I spent over 5 hourse in a meeting yesterday. Bleeeaaaarrrrgh.
And for this WIFI being something I’m paying for, I really do get incredibly horrible signal. I guess there’s the rub when you’ve got a corner room….
At least Cornell should reimburse me, hopefully.
Well, I made it here in one piece (I am in UTC -8, while my website is still in UTC -5: deal). Planes are much less scary than people make them out to be (kinda like the dentist)- really the planes were kinda fun, if not a bit cramped. Of course, four airports (Syracuse, Detroit, Minneapolis, San Diego) and ten hours in one day makes me not want to make use of another one for a while (after I return home to Ithaca, of course).
The security checkpoint sucked, but not as much as I feared it would- even though I got pulled aside and they ran the magic paper through my gadget bag. I asked them what flagged me, knowing beforehand that they wouldn’t tell me. I was right. They said it was a random check; but we’ll see what happens on the return trip :)
Also, even though I didn’t want to check any baggage, it seems I didn’t have a choice. But that’s mostly Beth and Nick’s fault, for making us late to the plane in Detroit. Two good things came out of this however: (1) my luggage arrived safely in San Diego without me having to lug it about all the time, and (2) Nick agreed to quit smoking (for at least the rest of the year) because his need for a cigarette break is what made us late in the first place. He gave me his cigarettes for safe keeping, but I’m betting he’ll buy more :)
Last night, Beth, Nick, Rob, and I took the trolley to within 3 miles of the Mexican border and got some significantly less crappy Mexican food than I’ve had anywhere else. I actually liked it, though Rob informed me that it wasn’t real Mexican food. I don’t care- it was still good :)
Shortly thereafter he asked me to stop being considerate of him (because I gave him my leftover diet coke, and he’s poor or something, though the latter didn’t cause the former). He’s still a jerk :)
Today I woke up around the same time I normally do in Ithaca, which in San Diego time means “early”. I’ve already registered for the convention, gotten breakfast (which I ate sitting next to a pool under palm trees- just like in the movies about resorts!), and wandered around a bit (this place looks like the back lot of a Hollywood studio, as seen in Jay and Silent Bob or Pee Wee’s Big Adventure). It seems that everyone does stuff earlier in the morning (though really later in the grand scheme of things) over here- e.g., they stopped serving breakfast around 8 AM.
The hotel has WIFI, but you have to pay for it. Obviously, I’m one of the schmucks who decided that $5/day (really not that bad, though it should be free) was worth it to be able to check my email (and blog, of course).
I’ve spent a good portion of this past week not sleeping and trying to prepare my poster for PAG, which I am leaving for tomorrow morning. I “finished” (for some definitions of finish) and printed my poster last night, and it looks good (for low definitions of “good”). At least I learned LaTeX, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long while now but just never had anything to make. Most of the time that went into making my poster involved learning how to do simple (at least they should be) things in LaTeX :)
Now I’ve just got to do the laundry thing, and finish the packing thing, and I’ll be all set.. I’ve never travelled on a plane before, or for that matter, traveled farther away than Pittsburgh, so this should be an interesting experience. Of course, I’m more worried about dealing with the recent airport security hassles than anything else…
Today is my first day back to work after my vacation.
Already I’ve marveled at our new server cooling solution, and lamented at the new double-paned windows we have recieved, which are really just new windows placed directly over the old ones, permanently preventing the windows from being opened in the future..
Finally, really did it! YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP!! DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!
While I was back in NJ for the holidays I played with my new tripod a bit and took some pictures of the tree and stuff, which I’ve finally gotten around to posting now (when I should be sleeping). I noticed something creepy about one picture, though (but maybe it’s just lack of sleep…):
The reflection of me using the tripod which was captured in the picture is all distorted by the designs on the ball- so it looks like my head is a fleshless skull.
Or it does to me, anyway. But considering how much trouble I’ve had just typing this all out, I think I may just blame it on sleep deprivation.
Well, I’m back in Ithaca. I also got my new video card set up, which went rather smoothly after I realized that you have to plug these newfangled things in :/
It took me waaay to long to realize that.
Anyway, after increasing my FPS in glxgears from ~1100 to ~9000, I played Doom 3 a bit. Definitely harder than I remember other Dooms being, and also more scary (though in a “Boo! Gotcha!” kinda way, not in an “I’m afraid to type this alone in the dark:” kinda way). After realizing that I really don’t like Doom 3 as mush as other Doom games (and dying once, thought that surely wasn’t related) I started playing Neverwinter Nights (which I do like quite a bit) again, this time at the greatest graphics quality the game allows. I’m happy to report that my recent NWN crash problems did indeed seem to be the fault of faulty Radeon drivers :)
After a few hours of that, I realized I was hungry. Instead of eating however, I ended up putting away xmas decorations.
Now it’s half past two and I’m still hungry, but too tired/lazy to actually prepare anything. Sigh.
So, it’s a bit late, big whoop :)
This New Year’s Eve was remarkably low-key. Chris came over for lack of something better to do. Similarly, for lack of nothing better to do Peter cancelled the get-together he had invited everyone to on the 26th. So Chris and I spent the night talking to my dad about my family history, Lugers, and Murder, Inc.. On a mostly unrelated note, I also learned that I am 1/8 Jewish. Woohoo!
Yesterday the gang was supposed to get together and have some wholesome pyrotechnic fun, but both Peter and Bobby cancelled on account of illness. So instead Mike, Chris, and I hung out, grabbing some authentic NJ diner food (yay, Ossie Burger!) and watching some interesting new anime.
Theoretically I’m going back to Ithaca at some point today… theoretically.
