June 2005 Archives

My file sever Borg, is no more. I got around to burning off a lot of files in the past few days, so I decided to take the plunge and dismantle the server. Slice and dice it up to be shipped off to various peoples. Although I am sad to see it go, it has served me and my college buddies well. I'm just happy to see some of it going back to my college, to continue its mission for a few more years. I'm also happy to see the vast majority of it going to my old room mate John. May it be as helpful with his anime collection as it was with my collection of software.

At least I still have my webserver to keep me company.

I finally mailed off my VISA information today. Yeah, I know. I am lazy. Its these 10:30 wake ups thats really doing it for me. Less then a month to get ready for Japan. Look, I'm still being lazy!

I ordered a couple of really nice external firewire/USB 2 external hard drive cases from newegg.com, only have to have them not work. Well, sort of not work. See I needed a second case to house this other drive I have, that i'll be using for video and photo editing. So I figured I'd just replace my older case with a newer one that does USB and Firewire. Now the cases I ordered before is almost identical the ones I just ordered. Except this time I hope the lights actually work...

Japan is super weird. I love it a lot. I was reading the latest issue of Popular Photography and there was a section on Japan. One of the pictures look really familiar to me, and I was thinking to myself 'That looks just like the pond at kinkakugi temple.' Oddly enough the article went on to say it was the little pond behind kinkakugi, of which I had taken quite a few photos myself. I honestly can't want to get back to Japan to take tons of photos. I'm already thinking ahead to next summer when I'll probably be getting a new digital camera. At least this time I'll have a nice big job to supplement my tech and photo addictions.

The new King Kong movie looks good. I hate giant bugs, which may deter me from seeing the film....

I was quite surprised when my Powerbook got back to me Friday morning at 10 O'clock. Way to go Apple! I was also quite surprised to find that in the process of replacing my DVD-R drive Apple's repair people decided to wipe my hard drive and install OS X 10.3 on it. Right. So then spent some time Friday installing 10.4 back onto my computer, as well as all my software and personal files. Luckily I had backed up my data before handing it over to Apple, or else I'd be royally screwed. Speaking of backing up I've burned around 40 DVDs in the past two days, and I probably have another 40-50 to go. But I'm to the point now where I can take apart my file server and stick the drives I need into firewire hard drives. Burning is going quicker now, seeing as how my new batch of blank DVDs all burn at 4x speed, as opposed to my last batch which claimed to be 4x, but only burned at 2x. All this work just to be able to watch X-File in Japan...

I saw a couple of movies. Friday I went and saw Land of the Dead which was quite good. It had everything you could ever want in a zombie movie. Good special effects, make-up, and gore. A plot that was entertaining. Acting that was actually quite good overall. But it wouldn't be a Ramero zombie flick without the added little bits of humor which made the movie all worth watching. Who doesn't love a zombie cheer leader or zombie clown? I know I do. Oddly enough the movie has been getting high reviews, three stars in the local Milwaukee papers and about the same from online sources. Despite this I don't think I'll ever get the parents to see it, they loath the undead more then i do. Saturday night the entire family went to see Madagascar which was also quite entertaining. I enjoy the new trend of making kids films where the majority of the film is nothing more then silly movie references for the adult audience, which this film was. Plus who wouldn't like crazed penguins? I do have a soft spot in my heart for penguins. Or at least ones who put bow ties on.

I actually unpacked my room the other day. Now towers of boxes have been replaced by piles of old toys and stacks of books and magazines. Theres nothing like reliving your childhood toy by toy, with "keep, garage sale, or throw away" in the back of your mind. You can have my LEGOs when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

Once again I spent some money on stuff. Not stuff I like, no no, stuff I needed to buy for Japan. Work related. Like two giant things of luggage. Enough to stuff in tons of clothing as well as other living supplies. Thank goodness my place in Japan will be furnished, or else I don't know how I'd fit that futon on the airplane.

Bad news today. My Powerbook's DVD-Burner started making horrible sounds. I figured that it was going south, so I took it into the Apple Store not 20 minutes away from my house, and now its getting fixed. It should be back in a couple of days, but this means that I'll be using my parents eMac for a while. Also, I can't say its going to bother my DVD backuping, seeing as how I'm fresh out of DVDs and my new ones won't be here for a couple of days.

