Omphaloskepsis  -

+ 0 - 4 | § ¶Adventures at the DMV

Today I went into the DMV to renew my license plate sticker.

I got in shortly before 9am, went through the line for about twenty minutes, gave them my check (already filled out with the information provided on the wall... if only everybody had read that) and the form that came in the mail, and got my new sticker. Total time: About twenty and a half minutes.

It was fairly boring, actually. There was no frustration at having to wait for a long time, no big to-dos about having paperwork, no crying baby to bother everyone in the area. In fact, about the only annoyance, and it's a small one at that, is that the DMV wasn't open Monday when I stopped by, so I had to try again today.

davidh

+ 7 - 11 | § ¶NaShoStoWriMo, Final Entry

[Final word, spoiler warning]

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+ 2 - 2 | § ¶My Upcoming Week, Nov. 29-Dec. 5

Monday

Work

7th Heaven

Everwood

CSI: Miami: "Pirated"

Tuesday

Work

NCIS: "Heart Break"

Listening to WRBU (DJ Roo's Funtime Hours)

Wednesday

Work

Lunch with Kevin G. and Susan

Smallville: "Scare"

The West Wing: "A Change is Gonna Come"

CSI: NY: "Officer Blue"

Psi Phi meeting (includes nominations)

Thursday

Work

Survivor

Friday

Work

Star Trek: Enterprise: "Kir'Shara"

Saturday

No particular plans

Sunday

Church

"The Librarian: Quest for the Spear" on TNT

Updating two weeks ago's trip entries and coming up with the last two NaShoStoWriMo entries are (still) omitted from this list.

davidh

+ 4 - 0 | § ¶Wednesday addition, Thanksgiving events

Some interesting events from Wednesday, post-panic, and my fun, fun Thanksgiving Day. . . (more)

+ 2 - 2 | § ¶Happy Thanksgiving

A few of the things I'm thankful for. . . (more)

+ 1 - 3 | § ¶Panic!

Two points of panic this morning. . . (more)

+ 3 - 1 | § ¶Birthday time

Another year, another birthday. Let's see what happened on Fibonacci Day*, 2004. . . (more)

+ 2 - 2 | § ¶My Upcoming Week, Nov. 22-28

Monday

Work, staying late to get things started, and taking the bus to and from

CSI: Miami: "Pirated"

Tuesday

Probably picking up my car

Work

NCIS: "Call of Silence"

Family coming over for my birthday

Wednesday

Work

The West Wing: "The Dover Test"

CSI: NY: "Three Generations are Enough"

Thursday

Heading over to Bloomington/Normal for Thanksgiving

Survivor

CSI: CSI: "Mea Culpa"

Friday

Joan of Arcadia: "The Book of Questions"

Star Trek: Enterprise: "Awakening" (tape delay)

JAG: "There Goes the Neighborhood"

20/20: "A Murder in Laramie: The Mystery and the Myth"

Saturday

No particular plans

Sunday

Trip to Iowa to see Marty

Updating last week's trip entries and coming up with new NaShoStoWriMo entries are omitted from this list.

davidh

+ 2 - 2 | § ¶[Placeholder] 11/20

[This entry and the three below will be filled in starting Sunday. They will contain interesting details about my trip through four new-to-me states, a visit to a big ship, trying some new foods, jumping into foam bricks, crashing cars (in video games), and, of course, Aaron's wedding. Stay tuned!]

+ 3 - 1 | § ¶[Placeholder] 11/19

+ 1 - 3 | § ¶Alabama trip 2/4: Preparation and Prelude

[In progress... please ignore for the moment.]

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+ 1 - 2 | § ¶Alabama trip 1/4: The way down

In this travelogue, I will provide access to my original notes, using the "-Show-" link above each section. (This should work in Mozilla and IE; presumably, it will also work in other standards-compliant browsers.) Some items, such as phone numbers, last names, addresses, and so on, may be removed for security purposes.

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+ 1 - 3 | § ¶I'm off!

See ya Sunday!

