Fortunately, the drive was mostly unused and had nothing really useful in it, while most everything remained safe on the primary WD Raptor.  The really important stuff is already backed up on my network drive or on my department disk space, so if anything else blows up I’ll still be okay.  When I removed the offending drive and tried to boot, only the power supply and CPU fans started spinning, leaving me with only a blank screen.  Somehow I managed to have unseated the video card from its connection to the motherboard and after I reseated it, everything returned to normal.

Quite a few people try to salvage failing computer components, but I don’t think it’s worth it.  The main idea is to patch stuff up just enough to transfer off any important data.  There’s the legend of  sticking the drive in the freezer overnight to get it working again.  Someone even got their video card working by baking it in the oven.  The fear of losing data is so great to some that there even exists a sound library of hard drive failures.

I don’t think my computer has much life left in it.  I don’t want to switch to my laptop for everything since it only has a VGA output and no digital connection, rendering my monitor useless.  I suppose I could get a docking station, but I can’t believe that Lenovo still makes laptops without digital outputs for external monitors.  Despite buying it last year, it even came with a pile of serial ports, a dial-up modem, and a PCMCIA slot that nobody would ever use.  A new desktop would be good for games but that was the purpose of buying an Xbox, and besides, high end desktops are still pretty expensive.  Of course something beefy would also be good for my schoolwork, since the last two projects had implementations that were extremely CPU intensive.

Regardless, I think I’m running on borrowed time.

First, the mouse.  I have a Razer Copperhead USB mouse that’s been great for years and when I first booted after the installation, it didn’t work.  The lights came on, but I couldn’t move it.  If I unplugged it and plugged it back in, it worked fine.  This would happen every time I rebooted the machine: no movement, unplug, plug back in.  After some digging around, I found the problem was that the mouse firmware had to be upgraded.  Of course, Razer only has the update software for Windows, so after some screwing around with that, I rebooted with the Linux machine and it worked fine without having to unplug the mouse.

Second, the dual head support for my ATI video card was lacking after the initial install, just mirroring my primary monitor onto the other.  I was able to fix this by installing the proprietary ATI drivers and using the ATI Catalyst Control Center to “merge” both screens into one.  Of course, this didn’t entirely fix the problem since every time I rebooted, the mirroring came back.  I finally found out that after I set the displays correctly in the ATI Control Center that I had to open up the Ubuntu Display Settings panel and hit “Apply”.

Both of these problems were really annoying, kept me searching and frustrated for hours, and have rather quirky solutions.  While I really like Linux, stuff like this doesn’t seem to happen as much with Mac or Windows.  However, community support is pretty good so after some extensive research I was finally able to find others with my problems that had found solutions.

Now everything seems to be working well, except that the stand for my monitor arrived bent.  It’s only a couple millimeters out of shape and the box it came in seemed undamaged, so I’m not sure what happened.  It’s bad enough that when I type sometimes the monitor wobbles.  It’s something I could probably live with, but the wobbling is annoying and I paid for a new product (not refurbished) so I don’t feel like letting it go.  So, I spent two hours with phone tree hell HP tech support about returning it and then filed an RMA request from the online vendor.  It would be best if I could just replace the stand since the monitor is fine — there’s only one stuck pixel.  Shipping the whole thing back is going to be expensive if the RMA is approved.  I guess the question is if the bent stand is worth another $30.

I still haven’t gotten to the Xbox yet because of all this (and some other annoying legwork type stuff for a research proposal that is due this week).  It also turns out that I got the wrong RCA to mini-stereo adapter and will have to try to exchange that so I can plug in the Xbox sound to the line in on my PC.  The whole thing is kind of funny because part of the reason I went with an Xbox was to avoid dealing with putting together a new system and troubleshooting the whole thing when a bunch of stuff doesn’t work.  Instead, I got more than I bargained for.

I would really like to get back into more games, but I just can’t see myself throwing out $2000 for a computer that I would use exclusively for games and be unable to carry around anywhere without a lot of effort.  It just isn’t worth it anymore.  So, I’m pretty sure I’m going to get an Xbox.

It seems that a real shift is taking place with developers placing emphasis on console games over PC, making most PC games a buggy port of their console counterparts.  Most new PC games are packed with nasty copy protection rootkits that are nearly impossible to remove.  Finally, new PC games all seem to have extremely steep system requirements, meaning you have to undertake a massive and expensive upgrade in order to get acceptable performance.  All these are things I don’t want to deal with, especially when I can get a top of the line Xbox for less than the price of a halfway decent video card.

