House Hunting

Today is a big day for us, we are going house hunting. We are looking at places that are close to our church. We can't live close to work so we might as well try to live closer to our church community and friends. So hopefully we'll find something we like. We are hoping to move sometime in October, so time is not on our side. The boy is growing fast, and this apartment is not keeping up with him. I had a long week last week, busy, but fulfilling as usual. We have the spectrometer almost completely set up, and just have most of the remaining tests to run. But the major tests are all passed, and the system seems to be functioning as it should. Also, on Friday we were able to get everything moved into its final location, and all the cables organized. It is very neat and tidy now, just the way I like it. I finally broke into that scotch that I got free at the ENC this year. It is McClellands Lowland malt, basically a 4 yo bottling of a lowland distillery. It is renamed so that it's young age does not affect the good reputation of the distillery itself. I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but was not. Initially it was a very nice malt, not too strong an attack, with decent flavor and aroma. Nothing really stood out about it, but it was not bad. Unfortunately the aftertaste kicked in, with very chemical flavors. I almost couldn't finish it. Oh well, it was free at least, nothing ventured nothing gained.

Another week

Yikes, another week without blogging. Unfortunately I've just been too busy. I barely even had time to update the news page for the magnet website. I did reasonably well on the exercise front though, I went for 4.3 miles in 30 minutes on Monday and for almost 5 miles on Wednesday in 40 minutes. Today I was just too pooped from work to even think about going out. I'm not sure about tomorrow either as I have to go into work. So Sunday may have to be the day. It's supposed to be much cooler here this weekend so it will be good weather for it. I haven't been sleeping too well lately. There is so much to do at work right now that I find it difficult to shut my mind down. I have no problem falling asleep as I am usually pretty tired, but then I wake up at 4 and can't get back to sleep. It's good because I'm so busy at work that I'm finding it really enjoyable and fulfilling. I just need to be able to turn it off when I go home. Oh well, things are progressing really well with the magnet, so it should start settling down soon. Well, time to hit the sack, hopefully tonight will be better.

Lazy Ass

That's what I've been for the past two weeks. The last time I went running or worked out was almost two weeks ago. That's going to change this week, I'm determined. Today was a perfect day for running, overcast and 56 degrees, so I finally took advantage of it and went for a long run. 8 miles, 80 minutes. So it seems my endurance hasn't dropped too much this summer, it just seemed that way due to the difficulty of running in high temps. It sure makes me realize how much more energy it takes to keep you cool while exercising in the heat. So this week I have to kick it back into high gear, too much work and not enough exercise makes me a very unhappy man indeed. The work is very fulfilling though, so it's easy to get caught up in it. Unfortunately there are not enough hours in the day. Well gotta get on dinner, it's BBQ chicken pizza tonight I can't wait.

Chicken of the VNC

This week I was doing a lot of UNIXy stuff on the computer that is due to run the spectrometer. Since it is not being used right now, it is a great time to get these things taken care of. Some of the problems that I had this week I was not able to fix to my satisfaction, but the main problem I did fix. That was to set up the computer to accept VNC connections. Essentially a VNC server allows you to run a computer remotely without taking too big of a hit on speed. When done properly it can be fairly secure as well. We were having a lot of problems running the program that runs the spectrometer, which is the only program that we want to run really. But it turned out that by setting a few strange variables associated with the program we were able to get it going. So I spent most of the afternoon writing a few scripts to make sure that the connection is set up properly without requiring too much knowledge on behalf of the user. I'm glad I got it to work though as it made for a satisfying end to the week. For those of you still mystified, Chicken of the VNC is a VNC client (a program that allows you to connect to a VNC server) for the Mac, I just thought the logo was great.

Whew!

Boy what a week. I'm glad that is over. I felt like I was running behind all the time, and never had enough time to get everything done. But I did, and I am ready for next week now. I took a trip to Boulder yesterday and barely had enough time to get around to all the places I needed to. It was raining as well which made it not so pleasant. Hopefully now I won't have to head out there again for another couple of weeks. I'm trying to get reestablished at UCHSC, and am hoping I can get a mailbox there rather than having to go all the way to Boulder to check my mail. There are definintely a lot of issues to work out with this complicated appointment, but I was anticipating that anyway. I was just hoping to have a little more time to transition.


Well, tonight I think Melissa and I will go to Cherry Creek North and hit Peets. I want to swing by the Apple store and check out the "Mighty Mouse." For those of you who don't know, hell has officially frozen over as Apple introduced its first multi-button mouse. Just in time too, I'm in the market for a mouse for work. We are going to a friends place tomorrow for a picnic, and then with church on Sunday this may be our only chance to go.

Eraser

Well, I have officially been erased. I sent my letter in to the department yesterday to say that I was changing jobs and today all record of my working with UCHSC was gone. No more email, no more security access, no more nothing. So hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to sort out everything in Boulder and transfer my identity to there. It really pisses me off actually because if you put in for a raise or change in benefits or something it takes more than a month to be processed. But this, one day. I just don't get how ridiculous this campus can be. Oh well, enough ranting. I have another big complaint, but it involves the behavior of a the representatives of a major company. I can't afford a lawyer, so I'd better just not go there even though their comments are hurting our facility.


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