the entire time, the kind of jokes where they would be funny if you were 5, his parents seemed to think they were hilarious, and I just wanted to leave but that would be rude. Everyone started getting ready for bed, and after making sure they didn't need anything I went to sleep, 15 minutes later I get woken up because they can't find the pump for their air mattress, so I look around and get them a wet-dry vac to blow it up, of course the wait around another 15 minutes before blowing it up so I get woken up again. Woke up early and went fishing, caught some good perch, enough for dinner at least. When I got home, my tooth brush wasn't where I left it, so that was kind of horrifying, then when I tried to turn the shower on I noticed the screen to prevent soap and hair from going down the drain was bent and stomped down the drain, the shower nozzle was on backwards, and the hot water handle doesn't work anymore. Luckily they are going home today, but in less then 20 hours they have already wore out their welcome. 

Making money from junk on the street.

So after the post about seeing furniture left on the street I remember a conversation I had with someone a few years ago. This guy was ~60 years old but every summer he would go the the local university which happens to be pretty large and also fairly expensive. He would wait for the all the 1 year old furniture: desks, chairs, dressers, that people had furnished there dorms with and didn't have a place to store over the summer. He loaded up his truck drove it all to some storage units he rented, at the start of the new semester he would make fliers with a list of all the stuff he had(got for free) and would sell it for half what it would cost new. His best year he made just over $4000 after storage unit expenses. Seems like a pretty good deal, even if you had to rent a truck for a few days you could still make some pretty good money.

Garbage on the street.

Went to work today so no fishing, cold and raining again this morning, kind of depressing to wake up to. While driving around this morning I noticed a lot of people leave stuff on the streets, and not just empty chip bags and soda cans. There were several desks, and few tables with 4 chairs, mattresses all over a lot of pretty good stuff if you wanted to furnish your house with other peoples stuff. I think the best collection I saw was a TV, bed frame with mattress, and a gather large, dirty glass bong. I guess who ever it belong to decided to really focus on something.

Shock Leaders

Well it was so foggy this morning it was pretty much raining and the wind was blowing ~20mph but the tide was pretty good so I decided to go try some fishing off a jetty. After about 30 minutes of fishing my hands were wet from the fog, and so cold from the wind I could hardly feel or move them, and it was really screwing up my casting, either letting the line slip and the lure going straight up or letting the line go too late and the lure dives into the water. On one cast I either screwed something up badly or my line was worn from the rocks but there was a loud snap behind my head, and my lure was gone. If you are fishing with no one around this is okay, but in a group of people a lure flying away can be pretty dangerous. A solution to this is to use a shock leader, basically a heavier line that wraps the spool 5-8 times then goes the length of the rod and back down to the reel. Most people seem to use 10lb test per ounce they are casting. I was casting 2 ounces with 12lb test. You might be wondering why not just use all 20lb test, well on the reel I was using I could probably only hold 100 yards of 20lb test, so with a 25-35 yard cast, then a big fish that wants to swim away you could run out of line.

Annoyed.

So I am curious about other peoples reasons about why they moved away from home. I was living at home, going to school, and working part time.  I guess it was a pretty good deal no bills to speak of but it got to the point where I couldn't stand living here anymore, so I decided to transfer to a school several hundred miles away. Now when I come home to visit, before hand I look forward to it, when I get here it is nice not having to cook, and in general being on vacation from normal life. However after being here for a week I am starting to feel like a live here again, and I think it is a feeling of a lack of independence. Today I woke up early went for a run, and then went down to the beach and went fishing, got home at 1 pm ate lunch and took a nap, but I got woke up and "in trouble" for sleeping rather then helping my dad clean the garage. So for those of you who visit your parents as a vacation, do they let you have vacation or act like you never left?

Visiting the parents.

So I am visiting my parents this week, which I guess is pretty cool because I don't get to see them much anymore, but there are some funny things about it. Even though I haven't lived here is several years there still get mad if I don't show up for dinner. They also like to barge into the room I am sleeping in without knocking, I guess they aren't used to closed doors. My dad also likes to bother me by waking me up in the morning and telling me I don't need to get up, but then turns the radio on in the shower so I can't sleep anyway. So I usually get up and go to work with him, help him carry stuff around and wait in the car if he can't find a parking spot.

Fishin on the Fourth

Got up early to avoid traffic/crowds and for a good minus tide to get out to some different rocks to fish. Landed 5-6 perch and a smelt and had a few more that got off. I had a bigger rod further out hoping for a shark or something that would fight better but no bites, but thats why they call it fishing not catching.

