I'll tell you that there is nothing like a holiday. I actually slept in today for the first time in a while and it was very good. Very good indeed. Something else that turned out pretty well was the frat party. When I first arrived things were pretty quiet. Close friends and residents of the house. But I left for a bit and when I came back there were a hella lot of people. And not just guys (like most of the CS-related parties that I have been to) but at least half female. So I stood by the bar and just watched as people were ordering drinks all around me. It was quite busy. I even got a chance to chat with a few of the women there - mostly frosh and I heard from one of them that she was from Ontario, so I assumed that her friends might likely be as well. And from what I heard walking about, mostly BComm students as well. Well I guess that explains it... clearly we were the only CS students.

And for those of you who don't already know this, my brother is now a member of the Faculty of Computer Science here at Dal. This is his first year so he is doing the Frosh thing right now. Welcome to Dalhousie Adam.

It started out innocently enough... a trip to the mall to pick up a DVD. And not just any DVD, but one that I have wanted for a really long time. One that I have already watched like 20 times and will likely watch another 50+ times this term. But this is when it went horribly wrong. While in MusicWorld picking up the DVD, I noticed that the second season of CSI was available as a box set. So I pondered my choices and decided to get that too. However, on the advice of Jon, I held off for a better price at Futureshop. Oh Futureshop. What can I say, I love it and hate it all at the same time. Sure it has many sexy products that I want, but said products tempt me despite their hefty price tags. Evil.

And last night the dark side won. After a bit of looking around, I did get the CSI Box Set and a 500 watt 5-Disc DVD Player/Home Theatre System. Next on my list is a new TV. That will require a trip to Walmart. However before anyone says anything about my spending, I was replacing two existing sound systems with this purchase. I had one dead speaker on my stereo and my computer speakers are starting to go. Both of these have served me well over the past number of years and with this system I have replaced them both. Good times.

I have started the wheels moving on my Linux install. By that I mean, I am downloading the ISOs for it. I went out and bought a 120 GB hard drive yesterday that I still haven't installed yet. I fully plan to reinstall Windows 2000 after a format to remove any maladies that my computer currently possesses. Once that is out of the way, the task of installing Gentoo Linux begins. Why Gentoo? I've heard good things about it. It has an impressive package management system called emerge and I have seen it in action.

I will make sure that you hear about all of my frustrations that occur during the process, because I know that I am not going to get out of this one without a hitch.

Yes, that thing that I hate. That is, I hate it if I have to do it properly. I can write on here and that doesn't bother me. Why? Because no one is marking it, no one is judging it and it is meant to make you feel like I am talking to you. That is the way that makes sense to me. I guess that not everyone feels that way because I needed to resubmit my work term report because of my writing style. When I look at the corrections that the marker made, they all make perfect sense. In fact it makes me realize that I don't really know the first thing about writing formally. I also lack the dicipline to write informally for very long as well so I can't cast off formal writing forever. My career has a novelist would likely be quite sort-lived. In any case, I thank all of you for your continued patronage despite my rambling, incoherent style. :) Cheers

After a week of owning my 120 GB hard drive it is still sitting on my desk. However, I am proud to say that I reformatted my 40 GB drive and reinstalled Windows 2000. The Windows part doesn't particularly make me proud, but it was something that I was trying to get done all week. Next up is to get that larger drive into Anna and then the fun begins with installing Linux. I will try to detail my experiences with that as I go along.

Tonight I saw The Order. I'm sure some of you remember the preview - Heath Ledger is a priest and there is some dark secret, etc, etc, etc... Well, it wasn't the movie that I thought it was going to be. It was better. It was edgy (I can see why it was deemed as controversial subject matter) and dark, yet wholly refreshing. I left feeling disturbed and yet a little excited. Heath Ledger was excellent, as was Benno Fürmann. I don't know how well it is doing in the "box office" - there were only like 12 people in the theatre with us - but I think that this movie deserves better and was advertised improperly. Check it out if you are into darker flicks and you don't mind the odd startle. :)

That was the movie, however on the way back from the movie was the real show. I was walking by the Tim Hortons on Spring Garden (not the 24 hour one - the one closer to Robie Street) when this police car which was driving towards us, stopped and backed up quickly and screeched to a halt. The police officer got out and told this teen who was a bit in front of us to get against the wall and proceeded to cuff him. There was a girl there too and I'm not exactly sure what the offence was, but from the brief dialogue that I overheard on my way by, I think it might of had something to do with the guy doing something to the girl, I'm not sure. The funny thing is that despite all of my CSI watching and being in the city for 4 years, I have never seen an arrest in person, that I can remember. So that was my night.