My main concern over console games is the controller.  I started on PC games and feel natural with keyboard and mouse.  At my height of gaming, I became one with the computer, leveling the crosshairs on an opponent and blasting away without the slightest thought of what keys to press and how much to move the mouse.  I’ve played on a fair number of consoles and I’ve never adjusted to the controllers.  I always feel sluggish and usually have to remember where the buttons are and what they do.  Because of the controller, many RTS and simulation games are exclusively developed for the PC, which is a drawback in and of itself.

Regardless, I think I’m going to make the switch anyway.  With enough practice, I can adjust to the controller.  It’s also going to be a huge cost savings since it’s far easier to shell out $400 every four or five years for a new console compared to several thousand for PC upgrades.  The additional money for PC upgrades would be more justifiable if I were to use the computer for work, but Windows is useless for development and the lack of portability is also detracting.

This leads into my proposed setup: get a new monitor with DVI and DisplayPort for my laptops and HDMI input for consoles.  This way I can use the monitor for computing and for games.  My current external monitor has a 4:3 aspect ratio with only one digital input and I would also prefer something widescreen.  With only one digital input, it’s a real pain when I want to switch the Mac laptop for the Linux one or on the rare occasion that I want to boot up the desktop.

It seems that 16:9 1080p monitors are rare and are pretty limited in terms of functionality.  The only one that remotely interests me is the Dell S2409W and I’ve it uses the poor quality TN panel which gets a lot of complaints. It may be okay for the Xbox, but I don’t know about using it with the computers.  So, it seems 16:9 monitors are out since all the other ones I can find are also TN panels.  Larger 30+ in TV-style monitors are also out since the cheapest of those runs about $800, which is out of my price range, especially for something that may not fare well as a computer monitor several feet from my face.

So, this means PC-oriented 16:10 aspect monitors.  I would prefer something at least 24 inches and I can’t really get anything with a resolution greater than 1920 x 1200 since my laptops have terrible video cards.  Being 16:10, it means that when I plug in the Xbox, I’ll get 100 pixel black bars on the bottom and top of the screen, but that’s something I can live with since the screen will be large enough.  Two 16:10 monitors interest me: the Dell 2408WFP and the HP LP2475W.  Of those, the HP seems the better buy since its panel is the highly coveted IPS and it also seems to be nearly $100 cheaper depending on the vendor.  Both have an HDMI input, two DVI inputs, and a DisplayPort input.

Then, I can pick up a Pro Xbox for about $300.  I can’t see the advantage of the Elite except for the 120 GB hard drive (vs. 60 on the Pro).  Games are a bit more on the expensive side compared to the PC, but it’s probably all worth it not having to worry too much about endless installs, wasted hard drive space, and hardware-specific bugs.

So, I get an XBox Pro for about $300 and a 24 inch monitor for about $600, which is quite the savings over a massive PC upgrade.  But there’s one problem: sound.  Consoles are oriented towards those with dedicated 7.1 surround receivers to make it sound like a battle is being fought in the room.  I don’t have that — I would prefer to just plug in some headphones, but the Xbox doesn’t have a headphone jack.  This leaves me with three options, none of which I really care for:

1) Get a receiver.  My dad’s got an old receiver that could handle the analog AV from the Xbox.  I would really like to avoid this because it means yet another large piece of electronic junk sitting in my room.  Furthermore, it would do nothing except provide me with a headphone jack for my games.  This seems like a waste.

2) Connect the analog AV cables from the Xbox to a pair of headphones with some adapters.  This isn’t really a good option either since there is no way to control the volume.  I’ve heard of at least one person doing this and having it work, but as he said, there’s no volume control.  You’re just stuck at whatever volume the Xbox puts out.

3) Connect the analog AV cables to the line in on my Macbook.  I can also do this with some adapters and then plug the headphones into the Macbook and use the laptop as an amplifier.  I’m not sure how well this would work either in terms of losing signal clarity and whines from the laptop making their way into my headphones.  Also, I’m not even sure if the line in on the Macbook is stereo.  I really don’t care about surround on headphones, but I would at least like to have stereo.

At this point, the third option is probably the best bet, and if that doesn’t work, try the others.  I can’t seem to find many others on the Internet with this kind of setup.  Most who use a PC monitor with their console still connect their sound to a dedicated receiver or a powered set of PC speakers.

I’ll probably wind up doing more research before I settle on something.  Or, I might just forget it if it really looks like this won’t work.

Those days are over and I don’t think they are coming back.  Something happened when I started college that has really changed my interests in nearly everything.  I’m not sure what it was or exactly how it happened, but it seems to have been a slow, gradual process that probably completed its transformation by the time I finished undergrad.  I’m different now and I wish I knew why.

