Periodic Journal of my wanderings

I totally love my White iMac. It's just the right size, performance, and has the super sexiness that OS X comes with standard. The only thing that bothers me is that after about an hour of Warcraft, I start to see texture tearing as well as some times the video will just black out. When this happens I have to hard reboot.

My first solution was to download am SMC fan controller application. This seemed to do the job rather noisily, but I soon didn't even notice that all my fans were pegged at 5000 rpm.

I've recently been brainstorming how I would better improve cooling. While my solution more or less works, I still run into overheat situations. I suspect that the heat piping or heat sink have some sort of issue, but I have torn apart my iMac just far enough to tell that I'd rather not.

The heat pump for my apartment is right next to my desk, but the air blows right past the desk and I can't feel any of the cool air putting my hand next to the computer. If only I could direct some of that air to my iMac...

I came up with this as the solution.





( Full size photos and explainations )

It is also worth noting that this machine came to me cheap due to it having been shipped without any padding and having recieved some damage. Not enough to make it worthless, but enough to make it cheap. There is a scratch on the screen, the base is bent (Causing it to lean all the way forward and fall over unless I have something back there bracing it) and the GPU temps are higher than normal. CPU temp stays low, but the GPU seems to have issues staying sane under load.

Melissa tipped me off that there was a small following of people who are trying to save JB Thomas Junior High School from demolition. While I am not sure where I stand on the issue, I do know that before tearing down an 81 year old historic building, all affairs should be in order. The people of FOTOS (Friends of the old school) do not believe that the district went through with all the legal paperwork and surveys they should have to make it all legal.

There was court this morning between FOTOS and the district. I went to shoot some pictures, support the cause, and see what all the fuss was over. I was yelled at by the court reporter that no photography is allowed, and the actual proceedings were only 5 minutes long. Rescheduled for Thursday morning at 9am.

The real fun of the morning came when I was leaving. In the elevator on the way out I was asked by a lady who I was with.

"With?"

"Yes. Are you with a paper or station?"

"No, I am just a local. I'm a photographer, writer, historian, and former student at Thomas, so I came down to take an account of the goings on and show my support for the school."

"I don't think you should be down here posing as media."

Confused, I just looked at her and cocked my head in question.

"Someone might mistake you for a reputable news source with your camera and notepad."

"Well I don't think anyone will mistake me for media, and I would not falsely say I was. Who are you with again?"

"I'm here reporting for the Hillsboro Argus." The doors open. "Well, I'm against a deadline here and I have to go."

"Oh, I hope you have time to run your paper through a spell checker so you can sort out your your, you're, they're, there, and theirs."

She started to wind up about something, but I just walked in the direction of my car.

I might have blown on the rescheduled court date on Thursday. But after this, you can bet your ass I'll be there, with a notepad and an audio recorder.

Treasure wasn't supposed to foal for another two weeks. Right now is her projected due date, but she's ben two weeks late on the previous two babies. Not the case this time. Bob got up this morning to feed and clean stalls, and there was one too many voices in the barn. Turns out, Treasure couldn't wait another two weeks and dropped the baby last night. Grover must have been born close to midnight, because her hooves were solid and she was dry and clean by the time she was found this morning.

I like to wear an undershirt under pretty much any shirt I wear. I find it more comfortable.
In addition to comfort, they prevent me from sweating out through the pits. I do this quite easily because the distance between my arm pit and the tops of my shoulders is pretty wide. A shirt fitting there would be a tent on me everywhere else.

I have run into a problem over the years that I have yet to really solve.
Undershirts and short sleeved shirts often have the same sleeve length. More often than not, the undershirt has longer sleeves. So given enough time, the under shirt pokes out from under my shirt. I hate that!

I own three brown undershirts I got from an military surplus store that seem to have a good sleeve length. But they are wearing out and they are almost rags now.

The other oddity here is that I'm tall (6'5") and to be able to tuck in my undershirt, it needs to be a tall. XL-Tall are WAY too long usually in both body length and sleeve. L-Tall are 'okay' body length, but sleeve length is virtually unchanged between the two sizes.

The only solution I've thought up is to buy a bunch of undershirts that fit my body and have someone hem up the sleeves to a reasonable length. But finding a shirt that does what I need would be more ideal.

To make it so this post has something for everyone, here is a picture of Steve Martin ironing a kitten.

This time, curls.

15400 Pushups
8900 Crunches
10085 Curls
735 Squats

Since June of 2007

Taken on his birthday, yesterday.

Last night I went to the JB Thomas Jr High pre-demolition open house.