I somehow talked my father into see a Korean film. Not just any film, but Oldboy. A film about the best damn revenge I've ever see. Good gravy did I not see that happening. Well directed, well acted, and well written. Too bad the film came out in 2003, and that its only showing for like 1 week here. The theater we went to was in downtown Milwaukee, and it was an old theater. The kind from like the 1940's. Large, plush, with a balcony. My kind of place.

In case anyone was actually wondering where I was going to be in Japan, heres a nice satellite shot of the city thanks to the people at Google. Hello my new home.

So I was somewhat productive today. I got my butt out of bed and went shopping! A trip to Best Buy resulted in me buying a scanner for my parents. Wait... I bought one for them... I... anyways I've been given the task of going to Iowa City and scanning in a whole bunch of my Mom's family's photos. I also want access to a bunch of family photos here at home, and a scanner is perfect for me right now. Seeing as how I don't have a whole lot to do. I also order some blank DVD-Rs, of which I'll be burning off a ton, literally, a TON of stuff in the next few weeks so I can get the file server all ready to go.

After Best Buy my mother and I went to Barns & Nobel, where I looked for cook books. I figured it would be nice to have cook books in english on a variety of subjects. So I bought 4 books. One on basic Japanese cooking. One on basic Chinese cooking. One on basic Indian cooking. And finally I bought one book on Tofu. Yes, a single book on ways to cook Tofu. What can I say, I enjoy the stuff. I think mom and I are going to whip up some fun dishes this week and surprise the rest of the family. Probably dishes without Tofu in it.

Reminds me of a song sung by The Beets, from the TV show Doug. "Oh e oh, killer tofu. Oh e oh, killer tofu!"

I got word from my predecessor in Japan today. Things are looking good for me, very good. Now all I need to do is wait another month! Arg! The wait is killing me! JOSH SMASH!

So part three of three on what I've been up to is about... well.. me.

So the biggest thing happening to me would be... drum roll please... my impending job overseas. I guess you could say that I'm sorta kinda getting read for that. I am, in some ways, but yet being completely lazy in others. Needless to say I don't actually have a real job for the next month. Besides the constant job of helping unpack around the house. What I really should be doing is gather up supplies, sending in a few documents, and probably thinking about packing. All of which I'll be getting around to in the next week.

I've not learned anything new about my new home city of Fukuyama. I finally got my contract from my local school, which included very little new information for me. I do know that they'll be 7 JET people in my city, and the city size (officially) is about 410,000 people. I will be living downtown, near both the local city hall and the local train station. A big plus in several ways. I anxiously await finding out details of my apartment and what kind of teaching situation I'll be in.

In other JET related news I traveled to Chicago on Saturday for a JET Q&A session as well as a whole lot of info crammed into our heads by former JETs. I took Amtrak from downtown Milwaukee at 8 in the morning, and then took a bus to the consulate. Lets just say I really enjoyed ridding a train again, but slept through most of it both ways. The place was filled with well over a hundred new JETS all eagerly wanting a lot more info. We got a lot of good information about living situations, team teaching skills, money issues, how to pack, and how to just be a 'cool JET.' Yes, my new goal is to actually be a 'cool JET' and have fun with my Japanese kids. I mean, who wouldn't want to. I also meet three girls who'll be in my Ken, but don't actually know where in the Ken or what city they'll be in. All in all there were a lot of really cool people there who I hope I can get to know a bit better, and see again both in orientation and Japan. The day ended with Sushi, Sapporo beer, and then a trip to a bar. Notice what some JETs did to celebrate. I tell you, it should be a fun time in Japan.

I installed Linux on my iPod today. Just for fun. Its a rather simple procedure, and it adds some fun capabilities to the old girl. I forwarded my info off to a few people, because this Linux distro adds some super cool recording capabilities to the iPod that you can't get normally. The nice thing is you can boot back and forth with no problem. In other techy news I plugged in my Airport Express and hooked it up to the house stereo system. If nothing else this was to impress the parents. For some reasons I'm having issues with my Linksys wirelss router moving data at decent speeds. I get really slow computer to computer file transfer speeds, which means when I set up my Airport Express to link to the router I could never connect to it (though I could see it). No big loss, just trying to kill some time.