I want to play video games, but I just can’t get into it.  I’ve started playing stuff occasionally, such as the latest episodes of Half-Life 2 and Portal.  Those I finished because of their brevity, but longer stuff, like Call of Duty 4 and some recent RTS games I just started on, got stuck in one place and then just said: "screw it".  None of them are nearly as exciting as they would have been eight or ten years ago.  The most recent stuff that’s out there now would have been mind-blowing to me back then: the latest GTA, Fallout 3, and possibly Spore.  I would have spent most of my life playing them, but not anymore.

It appears as though I’m not the only one that this has happened to.  Some of the research says it’s to do with social networking; that everyone would rather play games with people they know rather than against unknown opponents online or a computer in single player.  I do notice a correlation between the time I spend on sites like Digg and Facebook and the decrease in time I spent playing games.  However, I still notice tons of people about my age and older that still play a fair amount: the assistants at PT talk occasionally about meeting up after work to play Halo, the physical therapist (in his 40s) even says he plays Madden on the weekends, my roomate plays plenty of PC games, and even my dad finished Crysis when I just dropped it after the zero-grav part.

In some ways, programming replaced the satisfaction I got from playing video games.  It’s better because I have complete control over the environment.  In video games, you are forced to live in the environment the developers create and play by their rules.  It’s like the first Matrix movie: why play by the rules when you can bend them or even create your own?  Why should I be restricted to use a shotgun to solve the problem of a developer-imagined monster when I can solve much more interesting problems of my own creation with tools of my own creation?  Yesterday, I spent all day thinking about a job-scheduling type scenario for wireless sensor networks.  Last night, I finally figured out a solution.  While the problem wasn’t entirely my doing, coming up with the solution was much more in-depth and satisfying than blasting the crap out of a few enemy soldiers with a C-130 in CoD 4.  And, my solution may not be the best.  My adviser or the other guys in our group may come back with some constructive criticism to help with a better answer.

Again, I would really like to get back into gaming.  Doing work can be satsifying, but it is also draining and it would be great to have some kind of release since I can’t run.  Some of the stuff that’s out there right now sounds like it could be fun, but I don’t even know if my PC can handle it.  Possibly, I’d have to upgrade the video card at the least, and of course that’s a slippery slope to just upgrade the whole desktop that’s been rusting under my desk.  It’s too loud when it’s on and generates a ton of heat, so there’s a massive incentive to figure out how to make the whole thing quieter.  Furthermore, I’ve only got one monitor that I use with my laptop, so I’d have to unplug it, the keyboard, and the headphones and put them all into the PC whenever I want to play anything.  There’s also the cost issue: right now I’ve got to save since my surgery/rehab is expensive.

Maybe I’ll try once again to get back into gaming, and maybe I won’t.  Maybe there will be another sea change that will shift my attitude and fun factor when I play, but I’m not so sure.

I can get going on some implementation of the system I am working on with my advisor (finally) so that we can move on to putting out a paper. If I don’t finish this, then I won’t ever get my M.S. The Theory of Computation class has some difficult NP-Complete reduction problems so while that will be difficult to get through, I don’t have to finish it right away. Looking at those problems a little bit every day is much better than staring at them for hours and getting nowhere.

Since I do have some free time, I got Call of Duty 4 through Steam. Though a lot of people complain about it, I really like the concept of Steam. There isn’t any rummaging through various B+M stores looking to see if they have what you want. There isn’t any annoying packaging and CD to insert everytime you want to play. There isn’t any CD to lose, either — you just redownload.

I’ve played through a portion of the game already in the past day since I downloaded it and so far, it’s been great. It’s very cinematic and the battles seem so out of control. A lot of the time I feel so helpless with stuff blowing up all over the place and bullets screaming by. At the same time, though, the game depends on you to get stuff done. The other soldiers you’re with won’t advance until you do, so you do have to make some kind of progress. If you don’t, they’ll just hang back and the enemies will continuously respawn in the same places. The linear aspect of the game is the only drawback (along with a pretty weak AI), but the action definitely makes it fun. I haven’t played the multiplayer yet, but I heard it’s great, which is one of the reasons I bought the game. With many games, the multiplayer is pretty bland, so I’ll finish the singleplayer and then leave the game to collect dust — four hours of gameplay isn’t really worth $50. But, a good multiplayer that allows hours of fun in addition to good singleplayer allows me to recoup my investment.

