Yes people, it is a new post!  That means that 1) I'm still alive, and 2) you can stop complaining about how it's been over a month since I last wrote a post.  I mean, it's nice to know I've got a dedicated following, but now everyone's getting demanding, which is the exact opposite of how I thought it was supposed to work: I get the following, and the following does stoff for me.  Anyway, some random issues from the last month:

 

CS 354 project: after working for two days straight, I only managed to get 84/100 points on the test cases (bad).  But I did show that I can live off of just donuts & diet coke for a day (good).

 

Origami: Brilliant idea!!  Oh, wait...I've already got TWO Tablet PC's.  Disappointed on the battery life and intro platforms (Sonoma instead of Lakehurst generation, so no Vista Aero).  Price is another problem, especially now that rumors are starting to circulate.  But....I can't help but still want one.

 

Spring Break!  It rocked!  I got to have sooo much fun going to warm, sunny places with lots of scantily clad co-eds.

Err...

Umm...

Nevermind...SSCI hasn't dramatically changed hiring practices, product lines, and location.  But I did get to have fun working a lot & spending hours chasing down email problems with the email admin at another company REPEATEDLY, which all turned out to be someone having left out a "g" in a really long domain name...and then getting what seems like half the company to enter that incorrect address into thoir private address books...and all those people deciding that their private address books were correct and the Corporate Contacts Email Address Book had been corrected incorrectly.

 

The big problem with Spring Break was power.  The Wednesday in the middle saw power outages and surges throughout the day.  And it turns out all my UPS' failed during it, and that my big SU2200 running the servers has dead batteries.  And the motherboard in my desktop system died.  So, a lot of damage from stupid power problems.  Isn't electricity supposed to be reliable or something?

 

Since break, it's been mostly a blur, which is pretty much how it's going to be until the end of classes in 4 weeks.

 

(oh, and for those that don't understand the title, it's a play off the MsgPlus command to request presence info (/ping); just my way of saying "I'm still here...sometimes!")