On a sad note, I'm selling off my file server. Its already been separated up and all the parts claimed. Poor guy, how I'll miss it. Maybe in like 4 years I'll replace it with a Mac Mini and a couple of giant firewire hard drives, all hooked up to my TV. Ooo the bliss.

On an up note. I am sooo happy to be near a big city, as there are several foreign films that I really want to see, which are showing in the greater Milwaukee area. Yeah, good time to be had soon, and me without a car.

So this would be part two of three of what happened between graduation and now. I'm getting there.

So as most of you probably know my parents have officially moved from South Dakota to Wisconsin. More specifically, the Milwaukee area. Even more specifically, Menomonee Falls. All this because my father got a wonderful job working for a large banking corporation in downtown Milwaukee. But the fun part is how we actually got from there to here.

So I get back from college and I have about a week before we're to move. Its just Mom and I, so there was a fair bit of planning and getting ready on our part. Not like I was going to be doing much for that week anyways. The parents made a wise choice and had a moving company come and pack the entire house. It took five guys three days to pack and put everything into the moving van. Three days! Luckily it was rather nice outside so having the house open wasn't too much of a pain. What was a pain was the fact that I had gotten sick the moment I was home, and a full week later I was still coughing. (I blame the cat) That aside the packing part went rather smoothly. My father have driven in from Milwaukee and rented a U-Haul to haul all my mother's plants in. Which we filled up, twice. My father came up with the idea to make a layer inside the trailer, and we were able to get all the plants in. Barely. We finally we left Sioux Falls at about 6 O'clock. This kind of sucked because we had a 9 hour drive ahead of us, and we got in at 4 am, and the moving company came to the new house at 8 am.

But about the drive. The interesting thing was that Wilson, out cat, proved once again to be the oddest cat ever. We decided against drugging the poor guy on the trip, and had opted to just put him in his kiddy carrier and also put a litter box behind the drivers seat. So after about 3 hours of sleeping the cat got annoyed and wanted out. So we let him run around the car. The odd thing is he enjoyed it. A lot. He just either curled up on top of his kitty carrier, or in the back window where he watched cars go by. He even used his litter box. Such a weird guy.

So it took another 5 guys a fully day to unpack the truck full of our stuff. Now we had a massive house filled with boxes. No good. We also now had gained a cat, as my sister Abby was now living with my parents again along with her cat Shadow (he and Wilson love each other now). Long story short its taken a good 6 days to get about 1/3 of the house unpacked. Some rooms are completely done, others are filled with boxes. My room for example is filled to the brim with boxes. (I still can't find one that I really really really need!)

The new house is rather nice. We live in an newer development area that kind of feels like its on the edge of a forrest and or farmland. Which is nice. The neighbors are super cool, and it appears as if my parents will be busy with parties and gatherings all year round. The city is alright, they have some cool stuff. A Panera, a massive movie theater complex, and a Wendys. There are other stores, but who cares. The nice thing is, we're not all that far away from a lot of stuff. Now if only I could find a Best Buy.... So why is the house actually cool. First off it feels big. Really high ceilings help that a lot. The backyard is nice, big, and open. Plus we have a massive deck. The basement is to die for. Finished, with a bar, and build in surround sound. I'm really wanting to use that last one. The only downside is the fact that I'll only be living here for another month before I head off to Japan. My first time with such great surround sound, only to have it snatched away from me. Oh well.

I now officially don't have a car. I had left it in Sioux Falls to be sold, and six days later it was. I'd going to use the money for when I get to Japan. I'll need a bit to help me get started. My poor poor Honda. I'll miss diving, seeing as how I probably won't be needing to do it for a few years now.

Ok, thats the entire moving situation in a nutshell. I'll post some photos of the house in my photo gallery area sometime soon. Maybe some cute cat photos as well. You never know.