I also saw Into the Wild, which prompted me to buy the book. The movie reminded me of a few guys on the team that had a similar attitude as the main character. It would be great just to cut loose and forget about all the nuances of every day life, except this guy really did it. Christopher McCandless graduated college and decided to hitchhike, hop trains, kayak to Mexico, and live in a bus in the Alaskan wilderness. Unfortunately, he took it a little too far and starved to death. It seemed that he didn’t have much knowhow in terms of wilderness survival, or that maybe he wanted it to go that way. The movie (and maybe the book) got me thinking about what it would be like if I just up and left without telling anyone. To disappear into the great beyond with no real destination in mind. Forget sleeping in the same bed every day, going through the same old routine, going to class, eating the same bland food, and seeing the same things. Every day would bring something new and exciting. Of course, it wouldn’t be any walk in the park — things that I normally take for granted would suddenly become a huge problem, mainly food, shelter, and just general health kind of stuff.

The Colonial Relays were this weekend and I caught a little bit of the meet. A few of the guys who recently graduated came back and it was nice to see them. Most, like myself, are still in school, just somewhere else. It’s funny how removed I feel from practicing and competing despite still running every day from the locker room and seeing everybody that’s still here. At this point it’s difficult to imagine racing. Just running is an accomplishment at this point.

The semester is coming to a quick end — only 3 weeks and two labs left to TA. Hopefully I’ll finish everything successfully.

The real stick came from Newegg today and it seems to work well.

Following this link, I was able to downgrade my 2.6 firmware to 1.5 using the Lumines exploit (I had to buy a copy of Lumines, but it’s a good game).  Since I had neglected my PSP for so long, I had a relatively old firmware version that was easy to downgrade to 1.5.  So now I’m running M33 3.90 custom firmware.  This should allow me to experiment with homebrew applications while still being able to run the handful of games I’ve got.  I tried running a universal remote control homebrew app, but didn’t have much luck with it.  All of this custom stuff seems real finicky.

I found VisualHub, which allows me to encode videos in PSP format and I put on a few to see how it looks — very crisp image quality and good sound as well.  VisualHub allows you to increase the volume if the sound is too low.  A 45 minute TV episode takes about 250 megs, so with an 8 gig card, I’ve got space for plenty of shows to watch while I’m on the elliptical or somewhere with some down time.  Of course, I also trimmed my mp3 list to about 3.5 gig, so with that on there, the available space is nearly halved, but I should be okay spacewise.  SyncTunes allows me to transfer an iTunes playlist to my PSP without too much hassle.  It seems there are better programs out there for Windows, but I would rather keep everything on the Mac.

Hopefully I’ll have time to screw around more with the PSP, especially with homebrew.  There is a lot of interesting stuff out there for it, very little of which existed two years ago when I got my PSP and just kind of neglected it.  The universal remote just sounds funny — turning off anyone’s TV with your PSP.  There are all kinds of skins and themes and shells for the PSP as well and it would be interesting to write some of my own programs, if I had the time.

The memory stick for my PSP came by the time I got home this weekend and after a lot of screwing around, I was able to get a shareware program to encode videos so the PSP can play them. It’s really cool. With 8 gig and 45 minute TV shows taking up about 100-200 MB in the PSP format, I can pack the PSP with a ton of MP3s, videos, and movies to keep me occupied when I go back to school. I’ve also got several games for it which I could play if I’ve ever got some downtime somewhere, but that rarely happens anymore.

Looking up all the stuff for the PSP encoding led me to discover something else: PSP homebrew. The first PSP firmware allows the execution of 3rd party programs. There are a ton of third party games and programs out there that seem pretty cool for a handheld system. The only problem is that I don’t have the initial firmware installed, so it appears as though I have to downgrade the firmware I’ve got. Since I haven’t upgraded the firmware in two years since I’ve had the PSP, there are a few “relatively easy” downgrade hacks available.

Some of the stuff about downgrading and altering the firmware seems really complex. There are hardware mods to the battery, memory stick, and even PSP motherboard to get an older firmware version working. There are several save game buffer overflow exploits that have been used to execute third party code to get the older firmware running. I can’t believe how people figure this stuff out. It really goes to show that experience is more valuable than just straight up education. I’ve nearly got a master’s degree in Computer Science at this point and there’s no way I would figure out some of the hacks that these PSP hackers/developers have come up with. I want to screw around with this some more to see if I can get a hacked firmware on my PSP so I can use some of these third party applications. There are even IM clients for the PSP that people have written. I may actually have to scour a local Gamestop for a few older PSP games that have the savegame buffer overflow hack though.

