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Showing posts from October, 2005

Scary Stuff

For Halloween, Christina and I attended a screening of our beloved Serenity at the Alamo Drafthouse South.Included in the festivities were lessons in Madarin profanity as well as a costume contest of sorts. We attended as Wash & Zoe ,the Pilot and Soldier Husband-and-Wife team. We ended up being the only representative of each character, standing next to about a half-dozen or so Jaynes. Although we didn't win (prop weapons and scanty costumes - I'm looking at you, "Saffron" - carried the day), we did come away with a small assortment of anime DVDs, stickers, and doodads to annoy the cats with.

I Got Spirit?

Not really. Tonight I took Christina a bucket o' original recipe at school, then helped out with the sophomore class' hallway decorations (class of 2008! Good Gawd, I'm old...). Ironic, as I would have balked at doing any such even remotely school-spirited thing for my own class. Unless of course a cute girl had asked. And Christina did. So there, nyah.

Gettin' There

What with the high price of rotten ancient critters these days, Christina and I are considering, as I've mentioned before, moving away from the two-car model of household transportation. Her 2001 Nissan Xterra will be the one to go, by virtue of its actually being worth more than we owe on it, not to mention its appetite for top-shelf liquids. Replacing it will be some sort of motorized bicycular thingy. First though, I must learn how to ride. Anyone wanna buy an Xterra?

A Quantum Leap

While perusing the Slashdot fora, I saw a comment about an open source GIS package that isn't GRASS. Quantum GIS, or QGIS , is a remarkable clone of ArcView, circa v3.1 or so. I've got my copy fired up, and have already put together a few maps of Travis County, which if all goes well will appear in the map secion soon.

Meet the New OS, Same as the Old OS

I just finished upgrading my laptop to Ubuntu 4.10 "Breezy Badger." It pretty much rocks. Very easy install/upgrade, and very slick looking. It even runs with decent speed on my venerable 500 mHz P3 Gateway Solo 2150. I'd recommend it to anyone looking to experiment with Linux. They'll even send you free CDs, including a "live" CD to try it before you install it.

Friends in Fast Places

As Christina settled in for a mobile nap, a red Ford Focus passed us on the left, the passenger smiling and waving at me! I waved back, of course, and then placed the smiling face...one of the HT Zetas. It seems they were going to Dallas too, visiting the Fair on Sunday.

Fair Enough

Our road trip to the Texas State Fair went very well. The only traffic we encountered was outbound from Austin in rush hour, as we deftly avoided the overpass-induced highway closure on our return. The Streeters hosted us for two nights, during which we got to see old family photos and engage in lively discussion. Thanks Art & Maxine! We saw the car show, sat in a few new seats, and lusted after nigh-unattainable performance. Corny dogs, of course. There were bagpipers, model trains, a Texas music exhibit,creepy miniatures, a carousel on the midway, and giant fried turkey legs. Plus, excellent public transportation.

Summer's End

It was in the 100s here (and in Dallas) last weekend, now it seems we've seen the last 90°+ day of the year. I'm actually wearing jeans! Christmas can't be far off, especially if one uses retail decor as their calendar.