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September 16, 2001The summer is over! Or at least the Lake aspect of it. I can't believe how fast it went by. Still though, when I think back to the beginning of the season, when I went out to the lake by myself in my good ol' red van with the Seadoo behind me, it seems like ages ago. Interesting how time works. There were a lot of good memories from this year, as you can see from the photo album. I tried to bring my camera with me every weekend, and capture as many images of the summer as I could. Unfortunately, it was not always easy. There were many times I wish I had had my camera with me, but this was just not practical. A lot of these times were on the Seadoo, for example, when the thought of dropping a thousand dollar digital camera to the bottom of the lake just made the prospect too risky. We did take some water pictures, but not nearly as many as I would have liked to. The other major drawback with the camera I was using this summer was its delay. From the time you pressed the button until it actually took a picture, there was a good 1 second delay. Granted, its an older camera. But this still made taking action shots almost impossible to time. I must say that I am a little bit relieved not having to go to the lake every weekend now. My weeks had become so busy, and my weekends were always booked, which left me very little time for anything to do for (or even by) myself. This being my first weekend home in as long as I can remember, I built a computer this morning, went to my parent's house and helped my dad with some plumbing, and am currently working on Project X on the computer that I built this morning. Not bad for a day's work. Tomorrow being Sunday I plan on going to church in the evening now that Life Night has started up again, something I think I should make a habit out of now that I am home on Sunday evenings. I think its only fair to say though, that I miss all my Pine Lake friends. This last long weekend I had the opportunity to stay an extra night at the lake, as I had to work in Red Deer the next morning. Everyone else, however, had gone home during that day, and as I walked through the quiet and vacant campground, it made me realize more than ever how much its the company at the lake that makes it special, not the place itself.In other news, I've been contemplating new ideas for this web page, one of which, (a minor addition, if it ever even makes it...) is a rant page. Basically, a place where I write down and describe things that really make me mad, annoyed, frustrated, angry, disgusted, etc. I can tell you a few of the chart toppers would have to be insurance companies and banks. I also plan on getting some sort of IQ test you can take, and see how well you score. (For entertainment purposes only, of course.) It seems people like taking surveys, so I'de like to get some kind of survey script from somewhere and set that up. I'm sure I could come up with some topics to survey (you) on... For those of you who are interested, I built another computer to add to my little network here. This makes 4 so far, plus the other two computers in the house owned by other people. It turned out that I needed a full time Windows 95 computer -- having dual boot on one of my linux machines proved to be too inconvenient. Most of the files hosted and served were in that computer, so any time it was in Win95 mode, no one could access any files. This way I can keep the network running 100% and still use the programs that will only run in Windows mode. Its a decent little machine too. I acquired the guts of the computer itself for free, which included a funky Packard Bell case, motherboard, Celeron 400 Mhz processor, 64 MB of ram, an ATI Rage IIC video card (which has so far impressed me considerably, and a built in Creative Ensoniq 1317 sound chip, which has also impressed me considerably. It is definately the clearest sound card I have in any of my computers. This makes mixing quite enjoyable, and I threw in the 60 gig hard drive, completing this now fairly powerful computer. I still need to get it a fast network card, as 10Mbps is just horrid when you are editing a WAV file across the network. This addition means I'll have to buy another network cable as well, for we are one short at the moment. I had to switch the entire network over to the 10Mbps hub so everyone could get on, because my 100Mbit switch has only 5 ports. Eventually what I plan on doing is running the 4 fast computers off the fast switch, and linking the 5th port down to the slow hub, then connecting the two slow computers into the slow hub. This will allow additional 10Mbps connections to be added to the net if necessary, and I don't have to buy a larger fast hub. There is so much I want to do with these computers, and I've learned so much. Still I feel ignorant to Linux and most of what it can do. I am comfortable with it though. Friday I became an aerial operator, taking Pat's truck to do several aerial calls. That was interesting, but nothing I haven't done before, just not on my own. I got all of the jobs done too, which was amazing considering that because Ib was pushing us out the door that morning, yelling "Lets get mobile!" and "Come on get this truck out of here!", I forgot my tools in the other truck. Now its not easy changing ballasts and opening sign canopys without any tools, so I had to call Gary who was nice enough to bring his socket set over as well as a 1000 watt light bulb which I also needed for that store. (7-11 Crowfoot, in case you were wondering.) It was a good thing anyway, because I could not have opened that sign without the ratchet set. The rest of the day I fumbled through, performing all the necessary tasks with only my wire strippers and AC tester as a screwdriver, prybar, and in one case, a knife. Amazing little tools. Anyhow, its about 3:11 in the morning as I type this, so I will sign off and do some other things before heading to bed. Now that I am home more I might even add more journal entries more often! Wouldn't that be amazing? BACK to Journal Index |