I still think the handheld instustry needs some improvement. There are so many gadgets out there that perform one specific task, but none that do everything. If you want GPS navigation, you have to get a handheld solely for that. If you want a phone, you’ve got to carry a cell phone. If you want games, carry a PSP or DS. If you want Internet, you can get limited functionality on a phone, or better functionality if you are lucky enough to have a Blackberry or iPhone. You can carry around an XM receiver if you want to listen to a good selection of radio stations or an mp3 player if you want to listen to your own music. All of these things could be condensed into one gadget that does everything. The iPhone comes close, but it doesn’t have GPS and it doesn’t allow any third party applications. Maybe Google’s Android idea will allow something big. If the PSP had a touchscreen and cell phone capability (a GPS addon is already available), it would kick some serious butt. The touchscreen would make web browsing much easier than the cursor. I’ve heard rumors of a PSP phone, so things are moving in the right direction.

Once my PhD funding starts this summer I may purchase my own cell phone plan (I’m still leeching off my parents at this point). I’d like to get one with unlimited data and a cool handheld. Maybe by that point there will be an improved iPhone or something that uses Android or even that PSP phone.

Now I’m not sure what to do since I’ve never had an IT band injury before. I have had some soreness in the area previously, but it always moves up my leg over a few days and then goes away. I’ll probably take most of the week off completely and maybe try biking after a few days. I’ve heard that biking can bother the IT band so I don’t know if I’ll be doing that for long. I may be reduced to the pool if I want to do any exercise, but I’ll see. I hate the pool. I’ve heard so many horror stories about people with IT band pain that will never go away. They take months off and feel no pain, but as soon as they run a few minutes it comes right back. My sister had what was probably an IT band injury about the time we went back to school and I’ve seen her running since then, so long term suffering isn’t the case for everyone. I hope that’s not the case with me, but it seems that this is a hard injury to get over. I usually have a higher probability of getting screwed with stuff like this than the average person.

For the past few months I’ve been trying to train as I did in high school and college, but maybe this is the end. Maybe I just can’t do it anymore, but I have a hard time believing that.

The gastroenterologist said I don’t have Celiac disease, which means I can eat all the pasta, bread, and cereal I want without worrying that I’m hurting myself in some way. Not that I was surprised by this, but it’s good to know for sure. The tests indicated iron deficiency, and that was not a surprise. Despite taking a daily iron supplement, the crappy school food just isn’t enough. Their antics have nearly turned me into a vegetarian thanks to their terrible meats. I’m thinking I’ll switch back to cooking my own dinners again starting this summer.

The IBM/Lenovo T61 I ordered through the department came on Friday, which was faster than the original ship date. I’ve only messed around with it a little and took off as much of the crapware as I could. It seems to be a solid machine and weighs a lot less than you would think for its size (which isn’t very big). The Macbook is thinner but about the same dimensions otherwise and seems a fair amount heavier. Right now the new laptop is running XP, but I may install the TinyOS XUbuntu live CD so that I don’t have to screw with installing and configuring TinyOS. Now I’ve got four computers that I have regular access to and each seems suited to only a specific purpose. I wish I had something that did everything well. My Mac is great, but it has a crappy internal graphics card so I can’t play games very well with it. There are a lot of compatibility issues as well (problems with installing parts of TinyOS). My desktop is good for games, but that’s about it since I prefer using Linux/Mac for all my school work. My desktop in the office runs Linux, which is good for most school work, but I don’t have permissions to install any new programs and of course I can’t play any games on that machine, either. The new laptop has a stand alone graphics card but it’s probably not very good (Quadro 140M) and I’m supposed to be using it just for school anyways.

I’ve watched the first two episodes of Lost — the first one sucked but the last one was pretty good. It appears as though the writers are finally making an effort to move the story along. The last season was pretty stagnant. There are only a handful of completed episodes because of the strike, so I hope they are all good. I really don’t have an interest in any other TV shows right now.

I haven’t received my absentee ballot so I guess I won’t be voting in the primary on Tuesday. I would have to mail it by tomorrow for it to get to the registrar in time.

I’ve also looked at apartments for this summer and beyond. I’ve about had it with roommates and living in the graduate complex. These past two years I have had terrible roommates that I either don’t get along with or are complete slobs and leave trash everywhere (or both). On top of that are the maintenance people who seem to have weekly intrusions into the apartment to inspect something. They also drive around the courtyard in their vans like it’s the Daytona 500. Then they get out and bang away all day with saws and hammers and leaf blowers. It’s time to put a stop to that. Unfortunately, the offerings are pretty limited if you want something that’s one bedroom. My other requirement is laundry facilities. No way in heck am I going to a laundromat. So, with those two criteria, I found a few places that seem to start at around $700 – $900 per month. With my meager PhD stipend, I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford that. All of the places aren’t exactly close to campus, either, so I would definitely have to drive in every day, but it isn’t too much different from what I’m doing now.

