Nem W. Schlecht

Figured it was time to buy a house. ;-)

Nice little 1 1/2 story, with gas furnace, water heater, and kitchen range (I’m going to looking into getting a gas dryer as well). Central air, hardwood floors, and a nice porch. I’m looking forward to next living stage in my life (especially after being in an apartment for 13 1/2 years).

More pics and a rough floor plan (done in OmniGraffle) are available here.

And no, buying a house has nothing to do with my horrible, noisy, upstairs neighbors. Nothing at all. No animosity or anger there, believe me.

I received my new couch this last weekend. I also purchased a nice bar-height 2-person dining set (which had a bad part in it, so one of my chairs isn’t fully assembled).

I’m pretty happy about the results so far. ;-)

Now, on to the office area (kitchen after that).

One of the P.D. guys received a shipment from Omaha Steaks today. To keep it cool, they ship it with a small amount of dry ice. Lots of office fun ensued. ;-)

Thesis successfully defended! Woot!

My advisor and I eventually went out to the local pub, The Bison Turf, to celebrate:

Well, the major portion of my thesis project has been completed. There’s still a few features/etc. that need to be added, but the worse is over (except for writing the paper).

In other news, I’ve made a couple purchases to help ease the pain of working so much. First is a new 20″ display to round out my multi-display system. I now have a virtual 4800×1200 display. Very nice. I’ve also ordered a Das Keyboard for myself. I’ve just removed my homemade version, since the paint was peeling off (again). Soon, I’ll have a snazzy, unlabeled, fully-black, buckling spring keyboard at home. Life is good. ;-)

My life is pretty much a blur right now of work, sleep, and thesis. Mainly thesis. I hate it, but every minute working on it gets me one minuter closer to getting the damn thing done.

Today I attempted to recover a dead hard drive using the new temperature chamber at work. I eventually lowered the temperature to -40C (which is also -40F). After letting the drive sit in the chamber during the cooling process, I also waited about 15 minutes at the peak low temperature. The chamber allows for cables to run into it through a port in the side (which is a big hole with basically a big plastic cork).

Unfortunately, I experienced no joy, as I was still unable to get my MacBook to transfer (or even mount) the drive. If you look closely at this image, you can see the drive through the window.

Here’s a photo of the setup, including my MacBook to the left, USB SATA interface (on the floor), and temperature chamber with the laptop HD sitting on a chunk of styrofoam.

It’s been a long while since I blogged.

I’m no longer at NDSU, I’m now at Packet Digital, LLC. So far, so good.

I had been working feverishly on my thesis, but the new job has slowed that way down.

I saw a big-ass owl tonight in the alley behind my apartment. At one point, it flew from a shed to a power line right in front of me. Pretty cool. ;-)

No, not David Hasselhoff. I went on a 20 mile ride tonight at night. It’s been awhile and at a couple spots, I had trouble making out the path. Still, I averaged 16.8 over 20 miles, which is pretty damn good for me. ;-)

This Friday for Mud, instead of the usual Labby’s/Turf mix, we went to the Dakota Horse park for several of the races. It was also “Dollar Day” with dollar beers (little 8oz Coors Light cans) and dollar dogs (which were actually pretty darn good). I only wagered on 2 races and lost both times. It was a lot of fun – we’ll have to do it again.

Well, today, its official. I handed in my letter of resignation to the NDSU Library. I’ll miss working with everybody and the University life, but its been time for a change. My last day is August 24th. I then start at Packet Digital on September 3rd.

Robby graciously bought me a chain tool last Thursday and I finally ran over to his house tonight to pick it up (we unsuccessfully tried earlier in the week to find one at Scheel’s). Robby, Lily, and Fiona greeted me when I arrived. Lily at first didn’t recognize me, but that didn’t stop her from sitting on my feet while I bounced her in the air. Soon (actually, luckily – my legs were getting tired), it was time for bed for Lily. Unfortunately, she was out of toothpaste, which caused a few tears, but a few minutes later she happily appeared in a princess dress (she was supposed to have her PJ’s on, though).

After coming home, I was successful (after a couple attempts) in getting my chain properly assembled. Luckily, my chain came with the proper ‘pilot rivet’ (it holds the chain together as well as holding and guiding the rivet while its being inserted). Although I did partially break the pilot rivet (it still works), I did get the chain properly assembled.

Workers yesterday cleared out the trees from these two lots yesterday (located on the south side of 12th Avenue, kitty-corner from the Library). Today, they took down the buildings. This will soon be the site of some small businesses, as well as apartments.

Went to “Transformers” (again!) with Mark, Mazz, Dayna, Quinn & Cameron. The second time was just as good as the first and I was able to pick up a few more tidbits here and there. I can’t wait for it to come out on DVD!