Monthly Archives: September 2003

Cut-ah, cut-ah, cut-ahh!!!

In no particular order, here are some of the things we did this weekend:

Saw a fantastic movie, ***Lost in Translation|http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0335266/***. Bill Murray stars as an American movie star who has traveled, away from his wife and kids, to Tokyo, Japan to shoot a $2 million dollar commerical for whiskey. He finds himself alienated by Japanese culture and language. While at his hotel, he meets a young newlywed, played by Scarlet Johansson. She is in Tokyo with her husband, who is doing some photography work. The two bond and form a close friendship. It’s a wonderful movie, with lots of great shots of Japan, accurate insights into the Japanese culture, and enough weirdness to keep you interested. Two thumbs up!

Took a trip on the ***Thomas E. Lannon Schooner|http://www.schooner.org/***. It was a free 1.5 hour trip, courtesy of the Essex National Heritage district’s “Trails & Sails” weekend. The weather was very foggy, so the views from the boat were not spectacular, but it was a lot of fun to be on board a sailing vessel. Becky got to help hoist the sails, and I took ***some pictures|http://gallery.prwdot.org/schooner_lannon***.

Went to the ***40th wedding anniversary party|http://gallery.prwdot.org/joan_errol*** for my aunt and uncle Joan and Errol Ethier. We got to see some relatives we haven’t seen since our wedding, and even one (***Scott|http://www.scottethier.com/default.shtml***) who Becky had never met. The party was great and it looked like everyone was having a great time.

Did a large-scale apartment rearranging. We switched around furniture from our living room and our bedroom, cleaned up lots of stuff, and generally made things much more cozy. Becky is a die-hard TLC junkie (Trading Spaces, While You Were Out, Clean Sweep, etc), and I’m not hard behind, so I think some of those shows were starting to rub off. If you happen to be in the Beverly area, feel free to drop by and check it out!

Got the computer back up to full operating status. Well, almost. One of the RAM chips I had ordered was bad, and so I sent it back to ***OWC|http://www.macsales.com/***. I should be receiving a replacement some time this week, but for now I only have 384 megs of RAM in the machine. Other than that, it’s running great. The new GeForce 4 MX video card is fantastic, especially since it enables ***Quartz Extreme|http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/quartzextreme.html***, Apple’s technology which sends 2-D graphics processing off to the graphics card, rather than the system’s main CPU.

That’s all the news that is fit to blog!

It’s Here!

The Sawtooth is here!

It arrived today via UPS and I finally got to see it this evening when I got home from work. It’s a very nice machine. Tomorrow, another shipment is supposed to be arriving, which will contain some more RAM and a better video card for the machine. For now, though, the machine is set up and running Mac OS X 9.2.2. I’ll upgrade it to Mac OS X 10.2.8 some time within the next few days.

For those interested, you can check out some ***pictures|http://gallery.prwdot.org/sawtooth_arrival*** pictures of the unpacking, setting up, and booting up of the new machine.

The official time of first boot-up was 6:15 p.m., September 24, 2003.

Hooray!

but he had an accent!

and an M.D. but he was no Luka Kovatch. I spent another evening at the Beverly Hospital Emergency Room. While cooking what would have been a very delicious supper I made a nice clean cut in my left middle finger. It wasn’t deep but the blood was definately making a run for it.

Peter took me to the hospital and without too much delay I was admitted to the fast-track. My er doc was of middle eastern decent and had a nice accent. He “glued” my wound up (with something called Dermabond) and left to get some paperwork for me. While he was out my body decided that it was no longer in “emergency” mode and that it would be okay to pass out. So i fainted. The nice nurse put a cold, wet cloth on my head and offered to wheel me out to the car. Fortunately I got better pretty quickly and was able to walk out on my own power. Alls well that ends well, don’cha know?

i promised

to tell when i got word from a prospective employer… The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Ma wins the award for the first recipient of my resume to officially reject me. Actually, they “considered [my] application very carefully but…decided to offer the position to a candidate whose skills more closely meet the job requirements.”