So the planets have come out of alignment and there is a disturbance in the force. All is not well, but I will have to accept things for what they are and do the best I can until (hopefully) they improve.

My PhD adviser wanted me to start working on his research as soon as I got back, which seemed like it would get in the way with my classes and my other Master’s project. However, since I hadn’t done that much on my Master’s project, I switched my project to working with him. There was a lot of shuffling around involved with that, but it’s all taken care of now. My course project for Wireless Networks and Master’s project will now be one and the same, which will make life a lot simpler and allow me to focus on just a few things. The project entails data aggregation and dissemination among nodes in a mobile wireless sensor network. It should be interesting, but it will probably be hard and my adviser seems to have really high expectations while I feel over my head. I have a ton of papers to read for work related to my project and have to give a report to my adviser by Monday.

The only thing is that I might not finish with the project by the end of March, which is when everything is due if I am to get my Master’s degree in May. But now, it doesn’t matter as much if I get it in the summer since I’ll still be in school. As it is, I’ll be spending the summer in Williamsburg doing school work anyways. Since it looks like I’ll be in Williamsburg for awhile, I’m really thinking about getting an apartment by myself and getting rid of the school meal plan. I’ve had enough of the whole institutionalized lifestyle.

My advisor let me pick out a laptop and order it through the department so I can have something to use for TinyOS development. I’m surprised he let me do that. Not only that but he just handed me $500 worth of motes to screw around with. I guess it’s nice having funding. With respect to the laptop, nesC and TinyOS have trouble with Macs because some Java USB/serial communication libraries aren’t implemented for them. So, I can’t use my Mac. I’ve got a desktop with Windows on it that I use for games (when I’ve got time) and I also used last year for this, but I can’t bring that into the office to do work, so my advisor just cut me loose on the IBM/Lenovo website. If they ordered what I spec’d out, I’ll be getting an X61 with a 14 inch widescreen and XP instead of Vista. It comes with the new Intel Santa Rosa platform too. The 14 inch seems like it is the best combination of performance and size and I’ve heard nothing but good things about IBM and Lenovo. I like my Macbook too, but for a Windows computer, this would probably be my first choice.

Classes are all at weird times this semester. I have Theory of Computation at 3PM on Mondays and Wednesdays, which is when practice starts. That class is a normal lecture/homework type and hopefully it won’t be too hard. My Wireless Networking class with my adviser is on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the morning, which is the first time I’ve had a morning class in awhile. That gives me Friday off, which is nice, but Thursdays suck — my TA assignment is to conduct two intro Java labs back to back from 1-5. With class in the morning that doesn’t leave me with much free time. I also have to meet with my adviser once a week after class on Tuesday. So things are a lot more than the usual go to class, sit through a lecture, and do the homework. I’ve got a big project to work on, meetings, and two labs to administer.

The labs on Thursday were interesting — I had to play teacher for four hours. Being an intro programming class, some of them are going to have trouble later on. The lab consisted of just setting up the Eclipse IDE and copying a hellow world program to a file and running it. A lot of people had to be spoon fed stuff and were asking for help on seemingly simple things, like finding a configuration setting in a preferences menu. To learn to program, you have to absorb the material on your own. It’s not something that you can memorize or have someone tell you how to do it. When they start doing actual programming, some are really going to have trouble, so it’s going to be up to me to help them through it.

One of the guys in the lab knew my sister from somewhere, which was interesting. He said I looked like her. I never get that. When I’m somewhere with Katie, I’ve had people think she was my girlfriend. Conversely, when I’m with my girlfriend, I’ve had people think she was my sister. Weird. Also, Sarah asked me after the labs last night if the lab students addressed me by last name. None of them did — it was all first name. I just wrote my whole name on the board and didn’t say anything about how I wanted to be addressed. I then commented to Sarah that the students were all the same ages as everyone on the team that I associate with and we have a more or less peer to peer relationship. But then as I’m running through campus this morning one of my teammates walking the other way addresses me as “mister”. Then I realize he and several other guys do that on a fairly regular basis. I never really thought about it before.

I’ve been running at weird times too, sometimes just before class on Monday and Wednesday. Yesterday I got up before dawn so I could be finished before class. That was the earliest I’ve been up to run since the summer. I won’t be able to go to practice much because of my schedule and the work I have, which sucks, but that’s how it goes. I really enjoy going and when I’m in a bad mood seeing everyone makes me feel better. I walk into the locker room and everyone says hi and there’s always some interesting stories someone has to tell. It’s like a scene out of Cheers. Unfortunately, most everyone in the department just sits in the office all day and works. Not many people in there get out much.