While fishing I started thinking about how people meet, I tend to think I look pretty unapproachable, I kind of have a constant look of disgust while out in public, and for no real reason other than habit I wear all black. When I look at others I always worry that talking to them will somehow inconvenience them, if they are in a hurry, and I ask them for directions or something, they might not want to be rude and help, so I generally don't bother people unless it is obvious they have nothing to do.  Then I started thinking about various people I either met online or talk to online but haven't seen them in many years, or something I don't have experience with but I think about when other people mention it, online dating. So much of what we think about people is based on out first impression of them, and generally that is their appearance. Where as online you might get to know someones personality before you even know what they look like, and at least for me, personality is far more important than appearance. I have talked to some people about this and they seem to think it is an unnatural thing to be friends with people you have never met face to face, almost as if they are imaginary people. What do you guys think? I think with the amount of time people spend online it is only natural and will only increase.

Holiday Traffic.

So with the holiday weekend and the nice weather here, everyone is outside going to the beaches and I guess anywhere other then their houses. I wanted to go fishing but the traffic was pretty bad, tried to get to a new spot but after 15 minutes in traffic that hardly moved and about an hour to go I turned around and went to the normal spot, but there was no parking so I came home and decided to sit in the yard and work on my reels and tie up some leaders for the next trip. I guess it was an okay day.

I forgot about making a twitter before the break so I figure I will update that, at least with new blog posts. http://twitter.com/#!/RemoteRumbles

Hobbies

I've been thinking a lot about a hobby I would like to get into. There were some conditions:
1. Not too expensive, I really don't have any spare money so the cheaper the better.
2. Some element of danger, other then a paper cut or inhaling too much glue.
3. Something that most people have seen or heard of so I can use it in conversations.
4. Putting me in contact with people, something where I need to go outside.

So with that in mind I looked at things I have done before, or have some interest in.
1. Rock climbing - Have enough gear to go to gyms and climb but nothing suitable for outdoor climbing.
2. Auto racing - Could get a car pretty cheap to work on, but there are no tracks nearby other than a drag strip
3. Surfing - I have a knee board I can use, and a wetsuit.
4. Fishing - I guess this could already be one of my hobbies but I kind of stopped doing it.
5. Offroad motorcycling - Have a motorcycle and gear.

There were some other but I can't seem to remeber them now. I think I am going to get back into fishing. There are a lot of sharks and such near where I live so I think I will target them rather than the smaller stuff. I figure I will make me go to the beach, and there are people there, so maybe I could talk to them. Also Sharks fight pretty good so that should be fun, and pulling a shark out of the water is sure to get peoples attention, and fisherman(hopefully women) always want to talk about fishing so well see how that goes.

I have gone fishing the last 3 days, and plan to go the next 2, so far the fishing has all been on secluded rocks that most normal people wouldn't climb so I hardly saw anyone, and the fishing was pretty slow, but it is much better then sitting around at home.

That took longer than I thought it would.

Well that was a long but I think necessary break from not only blogging but "Life" in general. After writing so many papers for school that looking back at were a waste of time except for getting a grade (they did nothing to make me further understand the topics they were about) I was pretty tired of sitting down and writing. The concrete guy I was working for turned out to be not entirely truthful about the hiring process, turns out he over hires, sees which people show up the most, then fires everyone else. So going to school meant I hardly ever was able to work and didn't make the cut. Then I started to realize that many of the people I had gone to school with were graduating, getting jobs, married, having kids; I got pretty demotivated for a few weeks, I have pretty much wasted 4 years going to school, constantly changing majors trying to find something that I could live with. I think the final thing was a realization about The World of Warcraft; I have devoted almost all of my free time to WoW, so when I moved to a new city leaving the few friends I had hundreds of miles away, rather than going out a meeting new people, I sat inside with the guild. Well when the guild feel apart, some of the friends I had made simply quit the game, and others moved on to other guilds I am not really comfortable with. On top of that some relationships greater than friendships developed between some of these people, leaving me feeling like a 3rd wheel of sorts. So all of that left me pretty discouraged and I don't want to say depressed but I guess that is the word that fits. After a few weeks, a couple weeks of vacation and camping and mostly thinking, I think I can use it all as something positive. WoW has become incredibly boring to me, I still log on to see whats going on, but it seems without hardcore play I really have nothing to talk to my friends about. I am trying to find ways to meet some new people which is somewhat difficult because I don't drink or do drugs and can't stand being around people who are inebriated, and living in a college towns means that is how most people relax. Also sitting inside leaves me with nothing to do now, So I am trying to find some outdoor hobbies that might put me in contact with possible friends. I want to continue this blog but not having any clear topic is also more problematic then I thought it would be. I was thinking I could write my philosophy on life and how people should act, but that would probably be boring and get me in trouble. So maybe one of my potential hobbies with lead to a good topic.