Which is the tarball that I will be using to build my Gentoo system. This requires quite some time - 2 hours to bootstrap, and then some serious time to compile the whole system. Luckily I have a book to read :) So far, I have installed my new drive - which was no small feat due to some nasty cabling issues. But it's in and the bios and Linux both recognize it as 120 GB so I am pleased. I then partitioned and formatted the drive and now I am about to build the system. The Gentoo CD booted up without a problem into a RAM drive and it properly found all my hardware - even my cordless trackball and network card. I have been able to access the Internet, but at the same time I am glad that I have my laptop. I am reading the (very detailed) installation instructions on the gentoo.org website and having that up on a separate computer is much easier. :) So now I play the waiting game. :)

That was my reaction too - what the hell is cPickle. I'm sure it has a perfectly legitimate purpose, but at the same time I wouldn't be surprised if it was an inside joke. You see - cPickle.o was the filename of an intermediate file that was created when I was emerging my system files. In any case, the long wait is over, well, the longest wait is over. I am currently compiling my soundcard drivers and that is taking a long time - as did compiling my kernel.

I think that I am getting close, the next thing that I am doing is choosing a system logger and a cron daemon then creating a user for day to day use. If this install works I will be very pleased as I have had two unsuccessful Linux experiences - both with Debian. However this time, I have some good instructions and a solid recommendation. I might get this going by bed time :)

I would recommend against emerging KDE on a fresh Gentoo install - unless you have some time. This thing has been installing since like 1:30 this afternoon and is less than half way through the dependancies. It better be done when I get home from work tomorrow. And while I'm at it, another funny source code filename: slutty.c :)

Well... I thought that I was all set up. Nope. There are more instructions on the Gentoo website that tell me how to set up a window manager. I had tried to start things myself - that didn't work so well. Mostly because I don't know what I'm doing with setting one up. But all this means that I might have some more waiting ahead.

As you may have guessed, I was able to get KDE working and now I think that I have a fully operational Linux box here. It took a long time, but the learning that went on in addition to the sexy results were well worth it. I would like to take this time to apologize to some of my readers. I spent the past few days populating this log with technical jargon and half-sentences :) I forgot that not everyone is interested in that stuff and I try to keep things a bit more general purpose for that reason. I think that things will settle down now.

I just updated the poll. And as a side note, I have been toying with the idea of redesigning my site again. I mean, I'm on work term so I have some time for it. It's just that I look at some of my old HTML and PHP and I realize how far I've come since I made this site. And not just me, but web standards and technology in general. Whatever happens, no content will be lost - the forum will still exist with all the posts. Cheers.

If there are two things that I'd say that I'm proud to be good at, they would be PHP and BBQing. :) And based on that last sentence, I'm not so proud of my writing, but I think that I mentioned that before. :)

I just spent the last hour and a bit flipping burgers behind the CSB. We didn't have a lot of burgers, but it turned out to be enough. As usual, there were times when I couldn't see for the sweat and smoke in my eyes, but that is all part of it. It cleanses the eyes. Hamburgers, hotdogs, soy-dogs, veggie-burgers we were serving them out. We had some cooked veggie stuff left at the end and a few of the society members decided that they wanted to see what a veggie burger tasted like. Nothing. Apparently they don't have a taste. Makes sense, because they certainly have the consistency of cardboard when they are cooking. The good thing about them is that they are easy to flip and they don't cause flare-ups with grease. :P

In any case, it is certainly a nice day and I am going to stay inside and enjoy it. Might take a nap. Enjoy the day. Cheers.

Well... I saw it. The Lidar that is, Dalhousie's new Laser/Radar hybrid that the Physics/Meterology department has to measure atmospheric conditions. It is actually quite sexy. Basically at night you can see the green laser beam shooting up out of the Dunn building. The cool part is that my brother's room faces this Lidar so he can check it out any time. Tonight when I drove by, there was a large group of people kicking about the doors of the Dunn building - someone was giving a talk, so I guess that tonight was the first night that they turned it on. I'm not sure when they plan on having it on, but if you are in the area at night you should check it out. :)

Not 'the' incident mind you, but an incident none-the-less. It was Tuesday and I had a sore neck from sleeping on it funny the night before. That wouldn't have been a problem except that I was supposed to be giving blood that afternoon. And if you haven't given blood before they don't really want you to have taken any painkillers in the three days before giving. So I suffered through Tuesday with a pain in my neck (sic).

