Category Archives: Personal

Personal things.

Winter Carnival

Posted on by
Reply

So besides dealing with a broken laptop, what else have I been up to?

Well, last weekend was Winter Carnival, Michigan Tech’s annual celebration of snow and alcohol. Melissa came up to see me, my brother Scott was in town and I got to see a few other people that I rarely get to spend time with.

The snow statues this year weren’t as good as normal, but I do have a few pictures to share:

Troy

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Medieval Castle

You can find the rest of them on flickr.

Saturday Melissa, Scott, his fiance Sarah and I went to Carrousel Winery a local winery that opened about 8 months ago to order wine for Scott and Sarah’s wedding. We did some wine testing and they ordered a batch of 6 gallons (about 30 bottles) for the wedding. Of course, I walked away with 5 bottles for myself (and I’m sure I’ll go back for more again). I think I’d like to get into wine making some day, it looks like a lot of fun (and fairly easy to do).

Saturday evening there were fireworks, and even though they started early, I managed to get a few photos that turned out pretty well.

Winter Carnival Fireworks-2007-9

And that was pretty much the last of my fun. School is kicking my butt this semester and I desperately need a break (which I wont’ get for another… 3 weeks or so). Ah well, life marches on.

Apple iBook G4 Woes

Posted on by
10

I’ve had an Apple iBook G4 for almost 3 years now and most of the time, I like it. At 1GHz, it’s slow, especially when I try to use Photoshop CS2 and Camera Raw. I don’t have many major complaints though.

Well… technically I only have 1 major complaint. The build quality is less than optimal. And by less than optimal I mean that over the past three years, it has gone back to Apple for:

  • a hard drive,
  • 2 slot loading CD drives,
  • a bezel replacement as it was chipped while having a slot loader replaced,
  • and now, another new hard drive.

    • That’s not to mention the batteries I had to have replaced (Sony’s fault) and the 2 power adapters I had to replace. I honestly don’t understand it, I practically treat this thing with kid gloves. I’ve got a messenger bag it travels in and a padded neoprene sleeve for putting it in my backpack.

    Honestly, I’m getting sick of it. Apple’s design choices don’t help the issue either. The construction isn’t modular or user serviceable at all. The hard drive dies, it gets shipped to Apple. The slot-loader dies with a CD that won’t eject, it gets shipped to Apple. How can this be economical when they pay overnight shipping each way?

    Whatever, my next laptop probably won’t be a Mac. I want something I can use without having to mail it off twice a year to get something fixed.

    Day 65 - Broken Laptop

    Where did the last three weeks go?

    Posted on by
    1

    School is starting tomorrow, so I figured I should do a recap of my fantastic break.

    The first week involved bouncing back and forth between my parents’ place and East Lansing (where Melissa lives). Melissa and I then headed to Houghton for New Years and I spent the week showing her the local sites.

    Day 15

    Day 21 - Happy New Years!

    Hungarian Falls-2006-7

    She headed home on the 6th, and I spent the next week substitute teaching in one of the local schools. I got to make my own lesson plans and write my own tests, so that was absolutely incredible. The kids were great, I can’t believe they paid me for it.

    Day 32 - Teaching

    Wow… it’s amazing how quickly I can distill three weeks of my life into a couple paragraphs.

    P.S. I’m still going strong on my 365 Days project at Day 36.

    School is winding down

    Posted on by
    2

    Now that the semester is coming to a close, I’ve got time to breathe again and consequently, take some pictures.

    Tim and I got out the other night to shoot a couple pictures of Houghton’s lift bridge. A couple nights later, we headed out to a remote area of the Keweenaw called Misery Bay to take photos of the Northern Lights.

    While we didn’t get to see them, we did take the time to shoot some star trails. Unfortunately, the heat from the CCD (image sensor) in my DSLR showed up on the images I took, effectively ruining them (I’m going to see what I can do with cropping so that I have something to show for the trip). It was still really good time and we’re going to try to get back out once this cloud cover lifts.

    Lift Bridge - 11 December 2006 - 2