Prescription drugs.

So kind of a continuation of last weeks post. Why do you need a prescription for prescription drugs. When I have talked to people about this it seems the 2 main concerns were people using the wrong medication for their ailment, or people abusing the drugs. As far as I can tell any drug worth abusing is already readily available on the street, if people want experiment with this stuff they will find a way to do it. The concern about people self medicating I can kind of understand, it seems there is a lot of concern about people not taking a full course of antibiotics which can make some drug resistant infections. However I think most of us will take a pill for a headache without consulting a doctor, and if we have left over pills for a previous prescription we will take those if similar symptoms occur. Growing up I had a re-occurring illness, seemed every 2 months I was going to the doctor, hardly did any examination wrote the prescription and sent me on my way. My parents knew what was wrong with me, the doctor knew what was wrong with me, but I still had to go in to get the prescription, seems like a waste of time and money. On the other hand I can see people go to the drug store and buying the wrong thing and causing themselves some problems. I guess I see it as just another way for people to meddle in our lives. I like to imagine people that didn't know what was wrong with them would go to the doctor and find out, and those of us that already knew could skip that step and just get what we need. So what do you think, am I crazy for thinking people would be responsible enough for this? 

Harder than I thought.

My previous blogs have all failed because I lost interest, no so much the case with this one, just so busy. I have been looking for a summer job, hopefully something that would keep me in shape and such. Well I found something that would do that, concrete work, but the owner said they are hiring now and if I waited till summer to start they would probably have to hire someone else. Luckily they aren't too busy right now, so I am able to work afternoons when I don't have school. Anyone that has worked with concrete knows it is a pretty tiring endeavor, it is also pretty abrasive to your hands, So I have been getting home at night, and pretty much failing asleep at my desk working on homework, I also managed to turn my alarm off 3 days in a row without even waking up, luckily my brother has been around to knock me out my chair.

Kind of a continuation of my previous post about laws. I saw a documentary about smugglers, I think it was a BBC thing. Basically following customs along as the intercept drug/tobacco/merchandise smugglers.  What I found interesting is that most of the reasons I have heard about why drugs are illegal is because of harm it causes to people/families/society. In this show I don't remember any mention this, every time they found something they explained it as a monetary value. Marijuana, heroin, etc they gave a street price, and tobacco they all explained how the smugglers were "bad people" because the taxes they wouldn't have paid were taking away from schools and road work. So it kind of made me wonder, Do governments really care about the possible "decay of society" because of drug use, or is it all just about lost revenue from taxes? Also I have done any research into how much money is spent on customs enforcement but I wonder if it ends up costing more than the lost taxes from smugglers.

Laws

I have been thinking a lot about laws and why we follow them. At least form my point of view there aren't many laws I would want to break, and the ones I would mostly involving gun control, I know the penalties and don't want to risk it. However things like murder, I would imagine most of use view murder as wrong but it still happens. Do murders simple not care if they are caught, or they don't think they will be, or maybe they are willing to risk it? I think a lot of what I believe to be right and wrong came from my parents also growing up I went to a small school and was shy so I think I avoided a lot of peer pressure. I know it might be kind of personal and possibly incriminating, but what do you guys think, do you break laws you don't agree with and is possibly getting caught really a deterrence?

Delayed Aerial Ignition Device

Once again, sorry for the lack of updates. I got invited on a weekend camping trip, but all my online classes have weekend deadlines, so normal weekday homework plus weekend homework was a bit overwhelming. When I got home I remembered I had a presentation due so all the research and power-points took awhile.

Week and a half into the 100 pushups deal, slightly difficult but not too bad. although my arms are constantly sore now, but that feels good when you know it is from something worth while.

Saw another blog, but can't find it now, about flaming ping-pong balls, and that reminded me of something. It seems wildland fire fighters, as a way to start backfires without needing people on the ground shoot flaming pin-pong balls out of helicopters. They fill the balls with potassium permanganate and stash them in a hopper, as they move through the cannon they are injected with ethylene glycol then shot out. In a few seconds then mixture gets hot a bursts into flames.

Overclock, pushups, and a desk.

Hello everyone. So I have been having some computer trouble, random lockups, memory is running at advertised speed, but CPU and GPU are both overclocked, everything ran fine for 2 months so I don't know what is going on but I dropped the overclocking down a bit to see if that makes any difference.

