Cecil B. DeMented was wonderful. John Waters is definately getting back to what he is good at; this movie is a funny, tasteless, and everything else that makes classic John Waters wonderful.
Tomorrow the Family Truckster takes on the 5 hour trip up to Rochester. It’s been nice visiting home, and I definately enjoy the relaxation, but it will be nice to get this moving done with and work on doing the same with classes.
I picked up the Naked City album " Heretic: Jeux Des Dames Cruelles" at Other Music when I was in the city yesterday. I tried to listen to it when I was going to bed last night, but it wasn’t very conducive to that. I will give it a listen soon and let you know what I think.
As of today, I am supremely relaxed, and I think after another day or two I might be ready for classes. James and I were talking about going to see Cecil B. DeMented in NYC this week. If that is going to happen, it needs to happen today. I will have to give him a call and see what’s up.
Mozilla. For all the shit it catches in the press, I am amazed at how stable and useful it is. I have been grabbing the nightly builds for some time now, but since I have been home on my dad’s machine, I have been using it exclusively (because my dad doesn’t want NS installed; he is an IE weenie now).
Anyway, it rarely crashes on me (remember, it isn’t even beta yet), and it screams. I can’t wait until this is rock solid.
Ugh. Today blew so badly. Wait, I should backtrack to my last entry….
So, the stuff at NASA continued throughout the week, Thursday night we had a DCS vs. MCS game of Laser Tag, which rocked. I did _really_ well, getting some of the best scores of the two teams (we had some non-SOFIA people playing, we couldn’t get a game all to ourselves).
Friday afternoon, we were done with NASA stuff. I have to say that while this week was enlightening and fun, it was very difficult and tiring to sit through all these presentations, etc.
Before we went back to the hotel, we toured a few more facilities at NASA. We saw “Hangar 1”, which is the gigantic hangar you can see from 101 that was originally built to house US Navy Dirigibles. This structure was immense (you could fit 3 Titanic’s in it with the doors closed). After that we went to see the vertical motion simulator that pilots and astronauts use to simulate flight. It was like a gigantic X-Y plotter.
After our tours, we headed back to the hotel, and I stayed behind while everyone else went to San Francisco. I guess it was a combination of being tired and not feeling touristy. So I took a nap for awhile and eventually contacted Chris. I got a ride out to Cisco and hung out there for awhile (actually getting to meet a few of her co-workers, which was cool). I also got to hear her IP Phone’s funky ringing ability. We left after we got all her Linux problems solved (She didn’t need my help for that, I’ll tell you.. :P).
We headed back to her apartment and watched a movie but ended up falling asleep rather quickly. We woke up Saturday and hung out all day, going out to eat, shop, etc. She returned me to the hotel at 2am Sunday so I could check out and catch my plane. I am really glad I got to spend some time with her; our relationship has been really strained since she moved, and I think that this time we healed a little bit… (At least I did.)
So the DCS team left the hotel at 4:20am to catch our 6:25am(PDT) flight. We made it in time, but we cut it a little close. Boba lost his ticket (which is why we left the hotel at 4:20 instead of 4), and we left him behind to deal with the ticket counter. He never made it on our plane, and I am not quite sure how he made out…
Today was flight-hell. I got back into Rochester at 4pm(EDT), but a whole day of flying really tired me out. I went to the Continental desk to get my ticket back to NJ (7pm), and the lady told me that there was an earlier flight (5:30pm) that I could be put on standby for. She took my bag and I went to the gate. I got on the flight, and ended up in EWR by 7:20pm. That is when the fun began…..
So I get there, am greeted by Mom and Larissa, and we head to the baggage carousel… What fun that became. My bag never appeared, and when I went to claims, they said that my bag was still coming in on the original flight I was scheduled for. I grudgingly agreed to wait for the later flight to come in so I could get my bag.
That flight was scheduled to arrive at 8:25pm, which came and passed. I tried to ask people for help several times, to no avail, and the screens told me that the plane was “ON TIME” and scheduled to arrive at 8:25pm (of course, it was already 9:45pm at this point, so it was obviously inaccurate).
I then went on a wild goose chase around the airport trying to find out information about when the flight was going to arrive. I was ultimately found out that the plane hadn’t even left Rochester due to bad weather, and that my bag was stranded there.
I went to the Baggage Claim again to ask if they could ship my bag to me once it arrived. The kind woman there (who was able to deal with me, and as you can imagine, I couldn’t have been that fun to deal with), told me that my bag had been in Newark all along, and showed me to my bag, sitting in a big pile. Apparently my bag came up separate from the rest, and no one bothered to tell me that the 8 times I asked about it. Bastards.
I am tired, jetlagged, and frustrated. Thank god my dad has a Cable Modem now so I don’t have to deal with no bandwidth in addition to all this. :)
Greetings from cisco. I am visiting Chris after our meeting at NASA today, and we are going to grab some chow in a little bit (once we stop hacking on her kernel).
We visited the Kuiper Airborne Observatory today, which is the plane that SOFIA is replacing. The plane is decommissioned, but they rolled it out for us to see today (which probably cost \$10,000). While we were in the hangar, we got to see the 747 that carries the Space Shuttle around. That plane was getting new landing gear.
As I said, my updates are sporadic lately, I am returning to Rochester on Sunday, but 3 hours later I am flying home to New Jersey for a week. Should be some good decompression time, because this week has definately hosted some frustration for all parties involved.
My machine BSOD’ed twice today, and it has something to do with my IDE drive…. I will have to figure it out after I get back from California….
I finally finished up my presentation, and I am currently tying up a few loose ends before my trip tomorrow. My presentation ended up not being as bad as I imagined, but I have to brush up on some other technologies that I might be quizzed on when I give it. Luckily I don’t have to go to bat until Tuesday.
I am all moved out, as some of you guys know… It is good in a way, because moving sucks, but now I am kinda a vagrant right now…. My PC is set up here at work so I could finish up my presentation (and so it had a place to live).
It now looks like I might be travelling back to NJ after I get back to Rochacha. It will be good to get home, I haven’t been back since the very beginning of summer.
So that’s it for now… I will try to update when I can on my trip…
Ok, I admit it… I am addicted to Mr. Bungle… One of the great things about Mr. Bungle is that the music generated by the band is not only interesting and diverse, but the band members are involved in many different side projects that cover a large spectrum of musical styles. The most visible member of Mr. Bungle, lead singer Mike Patton, has involved himself in many projects. Fortunately, the other members of Bungle have done so as well. This review is of a release from one of those side projects, the Secret Chiefs 3.
Secret Chiefs 3 is a project headed up by Bungle guitarist Trey Spruance, and also featuring Bar McKinnon, Trevor Dunn, and Danny Heifetz. While you can still see some Bungle poke through, this album definately stands on its own. While it has a strong middle-eastern influence (witness Track 2), the album still manages to straddle many fences; There are obviously many different influences (Film Scores, Pop, and Metal, to name a few).
The disc I purchased was a reissue of the original disc, which was released on Amarillo (which went out of business). The reissue is on Mimicry Records, which is the record label owned by Trey. I actually ordered two of their discs when they were reissued, and have been happy with both. Much like the work of Bungle proper, this album keeps my ears and mind interested most of the time, which is saying alot in todays barren wasteland of pre-fab pop. I strongly suggest that if you appreciate eclectic music, or are simply willing to experiment, to check out the band. If you like what you hear, go support an independent artist…