C’est la vie. There are other jobs out there. Better jobs.

New Mac Coming!

Well, new to us, that is. 🙂

Today I purchased a ***PowerMac Sawtooth G4/450|http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/stats/powermac_g4_450.html***. This is essentially to replace our SuperMac S900 FrankenMac, which died recently. I bought it from a used Mac dealer, ***Mac Of All Trades|http://www.macofalltrades.com/*** for $499 + shipping and handling. It’s a great deal on a great machine. It has a 450 MHz G4 processor, 256 megs of ram, a 10 GB hard drive, ATI Rage 128 Pro video, Zip drive, DVD-ROM, mouse and keyboard.

Now, the Sawtooth is not the latest machine, and certainly doesn’t compete with the new ***PowerMac G5|http://www.apple.com/powermac/***. In fact, it’s almost three years old. But it is a very capable and expandable machine, and for our budget right now, the price was right. It can be expanded to 2 GB of RAM, up to a Dual 1.4 GHz G4 processor, and can use AGP video cards. All in all, it leaves plenty of room to grow if necessary. I will definitely be upgrading the RAM and Video card without delay. I already have an 80 GB hard drive which can go into the machine, and our Firewire CD-RW can easily hook up to it.

The system will run Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) like a champ, and from what I’ve heard, should have no trouble running the upcoming Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther).

It’s supposed to ship out by tomorrow, and should arrive some time next week.

Hooray!

Updates

Howdy. I’d like to tell you all that my poison ivy is healing nicely. It still itches like crazy, but it isn’t blistery and oozy like it was before. (Aren’t you glad I told you that?)

The job hunt is going as well as can be expected. I have some resumes out and I am continually looking for more options, but I still haven’t heard from anyone yet. But trust me. I’ll let you know if I do!

Being extreemly astute readers I’m sure you have noticed the new ORANGE link on the right. That is our new little survivor fan site. Whether or not you can come over to watch with us you should check out the site 🙂

Need a PDA?

Need a PDA? I’m selling my old ***Visor Deluxe|http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=38331&item=3047345208*** on eBay.

The bundle comes with the Visor Deluxe, a Stowaway folding keyboard (full-size keys, but folds up to just about the size of the Visor), docking cradle and portable docking cable, carrying case, and one-touch backup module.

It’s a great deal if you are looking to get started with a PDA, and the extras are very nice. And the proceeds will go to a good cause. 🙂

The Weekend Update

Becky is down on the Vineyard this weekend with her parents and brother, working on the house. I’m up in Beverly, as I am playing on the worship team in church this Sunday. So what did I do with all my free time today?

I woke up at 6:30 to get to Filene’s at 7:30 so I could be one of the first 300 people there, and receive a $15 gift card. I was, and I did. I also brought along a 15%-off coupon. I bought some new shirts and slacks. (Yesterday morning before work, Becky and I had also been to Filene’s to each get a $15 gift card – on that occasion, I bought a new pair of jeans for $9.99) I went home.

I put away the new clothes. I started cleaning the house. I got rid of all the computer junk boxes that have been sitting around. I collected everything trash-like and took it outside. I collected everything recyclable and put it in the recycling bin. I put things away where possible, and put things in neat piles where putting away was not possible. I went out.

I took four large bags of clothes and two large bags of shoes to the Salvation Army in Salem. I had lunch at Taco Bell. I checked out the new Target in Salem, and bought a pack of CD-RW’s. I went home.

I cleaned up all the cobwebs. I vacuumed all the floors. I washed all of the dishes. I went out.

I went to the gym and did 40 minutes on the elliptical trainer. I went home.

I got a shower, cleaned up, replied to a few emails, and started this blog entry.

Whew.

I’m taking the rest of the night off. Ciao!