I did the Initial test for hundredpushups.com, managed 27 which I was kind of surprised by, page suggests that I skip ahead to week 3. I am kind of worried about driving with sore arms, I know sometimes after a long hike, using the clutch can be a bit of a struggle.

Finally for something more useful, building a desk. As I have mentioned before, I live in a pretty small apartment. When I moved in, I bought a 3 foot wide by 8 foot long banquet table from a Buddhist temple for 10 bucks. As a writing desk it worked okay, but there was no way to mount keyboard drawers, so there were keyboards all over the top, and it just took up too much room. I decided to build my own desk, this would let me custom make it to fit in a previously unused corner. A previous project left me with a 4x4 foot section of melamine coated 3/4 inch MDF, I used a circular saw to cut it to 24x40 inches. I cut a 2x4 to fit around the bottom edges to make it a bit more rigid. Then I turned to the internet for table legs, and a keyboard drawer. My search for table legs took me to Ikea, their Vika Curry legs are $3.50 each and come with all the hardware, as well as having a handy screw in base which makes it easy to transport the table if you have to move. I first looked for premade keyboard drawers, but they were all either to expensive or the wrong size. I looked on Amazon and found some Keyboard slides, you have to provide your own shelf, but otherwise it can be as wide as you want, and once again they come with all the hardware to mount them. So far everything has worked out pretty well, it is a little wobbly, I think because there isn't much weight on it, I have seen that some people make braces to hold the legs together but I haven’t felt the need. For 50 bucks in materials and less than an hour of work I can't complain.

100 Followers

Well I hit the 100 followers mark sometime last night, Thanks everyone. I have been trying to think of someway to commemorate the occasion and can't really think of anything. So I think I will combine it with something else I have been wanting to do hundredpushups.com , I think the most I have ever done is 35, but that was 6 years ago, haven't even attempted push ups in probably about a year so this should be interesting. I will post anything excting that happens, I still have to do the initial test and such.

Crazy Cars

Spring Break has finally started, planning on going camping at some point but the they are forecasting rain for everyday this week. Most of my neighbors seem to have gone somewhere, so at least they won't be making a ruckus around here like they normally do.

The other day I saw driving home and noticed a red Toyota Tercel station wagon, with some red letter on the back window. I sped up so I could read it, " US MAIL", now I have never seen a something like this before, so I started to wonder, is this guy just really into mail, or does USPS actually have a fleet of these things. I sped up more to see if there was any mail in there, but instead I noticed there was a steering wheel with no one behind it. Turns out it was one of those cars with 2 steering wheels, and 2 sets of pedals. He then reaches over to the other steering wheel and flips the indicator, kind of odd, go through the trouble of duplicate mechanical controls, but they can't add another indicator switch? Anyway on my normally boring commute that was a comical experience.

Lack of posts.

Sorry about the lack of updates. This was the week before Spring Break for me, so lots of midterm papers due. Only got about 2 hours asleep each night, stay up writing and such, So now I am sick. So I am going to sleep early, sleep in tomorrow, hopefully that will fix me so I can have some fun over spring break.

Rain and DVDs

Been a pretty boring few days, raining non-stop and no where to go has kept me in the house. I decided that it would be worth while to organize my DVDs. Not sure how I gathered that many burned DVDs except it is about 6 years of download various things, lots of documentaries and Anime. but also backups of music, pictures, and movies. They are all stored on Spindles which makes it really hard to find something when you need it. I bought Americopy Paper Sleeves and Snap-N-Store CD Storage Box . The Sleeves are rather thing, but I don't plan on transporting, or using the sleeves as any sort of protection other than from dust. The boxes came flat and they just snap together, I would prefer them to be a bit more sturdy, the box they were shipped in would hardly need to be any bigger if they were solid, and I don't really see the point in being able to take them apart. If you move, it's not like you will remove 160 discs and put them in another box, and then unsnap the box they were in. I do have a DVD binder, but it seems rather clumsy to me. After sorting most of the discs I seems to be it would be more convenient to just buy an extra hard drive. How do you guys store you discs or data?

Quesadilla Maker

I got a Quesadilla maker from my mom for Christmas. Originally I liked the idea, but didn't think I would ever use it. Like most appliances it would end up buried in some cabinet and forgotten for several years. The first few times using it, the quesadillas tasted like plastic, but that went away. Now I use it almost every day, get home from class and want some to eat, or up late studying just throw the stuff in there and come back in 5 minutes. The main materials; tortillas, and cheese are on sale almost every week in one form or another. One thing I have figured out is how to have small amounts of meat I could put in there, maybe cook it, cut it into single serving and then freeze?

