So the Pacers are up 2-1 in the first round versus Boston thanks in large part to, you guessed it, Reggie Miller. Game four is tonight in Indianapolis. I’d love to be going. It seems like a sure win since Antoine Walker was booted from the last game and suspended from this one. However, a lot of those “sure wins” end up losses if you forget that you still have to play. Still, it would be a pretty fun game to see.
So I couldn’t find the fifth season DVDs for the West Wing. I’m actually not sure where I remember reading that they would be out this past Tuesday, but it would have been really cool to find them. Anyhow, I guess Amazon.com is listing it as unreleased with no projected release date. I suppose it could be something that I just heard as a rumor somewhere.
Slashdot is running an article about World of Warcraft which is none too flattering, but I have to kinda agree. I haven’t really been playing as much as I used to, and even I can tell that there’s not enough content out there for the truly addicted MMORPGers. I used to play over 50 hours a week (while working full time) and I know that there’s some seriously dedicated players who are beyond bored with the current situation. Here’s to hoping that Blizzard can get it’s act together quickly.
Wow. So I’ve been busy this week and I’ve had a really unusual schedule. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to get back into the swing of things. Anyhow, I did want to mention that I’ve totally dominated the fantasy sports leagues this year. I won our fantasy football league. I came in second in our tournament pick’em. Last but not least, I dominated our fantasy NBA league and officially won that over the weekend.
Now, if only I could convince Reggie Miller to not retire this year.
I am sometimes surprised at how relaxing vacation can be, even when all you do is go home for a few days. Sometimes the small things can really rejuvenate you. There are tons of stories written about how Americans don’t take or get as much vacation as various other parts of the world. I usually look at those and think something like, “Well, that’s because the rest of the world takes too many vacations.” However, perhaps I’m wrong in thinking that. If a vacation always rejuvenates a person to work better and harder then having a balance of vacation time and work time that leads to a better overall effeciency would make good engineering sense. It’s hard for me to argue with that logic now because I can really feel myself regaining some zeal that must have been lacking.
I watched “Gods and Generals” today. I was familiar with a lot of the story before having seen it because I’ve read a lot on the civil war. It was pretty well made as far as movies go, but there were many times that it seemed more like a historical documentary than a movie. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it would work better if it were advertised as such. Going into a film with the wrong expectation can really make it go from well-made to trash. I don’t think “Gods and Generals” was trash though. It was just not what I expected.
I did learn a few things. I didn’t realize how very religious those Civil War leaders were. They were really quite devout for the most part. I would be curious to see how this compares to the current US Army. It would probably be against the law, but it’s hard to know in situations like war where law applies.
There were also a lot of educated men in the armies. I don’t mean to say that there aren’t now, but it does seem rare to find a professor leave his post to join the army. Perhaps that would not be the case if it the wars we fought were physically more close to home. The distance may not be relevant in reality as a result of the way that technology has shrunk the world, but I think the distance is still a very big part of war in terms of psychology.
Anyhow, the movie was interesting. Movies based on books sometimes convince me that there are some good books out there that I really need to read or some good subjects out there that I should learn more about. Of course, there are also some movies on books that make me want to do quite the opposite. This wasn’t one of those movies though.
I bought a wireless router for my mom’s place today. It cost $50 less than the router I bought for myself three or four years ago, and it’s easily better technologically speaking. The setup was absolutely drop dead simple and it was up and runing within 10 minutes of taking it out of the box. I was quite pleased. Sometimes you don’t notice the progress we’ve made until something like that creeps up on you.
Oh! I almost forgot! You should watch Jimmy Kimmel Live Friday night to see my friend Shawn talk about his recent win in the National Rube Goldberg contest.
I’m going out of town for my brother’s wedding this weekend. I’m not very good at packing. Actually, it’s not that I’m not good at packing. It’s really that I’m not good at packing so much as I used to always forget something. It’s rare that I do that now, but I never feel like I have everything I need as a result. Anyhow, the whole process of traveling gets me a little flustered as a result. Plus, it’s a strange week already since I’m enrolled in that training class. It just feels like I’m not getting to cross many things off my to do list.
So it’s been a little while since I last posted and I thought I would give an update on the RedHat training class that I’m taking. The instructor is very good. He’s down to earth and willing to research answers to questions on things that he’s not familiar with. The manual is probably even better. It’s a very direct and concise guide with clear examples that will prove to be a wonderful reference to have after the class is over.
I have to admit that I was skeptical when I first signed up for the class. So many people have learned the intricacies of the linux kernel on their own, that it may seem a little unorthodox to take a class to learn these things. I’m almost done now and I’m convinced that this impression was right and wrong. It was wrong in that I really have learned a lot about the kernel and device driver programming. It was right in that I’m sure that I could have done this on my own only it would have taken a great deal longer to get to the point that I’m at now. Also, I’m not sure I could put together a better reference manual than the one they have.
I recently created a wikipedia account and made my first post on Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. I was a little surprised to see that they didn’t already have an entry. There’s actually a lot of people who have bios on wikipedia that say they were buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, but there was surprisingly no entry for the cemetery itself.