I just have to say the new Batman movie, Batman Begins, is super crazy good. I went to see it tonight with the parents and it was fantastic. The review I read this morning complained about a couple of things, all of which were actually such very minor issues that they were not even a bother (such as CGI blurring, which I never noticed, and the 144 minute time, which flew by). First off this Batman movie was done in the way you'd actually expect a batman film to be done. You have a tormented Burce Wayne, who actually is buff and could kick ass. A very dark Batman. A corrupt city. A story-line that actually follows the Batman story-line. Plus the fight scenes were super cool. Probably the best explained thing is this movie is the fact that Batman is a ninja. Thats right, a highly trained billionaire ninja. Even more better is the fact that he fights quite a few ninja in the film. When you start combining an awesome Batman film with scores of ninjas you have a winning combination. Please please please make more Batman films like this. Please.....

This is the first part of three posts about whats happened to me over the past couple of weeks while my webserver has either been in a car or I've been without internet. As titled, this is about Graduation.

So four years of college, three foreign languages studied, two foreign countries, one history major, and about later $40,000 worth of debt later I made it to graduation. Graduation morning starts with a ceremony in chapel, to which my family and I went, where we celebrate stuff. Yeah, I along with the vast majority of my fellow classmates who were there were not the most attentive. After a week of senior fun, it was tough to really follow what anyone was talking about. Mind you, it wasn't very interesting or important, but mostly something about god and graduation and stuff. Moving on.

After the convocation it was prime time for some photos. Someone had nicely dressed up the Gustavus bust in graduation garb, so everyone was getting in a photo op or two. That and a few photos with my family. Due to time constraints I gathered up some food and ran back to my room to put on the graduation garb. Luckily some of my room mates were around because the weird neck thing I had to put on was tough to get right by myself. Why we have to be all super puffed up is beyond me.

Next came the waiting game. Every graduate was stuck in the chapel for two hours while our college administrators made sure we all understood how we had to walk up on stage. Gee, go figure. Not only that but we got lined up outside, on a very bright and sunny day, while we again waited. The weather was super nice, and we all had on black robes, so it was a tid bit hot outside. So again, we waited, for a long time, in a long line, for what reason, I don't know why.

Eventually we were allowed to move. Move into the football field, where we walked passed all the professors, all of whom had on silly outfits. Which suited them well. (Sujay, I loved your hat) We were then allowed to sit down. Now graduation is around two hours. Most of it uninteresting speeches by professor and important people, and several awards were given out. I did notice several graduates snoozing at one point. I can't blame them. Some philosophy professor gave an extremely long speech, to which I still can't seem to find a rhyme or reason to it. Neither could my parents. Or anyone. Mind you after all that time in the sun everyone was getting quite burnt and we still had to sit through nearly 600 names. Oh, yeah, I was dead last in the alphabet. At least I could space off for the good half an hour as names were called. Gustavus does graduation a bit different then other colleges. When you walk across the stage to get your diploma, you don't actually get your diploma. You need to walk somewhere else on the field and get it from your department. Mine was nicely situated on the exact opposite side of the field from me. So I ran across the field (being last and all) as we progressed to the end of the of the ceremony, by singing the alma-matter. A song to which no one knows the words, or what it actually means, or why we sing it, yet we do. Good times.

So a few more photo ops later, and finding myself nicely burnt, I went and finished packing up my stuff and putting it in the cars. It had been a long day and I still had a 3 hour drive ahead of me. So I bid farewell to Gustavus. May I one day return when my debts are all payed off, and give you even more money.

An interesting note. The day before graduation my dorm was decommissioned. Whalstrum was no more. The dorm which was build in 1946 was originally going to be an all female dorm. But to get special funding from the government, its first year was an all men's dorm housing mostly GIs. It was then an all female dorm until the 70s when it became coed. We actually had a bunch of very old alumni at the decommissioning, one of which was there the first year. As much as I hated that death trap of a dorm, it was cool because of the quality people who lived there. That and having your own room for 3 years of college was rather nice.

I should have some photo albums up by the time you read this, over in my photo area, as well as a few stuck up on my Flickr account. Enjoy.