---
Update 11:42pm Wednesday -- I have arrived safely in Mobile, AL!

davidh

+ 4 - 0 | § ¶Caffeine addendum

I suppose I shouldn't have considered the experiment over, just because the time period was up. . . (more)

+ 1 - 3 | § ¶Caffeine experiment results

After 168 hours of caffeine-free-ness, how did things go? Let's see. . . (more)

+ 1 - 3 | § ¶Entertainment, Food, and Wedding Prep

Several things happened on Saturday; a few happened on Sunday...

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+ 3 - 1 | § ¶Another wacky dream

What I can remember of my dream, the morning of November 14, 2004. . . (more)

+ 3 - 1 | § ¶My Upcoming Week, Nov. 15-21

Monday

Work

Water meter replacement

7th Heaven

Everwood

CSI: Miami: "Speed Kills"

Tuesday

Work

NCIS: "Terminal Leave"

Pack

E-mail Kristen notes for the Psi Phi meeting

Take garbage out

Program VCR for next few days

To bed early

Wednesday

Up early

Drop car off at repair shop

Ed, Nick, and Chuck pick me up at repair shop

Leave for Mobile

Thursday

Bachelor party

Rehearsal

Friday

Many fun things

Aaron and Melissa wed

Saturday

Travel back to Peoria

On videotape

Wednesday

Smallville: "Bound" (tape)

The West Wing: "The Hubbert Peak" (tape)

CSI: NY: "Rain" (tape)

Thursday

Survivor (tape)

CSI: CSI: "Ch-Ch-Changes" (tape)

Friday

Joan of Arcadia: "No Future"

JAG: "Camp Delta"

Saturday

No particular TV plans (unless ABC schedules another Lost marathon, in which case I will miss it)

Sunday

Church (depending on what time we get back Saturday night)

Watching the tape

Star Trek: Enterprise: "The Forge" (repeat)

Boston Legal

Let's see how this goes.

davidh

+ 3 - 1 | § ¶Caffeine update: Hour 123

I woke up with a small headache Thursday morning. This might or might not be connected to the caffeine deprivation experiment; I get seemingly random headaches from time to time even at a usual caffeine level. After taking a couple Tylenol, I was fine for the rest of the day.

Friday morning, I woke up with the feeling that I usually get shortly before I get a headache, but it went away on its own, with no acetaminophenic intervention. While having two headache-like events in two days may be telling, I find it more likely that this one was caused by being woken up much earlier than usual, so that I could be ready when the insurance guy stopped by to look at my car. Still, if I get another one when I wake up Saturday morning (or afternoon), I would be forced to conclude there is some sort of pattern.

Speaking of which, I'll be dropping my car off at a repair shop early Wednesday morning, just before the guys and I leave for Alabama. This will allow them to work on the repairs with a minimum of disruption to me. The insurance guy estimated that they may take four days to fix everything, which would still leave me carless on Monday. But I rode CityLink for almost four years (though it was known as "Greater Peoria Transit" for most of that time) before I bought this car (my first car, BTW), so if it's not finished by the time I return, I'll just have to go back to my old ways for a while.

davidh

+ 1 - 3 | § ¶Busy as a bee

The next few weeks are full of interesting things for me. . . (more)

+ 2 - 2 | § ¶Veterans Day

To all U.S. veterans, from the Army to the Coast Guard, the Air Force to the Navy, the National Guard to the Marines, and the Reserves for all branches:

Thank you for your service.

Happy Veterans Day

davidh

+ 3 - 1 | § ¶Caffeine update: Hour 63

Doing fine so far. Woke up about an hour earlier this morning than usual, despite going to bed at about the same time. Might or might not be related. No noticeable side-effects thus far.

Only 105 hours left until I can drink caffeine again. More like 115 until I actually do. :-)

davidh

+ 2 - 2 | § ¶Caffeine, zwei, drei, vier...