It was fun to see some familiar faces, smell the venerable smell of the 86 year old school, and snap some pictures.

When I was there, I wasn't as interested in history and the cool old building itself as much as I am now. So as an adult it was very cool to see some of the things they don't let you see as a kid. The boiler room, the shooting range, the teacher's lounge.

The librarian of all the people remembered me most vividly. While we were chatting she put in a dvd that had some camcorder footage from when I was there. We had fun pointing out people we knew then, know now, and me passing on who had passed. We both teared up talking about Mike Lutheran and Jeremy Benjamin and how and why they died.

During different times as I was walking around, soaking in what I could, I paired up with Alex, April, and their son Reed; then later Melissa and Emilie Bullard of NW Morgan fame. April and Emilie were a number of years before Alex and I, Melissa was a few years after us. Just enough of a gap to remember different teachers and different ways of doing things. Security change vastly between the early 90s and late 90s.

I was disappointed to have run into Sarah Henry there, and have her avoid me. We shared some moments and a serious crush with each other in High School, and it would have been nice to chat. But she avoided eye contact, kept a safe distance, and I am jut not forward enough to force the issue.

It will be sad to see the space that the school is in now reduced to just being athletic fields. But such is the way of progress and the bottom line.

15000 Push-ups
8100 Crunches
9245 Curls
735 Squats

Since June of 2007

It's nice to have met my goal of 15,000 by June.
That is even with some time off after Judo to let my body heal up a bit.

Assuming that I push half my body weight every time I do a push-up.
Also assuming I've weighed on average 245 lbs for the duration.
I have pushed up 918.75 tons in two years...
or 556 240 Volvo wagons...
or roughly 2% of the total loaded weight of the Titanic.

I am looking for a cheap (free) small aquarium.
Needs to be about five gallons.

I want it for a little project, and won't be keeping animals in it.
Instead, I'll be keeping my computer.

If you have a water tight, preferably plastic, aquarium sitting around collecting dust that you want to donate, let me know! :)



Something like this.

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs trailer.

Book nerd alert!

I'm so seeing this!!!!

Doing curls this morning doing curls, I broke my rubber band. Mid curls, it just snapped. I have been wanting to get an actual bar so I can do curls right (palms up) instead how I have been doing them (Palms facing each other) with the blue band.

My current work-out stats

• 14600 Pushups
  
• 6890 Crunches
  
• 8525 Curls
  
• 735 Squats
  

Since June of 2007.
Not all work-outs started at the same time, explaining the lopsided numbers.

I had not given a lot of thought to what wrist position I was using while doing curls, so I held them so it was comfortable. That happens to be in the position of straight up and down, meaning how I would hold an axe or something.

As it turns out, that's wrong.

The way to engage your bicept fully is to hold your hands palm up the entire movement. So I did that for the first time today and must say,"Holy shit my arms are sore after two sets".

I snapped a picture of the Morgan Horse on the door to our arena, and made it into a usable silhouette for Shelley (Boss and farm owner) and Debbie (Friend of the farm, and customer) who are going into a joint venture of making tables and stuff with this logo sand blasted into them.
It sure is amazing how rusty my Photoshop skills have become.

To any and all who haven't heard by now, I got my ass handed to me in the tournament in Spokane.

Excuses

• I suited up at 9am, but didn't fight until about 5pm.
  
• I had no idea when that day I would fight, so ended up stretching and warming up a few times throughout the day.
  
• I have been sick for a week.
  
• Because I didn't know when I was going to fight, I didn't really eat much all day so I wouldn't get called up to fight with a full stomach.
  
• I haven't competed in anything for a decade.
  

Reasons

• I was unprepared.
  
• I was not in good enough shape.
  
• I was not strong enough.
  
• I was not aggressive enough.
  
• I have not practiced practically enough. (Nobody fights in a vacuum)
  
• All the ideals, counter moves, protocol, escapes, and and dominating attitude vanished as soon as the match started. See previous bullet.
  

In the first match I was thrown clean and quick. Resulting in a loss.
In the second match I fought him off a bit longer, but during some wresting around on the mat he positioned himself in just the right way to block both my nose and mouth. Panicking a bit, I tapped out.

I was running into issues with my beard hairs getting ripped out in Judo from the friction when I was being pinned.
While it wasn't the worse pain imaginable, it was the most annoying.
So, off with the beard.
I now have a face again.

I got my "Associates of General Studies" in the mail yesterday. A small step towards "real" graduation, and a boost to my feeling that I might not be wasting my time in school.