I did get to hang out with everyone last weekend since Jason came down from VCU. It was nice seeing him and we went out to dinner on two nights. On the first night we went to Bruster’s afterwards for ice cream and I got this fudge cheesecake flavor that was arguably the best ice cream flavor I’ve ever had. Usually I complain about chocolate stuff being too weak — especially chocolate milk and chocolate ice cream. This flavor was what I think chocolate ice cream should taste like. It had a ton of chocolate in it. Lately I’ve been craving ice cream a lot for some reason. I can only handle it about once a week and it’s only worth getting if it’s good, such as it is at Bruster’s. I would probably get it every week too if I could find someone to go with.

The other night Jason and I went out to a pizza place just down the street from the gradplex, in Colonial Williamsburg. I had never been there before and I don’t plan on going back. We split a supreme and got two drinks and it was pretty crappy for $12 from each of us. It was small and had almost no substance to it. Even a regular chain place would have been better (and cheaper) than that. A bunch of other guys on the team showed up along with some recruits. Seeing the recruits really made me feel distanced from everyone. They didn’t seem very old at all.

It seems everything has really shifted focus from putting equal weight on school and track/cross country to shifting focus to school. Seeing everyone at dinner that night made me realize how much things are changing. It’s a bunch of small changes that have taken place incrementally over time and now they are adding up. I’m not who I was a year ago, and especially not two or three years ago, even though I go to the same school and even see some of the same people every day. I don’t mind these changes, in fact, I welcome them, for it’s time to accomplish something new in my life. Hopefully I can do that by pursuing a PhD.

The weather has really been getting to me, but this is the worst time of the year. Last week it rained and snowed and was freezing cold. This week it’s just freezing cold. Either the cold has been worse than normal or I’m just getting weak — I can’t tell which. I’ve had several nosebleeds thanks to the dry air and my legs are tightening up on my runs. I strained my calf last week in the cold and crappy rain and then this morning about six minutes in something in my knee popped. It was so violent it sounded like someone shooting a cap gun. The rest of my run it felt like something was out of alignment in my knee and now it’s still clicking and grinding. It hurts too. I’m hoping I’ll be okay running tomorrow, but I don’t know. I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams. I haven’t been able to work out since I’ve been such a mess, so I’ll be taking it easy until I feel better.

I came home today since my doctor had a suspicion that I might have the dreaded Celiac Disease and wanted me to see a specialist. It seems they come up with diseases just so the drug companies can sell a drug for them, but not the case with Celiac (yet). It does seem kind of bogus, though. Basically, it’s an allergic reaction to wheat products, which basically means everything. It essentially means if I have it that I am supposed to go on the near equivalent of the Atkins diet. I guess some grains are okay, like oats and rice and I can still eat potatoes without problems, but I can’t see myself giving up stuff like pasta, cereal, and bread. I live on stuff like that. Now I’ve got to get a blood test done to see exactly what’s up. It will be nice to be home for a little again even though I just left. The weekends can get boring out at the gradplex. I really should try to make an effort to find some people in my department that share similar interests and want to do stuff. It’s hard to do that being an introverted computer science type. Like I said before, there’s a gap forming between myself and everyone on the team, and it isn’t just age.

So now I’ve got my work cut out for me: a Theory of Computation assignment, a handful of papers to read and comment on, and some intro labs to grade. The lab grading could be a pain since I’ve got to go through and run 30 students’ programs and look at their code. I have to give them feedback too. I could try automating it with some kind of test script, but it will probably be more trouble than it’s worth. The people at NASA also just handed me some last minute requests, but I’ve got no time for that now. I feel bad telling them that I can’t get to their requests, but that’s how it goes. Now it’s off for me to be a researcher this weekend.

There were some bugs in the gridding software I am using for my Master’s project which kept me stuck for the past week and a half. Now that the issues have been worked out, it’s still slow going. The more I get done the more likely I will graduate (or more appropriately, the sooner I will get my Master’s degree). I also got handed a bunch of papers by my to-be PhD adviser so I have to finish those by the time school starts next week. On top of all that, there are a bunch of things that NASA Ames wants implemented. I finish up with Ames at the end of the month regardless, but I should be able to handle their requests.

It looks like I’ll be a part time TA this semester too so that will add more stuff for me to handle. I think it’s going to be a rough semester, one that will either make me or break me. I’m going to have to make a good effort not to waste time since I tend to screw around on the Internet sometimes when I should be doing work (like now). I probably won’t be able to go to practice much due to my class times and work load, but it would be nice. Actually, at this point, I just hope I can continue to train as I have during previous semesters. I’ve got to have some kind of release since I’m not big on the social scene sort of things.