The fact that the clinic was quite backed up and it took over an hour to get through the process wasn't all that bad. That's considering the fact that I saw one person sit there the entire time I was in there just waiting to see the nurse to fill out the questionaire. Obviously Ultimate Frisbee was out for that evening - also not a big loss. From the SUB, where the clinic was, I walked back to the Computer Science building where I left my stuff. So I packed up my laptop and accessories into my 'purse' and left my usual way - down the side stairs. I was almost on the 1st floor landing when all of a sudden, the strap on my bag broke! My bag kind of flips and tumbles sideways and I kind of manage to get it pinned against my body with my arm, but my laptop slides out onto the floor along with my cell phone and like all of the change that I had in one of those little interior pockets. Needless to say the fact that it even happened pissed me off. Then I got home and realized that my laptop had an outward dent that prevented me from plugging in the AC adapter.

However, I did manage to get the dent pushed in enough so that I can now plug it in again. And needless to say, I am now looking for a new bag. I have been to dozens of websites looking for the perfect bag for me to carry my laptop in. If anyone knows where to get nice, cheap, small laptop bags that can hold a couple of accessories please let me know.

I am going to reiterate my approval of Saturdays and all that they bring. Along those lines, I managed to make it out of my apartment a couple of times today and into society if that is what you want to call Spring Garden road. I was out bag shopping - trying to replace the broken one that is on the couch in my apartment.

At one point I was down in Park Lane Mall, visiting A&W. I like A&W. First of all, you have to like a place whose trademark product is root beer. That alone puts at the top of my list. But then I noticed another thing about them that I really liked. They don't put ice in their drinks. It actually mentions it on the cup or I might not have noticed. They cite that the ice dilutes the pop and that "just won't do". I am a big fan of the no ice scene, mostly because you can get more pop if there is no ice in it. The watered down reason is also important as well so I can certainly appreciate what A&W does. When I was down there, waiting in line, I noticed the Dollar Store, which displayed a large sign saying "We sell Gift Certificates". Now, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that gift certificates for the dollar store would be that great a gift. It just struck me as funny at the time.

As an unusual side note, I am wearing the pub crawl shirt for the Glengary pub crawl tonight. This shirt is red, which I'm sure is fine in an of itself, but a) it is hard to wash red clothes because they tend to weep and really should be done in a load by themselves. I don't have many red clothes so this is hard because b) red is not a colour that looks good on me at all. Some people can pull it off, congratulations. I'm not one of those people. But instead of dirtying two shirts today I decided to wear this red monster out on the town. I had a hell of a time trying to figure out which of my clothes clashed with it the least. I finally found a combination that didn't make me want to cut myself and headed out. When I was outside I made note of the occasional person that I saw wearing red shirts just to see what colour shorts or pants they were wearing. I passed this one person wearing a red shirt and maroon shorts - not something that I can do - what without the maroon shorts and all - but I made note of it anyway. I saw this guy when I was headed to the bookstore. Later (maybe 30 minutes) I was headed downtown, crossing Robie street when I passed maroon shorts again. Weird I thought, passing the same guy twice, going in different directions and on different sides of the street. Weird, but not unlikely. However afterr being downtown for an hour or two, I was walking back home when I passed the same guy again. This isn't like having a similar class schedule and often passing the same person on campus, this was three random encounters on a Saturday. Anyway, not that it matters now. Now, I must nap... too much walking the past few days.