I'm going to attempt to go caffeine-free this week (Monday-Sunday), just as an experiment, to see if/how my sleep cycle and attention span change as a result. I fully plan and intend to resume drinking Pepsi next Monday.

davidh

+ 4 - 0 | § ¶My Upcoming Week, Nov. 8-14

Monday

Work

CSI: Miami: "Crime Wave" (90 minutes, 8:30-10:00)

Tuesday

Work

No particular TV plans

Listening to WRBU (DJ Roo's Funtime Hours)

Wednesday

Work

Smallville: "Spell"

The West Wing: "Liftoff"

CSI: NY: "Outside Man"

Psi Phi meeting

Thursday

Work

Drew Carey's Green Screen Show

CSI: CSI: "Formalities"

Friday

Work

Joan of Arcadia: "Friday Night"

Star Trek: Enterprise: "The Augments" (with Brent Spiner) (tape delay)

JAG: "One Big Boat"

Saturday

Work

No particular TV plans

Sunday

Church

No particular TV plans

Plans are tentative and subject to change.

davidh

+ 3 - 1 | § ¶An old-fashioned cookout

Saturday, a group of us went out to Marisa's parents' place, with the intention of cooking out and stargazing. . . (more)

+ 0 - 4 | § ¶Okay, that's it...

A flash control on cnn.com crashed IE, which in turn crashed my entire computer, and that's the last straw. I'm getting a new computer.

My current computer is about six years old. For the first few years, it ran very nicely... I could leave it running for weeks or even months at a time without rebooting. But over time, as I've loaded various software on the machine, it has had more and more problems. I can't run "The Sims" anymore (it takes about twenty minutes to start up, and that's only if I'm not running anything else at the same time). If I open Windows Media Player when Mozilla, Netscape, or Firefox are running, the browser slows to a crawl, even after I close WMP, even if I exit the browser and restart it, until the next time I restart Windows. That has caused me to use IE more frequently (since I don't want to restart every time Netscape slows down), and since I so rarely used it for the first few years, I didn't have all of the security patches and settings, and I got infected with ActiveX-ware. (I think it's all gone now, but maybe some remnants remain.) And there are other various problems that have crept up over time.

Plus, my computer, even in its undiminished state, wouldn't have enough power to run many newer programs. Sure, I suppose I could add more RAM, get a new processor, and make other assorted upgrades, but I think it would just be easier to buy something new.

However...

Since I haven't bought a new computer (or parts, other than a couple of peripherals) over the past six years, I'm really out of touch in terms of what sort of minimum requirements are necessary, what brands are good or bad, who has competitive prices, and so on. So I'm seeking input on what people's experience has been in buying computers recently: Did you buy a computer that didn't function as well as it should? Does some company have great tech support? Did a retailer try to rip you off on upgrades? How much memory is needed to run modern-day programs?

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,
davidh

+ 0 - 4 | § ¶Mission Accomplished

At shortly before 10am, I voted.

I will not comment on any specifics, even privately, but here is the breakdown of my votes: Among people, 6 Republican (1 of which was uncontested), 4 Democrat (2 uncontested), 1 Libertarian; among questions, 3 Yes, 0 No.

Okay, so if you know what the questions were, you know three of my votes. Or six, along with the uncontesteds. But that still leaves eight unknowns.

davidh

[Added for clarification: In the above totals, I count President & Vice President as one vote, not two.]

+ 3 - 1 | § ¶NaShoStoWriMo

So a whole bunch of the folks on my LiveJournal friends list are doing this "NaNoWriMo" thing... National Novel Writing Month, where they dedicate themselves to writing a whole novel during the month of November. Interesting idea, but I know I don't have a novel in me.

But I was thinking, why not try a variation on it? A thirty-word story, made up one word at a time. So this will be my National Short Story Writing Month, or "NaShoStoWriMo" for unweildily short. I will try, each day, to write one new word in this short story. I have a general idea of the first three words, but I'm open to new ideas as the days go by, so I have no idea where this story will end up. Perhaps there will be drama and humor; perhaps there will be sadness and joy; perhaps I will come up with something which makes no sense at all. But I'm going to try.

"Suddenly"

See, right there I've set some expectations: You know that this is a moment of change.

davidh