If things turn out well, my RA stuff will start in the summer, which is probably good. First, I won’t have to get another summer internship and deal with looking for places that will take me. Second, I’ll be able to get a head start on my PhD research which is also a good thing. The downside is that I’ll most likely be in Williamsburg in the summer, which is a lifeless, bug-infested jungle. I’ll probably be able to come home a lot since I won’t have classes, but I’ll have plenty of stuff to do from my advisor, I’m sure. At this point, I think I would like to try to find my own apartment so I won’t have to deal with roommates making a mess of things. Living in the graduate complex is getting old and it still has a bit of a dorm atmosphere to it. Regardless, that’s about number 4000 on the things I have to do this semester and I’m on number 6.

The replacements for my failing equipment came this week. The watch arrived yesterday and unlike the first, actually worked. There isn’t much to say about it except that it does what I want it to do. It’s better than the last one since the numbers are larger and easier to read when running. Also, I can make the primary display show the lap split and not the total running time. I’ve had a few watches that only show the total running time in the primary display for the chronograph, which seems pointless. The whole purpose of the lap/split feature is for interval type training. When you use it, you want to see the time of your current interval, not the total running time. Anyways, that’s definitely a plus with the new watch. Unlike my last watch, you can’t set the year, so I’m wondering what happens on leap years. I’m guessing it will have to be reset.

Frustrated with the intermittent R key on the Saitek Eclipse 2, I broke down and ordered the new Apple wired keyboard from Newegg. I looked at the Razer Lycoza, mentioned by , but most reviews said it was too expensive for what you got. Apparently the back lighting is weak and you can’t read the keys without it on, either. If the lighting was better, I might have gone for it. It then came down between the Apple wired and wireless keyboards. The wireless was more expensive and I would have to get a Bluetooth adapter for my Windows computer so I could use it with that. That would effectively double the price over the wired version. Plus, the wired version has a full set of keys since I use Delete, Home, End, and sometimes the keypad when programming.

The keyboard came an hour ago and plugging it in gave me an excuse to pound out this entry. Two things right off the bat — the cord is really short, less than three feet long. It comes with a small extension cable, but together it still isn’t very long and barely reaches behind my desk to connect with the computer. I have a 10 foot USB extension cable at school I can use if I really need it. The other thing is that it has two USB ports, which won’t power my mouse. They are both low power ports. I’m not sure what USB devices are low power anymore. Maybe something with its own internal power supply, like a camera.

With that aside, the keyboard is definitely good. It’s really compact, even smaller than the Saitek Eclipse 2. It’s also well made — very heavy and not flimsy at all. Since it has such a low profile, there isn’t a need for a wrist pad, which really helps. The keys have a bit more feedback than the Macbook, but have a similar feel to most laptop keyboards. They are spaced out a bit more than a normal keyboard which causes me to mistype occasionally, but it’s something I can get used to in time. And, of course, the R key works. Compared to a regular keyboard, I feel I can type faster on this since I don’t have to slam down my fingers to make every keystroke register. I have yet to try it out in any games, but I can’t see it being any different than playing games on a laptop. It seems that many hardcore gamers are using laptop style keyboards nowadays anyway.

Another weird thing I just noticed — my Dell LCD seems to have experienced some burn in since I’ve plugged it into the Macbook. The Apple menu bar is slightly visible during the boot sequence. Doing some reading suggests that it can be removed by running an all-white screen as a screensaver. The 2001FP is another “older” piece of equipment I’ve got that hopefully won’t break down anytime soon like my keyboard or watch. I would like to get a massive 1080P TV/monitor to use with my computer or even the new Dell 30 inch display. Those would be great for games and for displaying a ton of junk on the screen at once when I’m working. Unfortunately, monitors that big aren’t conducive to someone in my situation who moves back and forth to school every few months (and likely will for awhile).

The weather has been weird again lately, with it being very warm and windy. Each day the forecast is for the cold to return, but it never really does. It’s been good for running, but I’m sure it will be back to cold and nasty rain just in time for school to start next week.

I also saw No Country for Old Men this week, which was definitely the best movie I’ve seen all year with the exception of the ending. The bad guy gets away after killing all but one of the good guys. There isn’t any final showdown, either — each character dies in a different scene without putting up much of a fight. The one guy you want to win dies a quick death offscreen while the one good character left stops chasing the bad guy simply because he just doesn’t care anymore. The first three quarters were great though, a couple of street smart rednecks barely outsmarting a cool and calculated hit man. There were plenty of tense moments mixed in with slower paced character and setting building scenes. The atmosphere and dialog were great and reminded me a lot of the driving out west this summer.

Well, back to work some more before it gets any later.