All in all, I was pretty impressed with how easy the process was to create and update an article on wikipedia. I have used wiki style webs before, but I suppose I thought that there was a lot of anal moderation on wikipedia. Maybe there is, but I haven’t seen it yet and I’m enjoying it.
I recently bought an iPod. I wasn’t all that sure that I would find it all that usefull at first, but it was an idea that kept growing on me after having bought a PowerBook for Christmas. I am a huge fan of well-engineered devices and having previously used a Compaq Presario 1700T, the PowerBook left a real impression. Anyhow, I found myself more and more drawn to the idea of getting an iPod.
After the first few weeks of owning my blue iPod mini, I have to say that I’m extremely pleased with the purchase. I was a huge music fan in high school and bought tons of CDs. I was still a huge music fan when I went to college and MP3s became huge. Even though I was still a huge fan of music when I got into some of the harder engineering classes, I ended up spending a lot of time working in study groups in libraries, the student union, and computer labs where I was unable to listen to music. If an iPod had been around back then, I would have absolutely loved it. Even now, it’s surprising how useful and fun to have access to virtually every song I’ve ever really loved virtually everywhere I go.
So I’m currently taking my first Red Hat Training class, and I’m undecided as to how useful it is. It’s a one week class. The class is RHD221: Linux Device Drivers. I have written and played with a few Linux device drivers in the past, but there’s certainly a number of things I’ve never really touched. Plus, the class covers 2.6 and all the stuff I’ve done has been on 2.4. The first day was pretty slow, but I’m hopeful that it will pick up tomorrow. The course outline seems pretty ambitious.
I did get to pick the instructor’s mind about a few book recommendations. I’ve always been a fan of O’Reilly books. In particular, I thought the two best references on the Linux Kernel were Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition and Understanding the Linux Kernel, 2nd Edition. This was when I was working on the 2.4 kernel. As a part of the course, we got a hardcopy of Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition, which covers the 2.6 kernel with no real information on the differences between 2.4 and 2.6. If you want 2.4 information, you should still use the 2nd Edition of the book. However, there’s no 3rd Edition of Understanding the Linux Kernel out yet. Thus, if you want a good reference for the 2.6 kernel internals, you might like Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love. Anyhow, I’ll keep you up to date on how the class goes.
Ok, I have taken some time and modified the “Sharepoint like” theme made by admin-bg. I mostly just changed some colors and formatting. The formatting is still pretty much original.
I also came up with a better title and theme for this blog. I’m calling it “dreaming out loud..” and I’ve added a quote from Elizabeth Barrett Browning as a sort of sub-title. She says, “Because God’s gifts put man’s best gifts to shame.” When you think of all the real advances humans have made by dreaming big, the gifts that God has given us really have put them all to shame. Thus, I don’t really mind sharing my dreams. Even if they aren’t all that good or realistic when compared to the best that other people have had, neither of us has managed to dream up something that’s really good.
In other news, Tiger Woods won the Masters! I actually got to see a bunch of the last round. I don’t normally watch all that much golf, but I will make exceptions during the majors. My grandfather liked watching golf. I remember watching the Skins game over Thanksgiving with him on a number of occasions. Anyhow, I’m happy Tiger pulled this one out. Everyone likes to see people break records and Tiger needed another major to keep on pace to break Jack’s 18 majors.
I have finally started a blog. It’s a revolution I tell you! You can’t be ‘in’ or ‘cool’ unless you have a blog and now I have one. I’m not really sure what it’s going to be about yet and I really don’t like any of the default themes. I’m not even sure that I really like the theme I found over on alexking.org to replace the default.
My choice to create a blog was the result of a couple things. First, I have read a number of blogs off and on pretty consistantly for a while now and found them quite entertaining and informative. My college roomate, Alex, has had a blog for a while now. I also stumbled upon what I assume is a moderately well read blog by Robin which I have found pretty cool.
Secondly, I’ve found that I’ve had thoughts that I wanted to express on a relatively common basis, but very little recourse to do so in an effective way. (Translation: I wanted a giant soapbox to spout things from, but without the condescending attitude that phrase implies.) This is a little hard to explain. I suppose the best way is to just say that I tend to think about things a lot and wanted to record some of my thoughts on a daily basis. I have tried keeping journals in the past, but I tend to have a lot of trouble keeping up with them after a while.
I’m not really sure why my journals have failed in the past. I really enjoy handwritting styles and the feel of writing things. I particularly like writing with fountain pens. The feel is very different than a normal pen and I love the sense of tradition I have. My Dad kept a journal pretty much every day and I think it was almost entirely hand written with a fountain pen, so perhaps a lot of my feelings stem from this.
There’s plenty of studies that show there’s a ton of benefits to keeping a journal of some kind. I suppose I’m hopeful that the same can be said of a blog. Of course, that all requires that I’m able to actually post regularly. Regular entries in an online blog should be easier for me to do than entries in a journal since I spend a ton of time at my computer pretty much every day. Ok, that’s enough for today. I’ve been awake for, uh, quite a while. Time to get some sleep.