I think that you would be hard pressed to find a weblog in Halifax that didn't mention something to do with Hurricane Juan. For that matter most of the province of Nova Scotia was affected by this monstrosity and maybe other places too. As of the time of me writing this, I don't have any power. That means that I have no real way to find out what the hell is going on. However, I have been outside and I do know that the damage just on Dalhousie campus is extensive. And as I type this, I have my camera out on reconnaissance in the hands of Chris to find the scoop on the rest of the city. Why all the hoopla? Quite frankly because shit like this just doesn't happen here. I have effectively lived in Nova Scotia my entire life and not once have I been witness to: a noticeable earthquake, a tornado, volcanic activity, real hurricanes, or anything else that might be considered an "act of god". In all fairness we do get some nasty blizzard action that other locales likely miss out on. So needless to say, people here are a bit unprepared for an event of this magnitude. I didn't even know that this hurricane Juan was even thinking about stopping in Halifax until my brother sent me an advisory article in the Globe & Mail. And even then, I figured, OK we'll lose our power and then in the morning all will be well. It isn't well, it isn't well at all.

From what I have heard so far, this is a small list of some of the damage caused by this storm: o Many large trees uprooted and then implanted in various other places - cars, homes, etc. o The roof of the ferry terminal in Halifax - gone. o One of the tall ships sank, others are beached or stranded in various inconvenient locations. o Shirreff Hall had windows blown out - two girls had to go to the hospital because of glass in their faces. o Entire city sans power - potentially for a few days. (I can attest to the fact that there is definitely no power here now) o Related to that, there are more downed powerlines than you can possibly imagine. o Universities are closed as are all public schools and pretty much everywhere else in the city. o Metal doors ripped off of the Dalhousie Arts Centre. o At one point there was a river that was running down Edward Street. o Various flooded areas, including some rooms in Shirreff Hall.

And this is just what I have heard from walking around campus and talking to a couple people who have ventured out a bit further. Obviously when the power comes back on - whenever that is - and news can be spread, word of more damage will likely filter out. I do know that Pictou County is without power, at least at my parent's place.

I guess you could say that at least I get a day off - which would be fine if I was in class, but I am working and I doubt that I will get paid for this. I can't even work from home on my laptop, because the network is down. The routers need power and I need the network in order to access the files that I work on because I am a web developer.

More sirens. I have been hearing sirens all night, feeling both altruistically concerned and selfishly thankful that I am safe. Which is the main thing, that people are OK. Despite the damage and our lack of preparation, I think that we managed alright considering that there were only two storm related fatalities (the I know about). However at this point I think that I should stop for a bit and rest the weary battery on my dented laptop. If this power stays out for very long it might just be my salvation in the end. Cheers.

Day two and I am still without power. I think that it might even be another day or two before there is power in Glengary. I have heard that most of downtown now has power and I will be slinking off down there to score some food at some point. Food that doesn't require heating that actually tastes good. I mean, I like crackers and all, but I have been eating them for a solid day now and I'm looking for a bit of a change. I am going to assume the worst for everything that is in my fridge at this point. I ate the rest of my processed sandwich meats yesterday and drank a few glasses of milk while it was still fairly cold, but as much as I like milk, I like it cold and three glasses of off-cold milk is all I can handle. Luckily I have a lot of juice and the water still works here, so I am doing ok for liquid refreshment. But it could be worse, they could make me evacuate. That happened to Fenwick Place - which I don't blame anyone for, I wouldn't have wanted to be in there. I heard that over 100 windows in Fenwick blew out during Juan's stay there. And Sarah now tells me that they might have to move the girls from Shirreff to Howe, because they can't have them stay without emergency services. That is, there are no more emergency lights, I'm not sure if their water is working, that kind of thing. And as much as I need electricity, I would much rather suffer through it in the comfort of my own apartment than be moved somewhere else.

In case, the fact wasn't clear from my ranting thus far, Dalhousie closed again today. There isn't much they can do about it, without power you can't really run a university. As fun as school closures were in high school and earlier, now they are just a disturbance. OK, yes I got to sleep in yesterday and yes I might go back to bed today, but the fact is, I'd rather be getting paid to work than to sit here in the half-dark of my basement apartment. And if I were in classes, like pretty much anyone else that I know closures mean uncertainty. Is that assignment that was due today going to be due tomorrow, or next class? When will my test be? What about my lab? When? What? Where? And no one really knows the answer to the questions either. And without power there isn't much you can do to get those assignments done anyway. Especially in CS, where, granted you could get your own computer powered up somehow, but even then, the network router appear to be down anyway. So logging into torch, the CS undergrad server would be tricky to say the least, and almost every assignment that I have had in a CSCI designated class has required me to use torch (or borg previously) in some way, shape or form. What a crazy week so far, and I can imagine that it will take a while before things are back to normal. I'll keep you posted, sort of.