All Caught Up, But Not For Long
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A Box of Glass
I received a box of glass this week at work. My plan was to go test it out yesterday, but I was plum wore out. I think I took two naps during the day and went to bed around 2230ish after having passed out laying on my futon for some time. This school schedule is exhausting.
I have done nothing productive since I left work Friday, but I did manage to get through the last two discs of Season One of LIfe Friday night. (There's only three discs to that particular season.)
Oddly enough, I felt like writing code yesterday. I mean, I nearly sat down and coded something for the fun of it. Part of this stems from the fact that Disk Inventory X is still running in PPC mode but is open source. I wanted to see if I could convert it to 64bit x86, but I know I'm not anywhere near that yet. And, of course, I don't have that kind of time on my hands. But it would be a good way to learn how to program for the OS X platform.
I've also been stricken with cabin fever. I want to travel the world and want this badly. Unfortunately, time and money are working against me in this endeavor. I skipped Early Morning Service today so I could go read either in the park or the library. I'm thinking about heading to the park with my photog gear as well as my Kindle and iTom so I can read both Chemistry and History and be out and about while at the same time, I can experiment with both my new glass and potentially start to shoot for class.
New b0x3n
miniMax0r is starting to show its age. I will have bought miniMax0r four years ago this October. While it runs fine, it does its best when you only run one thing at a time. (Or nearly that.) It doesn't really like to run iPhoto, especially when I've got Safari loaded down with 30+ tabs, iTunes, Twitter, and a couple of text editors running.
Looking at Activity Monitor, I can see that I'm using up all of my memory to the point where only double or single digit MBs remain. This is without running Xcode, something i know I'm going to want to do before year's end.
Worse case scenario, I could always code on m0bil30n3. Now, it may seem strange to code on a laptop that has the same speed processor and the same amount of memory, but I usually only run one thing at a time when I use m0bil30n3, and m0bil30n3 runs DDR3 RAM whereas miniMax0r runs only DDR2.
As a side project for something I had to do for work, I discovered that I can still get memory for miniMax0r. When I was sold miniMax0r, it could only be upgraded to 2GB, but that was in part due to the fact that my model ran Tiger when it was on the shelf. Since I'm now running a 64bit OS, it can take full advantage of 4GB.
I priced some memory on New Egg. $50-$60 for the kit. (2 x 2GB DDR2).
Now, I've been longing for a Core i7 27" iMac with 8GB of memory. This will cost $2775 tax and all. I don't have that kind of money and don't think I'll likely raise that kind of money this year (or frankly next year, but that's a horse of another color.)
I looked at tricking out one of the new Mac Minis, but that would cost $1500.
I don't think that Apple won't upgrade miniMax0r because it's too old. Even if they would, I'm betting it's going to be more expensive. Tearing apart this particular generation of mini requires dexterity and patience that I simply do not posses. (I'm Zenish, but not Zen.) Therefore, I called Mac Resource. They said they could upgrade the memory for me for $216 all in. They way they priced the job to me, it sounded like the hardware was $100/stick but the labor was free. Of course, we all know there's no such thing as free, but I'm going to hold them to this as soon as I file my taxes and get my return back.
The thought here is that I will have a livable machine for at least another year provided I don't run out of disk space (more on that in a minute) but I won't have to spend too much do ri me. It's worth every penny to me to have someone that knows what they're doing to perform the upgrade in my stead. The thought is that next year, after all of the bills are paid off, I ought to be able to come up with the cash or at least enough to justify the remainder which will have to be borrowed against.
I also want to get rid of m0bil30n3 and replace it with an Mac Book Air. Right now, m0bil30n3 doesn't feel so bad, but there are some days when it feels like a ton of bricks. Quite frankly, ever since iTom became part of my life, the only time I've used m0bil30n3 is times like now: when I want to write. As I haven't done any writing because it isn't required for my coursework and I have no time for meditation (though I'm taking the time right now to stay Zenish) m0bil30n3 has spent a lot of time off recently. It's tempting to sell m0bil30n3, but I have to remember that I don't really own iTom.
This fact was made apparent to me this week when I was told that Sales wanted to take iTom to a conference leaving Monday and returning late Thursday. While I can live without iTom, I'd rather not. It serves as my textbook, my internet browser, my feed reader, and provides a mild source of entertainment.
I did call Apple and confirm that I had the correct plan in mind for lending iTom out, but I'm not happy with the procedure.