I couldn't find any links to it, maybe it got discontinued, can't imagine there is much variety in them though.

People in the Road

Today was grocery day, got about 2 weeks worth of food, so a pretty successful trip. On the way home I drive by a park of sorts, mostly a large lawn 1-2 acres where people go lay around like animals. So I am 200 yards away and I see some people in the street, as I get closer I see they are talking but still just standing there, when I get about 75 yards away they look at me but don't move, it's not like they have no where to go, there was no car parked where they were so they could have gone in the parking space, or onto the lawn. I ended up going in on coming traffic lane to drive around them. So what do you think, should I have honked at them, run them over, stop and rev the engine, yell?

French Press Coffee maker

I live in a pretty small apartment with hardly any counter space, for a while I using a generic 12 cup coffee maker, but it took up 1/4 of the counter space. I threw that away a few months ago and was just drinking tea, but tea didn't seem to have the same kick that coffee does. I order a Bodum Brazil 8-Cup Coffee Press from Amazon, FedEx delivered it to the wrong place, but they fixed that after I called about it. Some observations, Bodum seems to think a cup of coffee is 4 ounces, my coffee cup which I thought was small is 14 ounces so that's kind of odd. They also say use 1 rounded tablespoon of ground coffee for every 4 ounces to be brewed which seems like a lot, but I never measured anything with the old coffee maker so who knows. I ran into some trouble trying to get beans though, the grinder at the store was broken so I had to buy the grounds, but there were no coarse grinds so I squeezed every bag trying to find the best, which turned out to be Dunkin' Donuts brand. I found a local roaster that will do a coarse grind and is only $7/lb so I will try to some of that. The coffee tastes better then I remember it being from the drip machine, but there is some sediment left over in the cup, not sure if that is normal, or just because I am using the the wrong stuff.

Card Readers...

I recently decided that my laptop was getting a bit old and it was time to upgrade, so I built a decent budget desktop. my problem is now I don't have a card reader, and trying to import 4 gigs of pictures over the wireless network from my printer with a card reader to my computer is slow and aggravating.  So if anyone has any suggestions for a card reader it would be appreciated, Preferably an internal reader, but I only have 5.25 inch bays so I would probably need a converter also.

Finally the weekend!

Well that's the end of one of the longest weeks of school I can remember. Slept till noon, then did a weeks worth of dishes, cleaned, and vacuumed. Rest of the day was spent sorting through ~3800 pictures from 2010, every once and a while I go through a delete anything I don't like, flag some to look at later, color code pictures for panoramas or HDRs, and then edit and export a few. In a month or two I will look at my exported pictures and not like them, but I guess that's the way you get better.

And now for something to complain about.  So this past week we got a lot of rain and hail around here. My commute is about 40 miles round trip and most of that is freeway, or driving though a city with no pedestrian traffic to think of, however when I get within a mile of my house I need to drive by a University. Now this street, runs parallel to the freeway so there is no reason for people to walking around except at the one pedestrian bridge that goes over the freeway. This bridge goes directly into a crosswalk with a stop sign, So I come to a stop, some guy walks up to the corner, and stops, so I start driving and then he decides he is going to walk out in front of me. he had an umbrella so I guess he didn't see me, but really who walks out into the street with out even looking? Last year there were some people that would walk out into traffic just to mess with the people driving, maybe that guy was just looking for someone to sue, but maybe he should pick something smaller than a 7000 pound truck to get hit by.

School and sleep.

I guess I already messed up what I set out to do. I had 3 papers due this weekend and 3 more due Wednesday, lots of writing that was pretty boring. I haven't left the house in 4 days, which coupled with staying up till 4 am and sleeping all day means I am tired yet well rested if that makes any sense. I also have nothing to eat except frozen ground beef, another side effect of not leaving the house.

Wow really tired of writing. How about some recipes for ground beef?

So a Blog?

Yeap, that's right a Blog. I have tried this before but always got tired of it after one posting, mostly because thinking about having to post something made me not want to do it. So why would I want to try again? Well I am thinking that having something to do daily or nearly daily might be a good way to develop a routine that could be useful for other things like working out, or remembering to eat. Also I spend a lot of time thinking about random things, come to a conclusion and move on. Usually by the next day I have forgotten everything form the previous day which seems like a waste of time, so maybe right them down at the end of the day would be useful. So expect rants on people I see while commuting, stupid stuff in the news, questions about why things are they way they are, and really anything else I happen to be thinking about.