Author Archives: Alan V

Camera repairs, take two

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So my camera cost over $250 to fix. That’s over a third the cost of a new D50 (theoretically speaking, since you can’t buy them anymore), half the cost of a new D40, and a fourth the cost of a new D80 (which I want).
Oh well.
If it needs another major repair, I’ll scrap it and buy a new camera.
Unfortunately, it probably won’t be fixed by this weekend, but meh. Alisa is awesome and is letting me borrow hers, which means I don’t have to worry.

Life has been really weird the past few days. Greg and I have had parallel-but-off-by-one weeks in that he had a bad day on Monday and spent a lot of money on repairing his car on Tuesday… and I had a bad day yesterday and spent a lot of money repairing my camera today. Meh.
Relatedly, all the things that were getting me down yesterday (problems with payroll at work, not having a camera for this weekend, my camera being broken, and feeling like I wasn’t doing well enough at work) got resolved today (payroll got sorted out, Alisa is letting me borrow her camera, my camera is being repaired, and I got a positive job review from my boss at work today), so whee.
Life is good.

I’m almost definetly going to continue work next semester, part time, and drop down to being a part-time student. So far, my schedule looks like work, OS, and Pen-Based Computing. I need to talk to my boss to make sure I can get time off around kernel crunch time, but I feel like I can handle that (especially since work would be like taking another class, except with no homework, and I’d only be working at most 20 hours a week). I’ve already talked to 8 (my OS partner) and he’s okay with it too. Whee!

Camera repairs

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My camera is in the shop for repairs. They charged $40 just to look at it… the estimate for repairs will come on Monday. Meh. In any case, I hope they can finish before next weekend, when I’ll actually need my camera. Worst case, I can just take my film SLRs and shoot color film… but who wants to do that?

Life has been good. Nothing really of interest happening. I should eventually post photos from Colorado… I got some rather nice landscapes I want to share.

Work has been good too. I’ve been cleaning up my bug fixes. Code freeze is on Monday, so I might stop in the office this weekend and do some more work.

Colorado day 2

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After a delicious buffet lunch today, we drove past the condos where I was born. My mom pointed out the window to the bathroom where I was actually born, and I could actually remember a lot of the area.
Then we drove past the house we lived in before moving to Arizona, and I remembered even more of the area. The tool shed/house thing my dad built in the back yard (during which time all three of us caught Strep Throat from digging in the soil so much) is still there and the house still looks very nice (it’s the same color; hasn’t been repainted). I have fond memories of that house and of the little structure… half of it was my clubhouse that my dad built to my specifications (including a door that was split in the middle so I could open just the top and sell stuff from it).
Finally, we drove down the appropriately named Roller Coaster Road to see the piece of land we still own here. It hasn’t changed at all since we were there last, though it’s been 11 years. It looks like some people have been sporatically camping in the area though. Oh well.

Tonight I hopefully get to see Carolyn, who I haven’t seen in many, many years. I’m also meeting Keith in a little while, and I haven’t seen him in 11 years… so wheee. Yay for the wonderfulness that is the internet (and, I suppose, Facebook).

I head home tomorrow. I think, for the first time since getting here, I’m not totally looking forward to it.

Colorado day 1 (and Harry Potter)

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Bought the last Harry Potter book today… had it read in about 4 hours.
I must say, I am quite impressed in the way she managed to tie together all the vague points from the first 6 books and make everything suddenly clear toward the end. I also like how we’re left in the dark as to everything until stuff happens (and oh god, the ending is amazing)… I think an omnipotent view (or more insight into other goings-on, especially Dumbledore’s plan) would have ruined things. Very well played.

So yeah, I won’t post any spoilers because people are probably still reading it, but I will say that one prediction I read in a certain someone’s LJ was dead-on… and I suppose I should have expected it, but really didn’t.

As for Colorado, it’s been mostly uneventful. I had a 2.5 hour layover in Chicago that sucked, but whatever. Wheeeee.
I guess I’ll post pictures eventually or something.

Life updates

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I really should write in this thing more often.

My recent big task at work (the big unit test thing) was finished on Monday. Following a little more cleanup, it was integrated into the main system on Tuesday, so yay. I’m now working on a bunch of smaller unit tests for the system fundamentals. It’s a lot, lot, lot more boring than the other one (which actually had me looking forward to work every day… as much as you can at 7 AM when you’re tired), but whatever. Work can’t be all fun all the time, can it?

Last night was “Homeless: The Musical!” presented at Dusquene University. It was amazing… it runs this weekend and next weekend, and I highly, highly recommend you go if you have the chance. Thanks to Mars for telling us about it in the first place!

Personal life has been full of happiness lately. It’s nice to feel cared for, and to have someone to care about.

I’m leaving for Colorado logical tomorrow (Saturday morning at 7 AM is when my plane takes off) and won’t be back until Monday evening. On the plus side, I get to see my parents (yay) and my grandpa, whom I haven’t seen since the end of high school (super yay). On the downside, I have to miss a day of work, but meh.
I suppose that’s a testiment to how much I’m enjoying my job (or maybe, to a lesser extent, not being a poor college student… at least until I have to pay rent again).

Life is amazing and full of awesome.