- Make a backup here at home where I'm syncing iTom.
- Restore iTom to factory defaults on another machine.
- Lend iTom out and suffer withdrawal symptoms.
- Get iTom back and restore again.
- Take iTom home and do NOT let it sync automatically. Instead, restore the backup made in step 1.
- Because iOS backups only backup data and not media (read apps, photos, video, audio, books) recommit all of these items to iTom.
Thankfully, I was able to get out of it this time and the COO explained the situation to Sales. I would have let iTom go if I had to, but I'm glad I wasn't required. I think I will be required to do so soon and very soon, but I'm praying that day never comes. In the meantime, I've already decided that it might be a good idea to make an iPad 2 my birthday or Christmas present to myself.
Caught Up, But Not For Long
When I went to class Thursday night, I was all caught up with all of my assignments, but of course, I was given more.
I'm still waiting for the grade to the Photography test I took Thursday to get posted. Because I've been focusing solely on Chemistry, I'm afraid that when I got home Tuesday night after meeting my tutor after class, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I tried to read the book, but I just couldn't. I don't think I did very well on the test, but anything higher than an 85 will make me happy.
As for History, that's exactly what I made on my first test. Quite frankly, I'm dismayed because I think I did more to prep for that test than I did for any of the tests last semester. Oh well. If I make a 90 on the remaining two tests, I'll earn an 88 overall. Translation: miss less than 10 questions collectively on the remaining tests and I will earn an A.
Chemistry, on the other hand, is still very much up in the air. I turned in a lab from last week Thursday night. The entire class was afforded this privilege because of the test we had on the previous Thursday night. Since we didn't have lab after the test, we were given a week to complete the lab at home. (This lab didn't require any chemical reactions, just a study of bonding.)
This Thursday, in addition to turning in the two week-old lab, we performed two labs in the lab. Thus, I waiting for the three lab grades plus the homework grade to get posted to hopefully bolster my confidence.
Working with the tutor has helped, but I do wish that I could get a second session a week in with him. I'm caught up now, but of course I haven't started on what's due Tuesday night. I'll likely push that homework to tomorrow (Monday) night.
I should do it today and may still as there are several hours left in this day, but I also need to read up on the work I've caught up on plus where we're heading next. Basically, I need another week of no obligations to get truly caught up. Of course, that's not going to happen. I'm confident that the work will get done though.
I just texted my tutor and he said he could squeeze me in tomorrow night. That's when I'll do the homework. Today will be spent reading History and Chemistry.
I'm facing developing my own photos with trepidation for fear that I will have taken some halfway decent photos but will ruin them before the see the light of day. Of course, the opposite holds true as well: I could take horrible pictures because I'm not compensating for the ISO of the film and wind up ruining what was already crap. It's a wash I suppose.
All Online, That is the Question
I'm considering taking all three of my classes next semester online. This would allow me to keep a normal work schedule and it may make Chemistry easier to cheat, but then I have to be disciplined to make a schedule and stick to it. I think I will continue to show up for Chemistry though and likely Photog 2.
I also need a fine arts. I was going to take Music Appreciation because I was told by a co-worker who is also taking classes at Calhoun that he had to write an essay every week on the music he was required to listen to. I think I would like the challenge of writing like that, but I'd probably just cock it up and write crap because I wouldn't wan to write because I was being forced to write. *le sigh*
I did find out at the beginning of this semester that my Photog professor will be teaching Art Appreciation next semester (Summer) here in town. I have enjoyed his teaching style thus far and think I may enjoy taking the class under him. I'm just hoping that there isn't tons of memorization required.
One thing I will NOT do, however, is take late classes between early classes or vice versa. Everything will be taken at the same time. I've toyed with the idea of taking all of my classes on the same days (M-W or T-R) but I'm not sure how I'll like that. I think it would allow me to have something closer to a normal work schedule.
I've even thought about taking Photog 2 online so I don't have to do color film development. As I understand it, Photog 1 is being offered online this semester, but because it's an online class, they get to submit digital pictures.
Any thoughts on scheduling the summer semester would be greatly appreciated.
A Red Cup
I was playing around with my lenses trying to apply what I've learned thus far in photography class. While I achieve my main goal of creating a shallow depth of focus, I can assure you that there wasn't as much light in the room as appears here on screen. This was mainly a study in composition, but I like the overall image. My only gripe is that the depth of field wasn't shallow enough.
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