Checksum Arcanius

via Bob.

Get your own today!

Took the parents to the airport this morning, then drove straight up I-5 to school, got to class ten minutes late, paid some attention, talked to the TA briefly, then headed to work, worked straight through lunch eating only a few things from the vending machine then left work about 6:40, hit up the Puget Sound Blood Center for a walk-in donation, met a nice girl going to the UW (but curses on me, I didn’t find out any more), left just after 8, hit up Costco Gasoline at about 8:30, then deposited a check from work (reimbursement for my trip to Portland), then headed home, played a little bit of DoD:S (a very well-made game, I might add) to blow off the steam, then ate my first real food of the day (beef, rolls, and cheese, mmmm), submitted my CSE 143 assignment online, and then wrote this blog – and yes this is a run on sentence, just like my day.

Leaving work at a quarter past ten this evening, I came across a rabbit sitting in the same place as I saw one when leaving work about the same time last night.The rabbit last night was almost completely unphazed by me – it simply sat still, ambling uninterestedly away when I made a few mock threatening gestures in its directions. The rabbit tonight, however, made sure to put some distance between itself and me as soon as it saw that I was coming in its direction. Intrigued, I followed the rabbit past my vehicle to the side of the building. The rabbit got the idea, and began traveling faster. I decided to run. It finally lost me by the time it had traveled 3/4 the way around the building, but only because the bushes are thick back there and I wanted to go home more than I wanted to continue pestering the rabbit.

I finally rounded out my schedule today by adding Technical Communications 333 — Advanced Technical Writing and Oral Presentation — in the MW 3:30-5:20 slot. While not as desirable as the MTuWTh 10:30-11:20 slot would have been (which was full), this slot still fits my schedule and adds some “texture” to my weekly schedule. Where by texture I mean I might as well be taking night classes at BCC again.

One of the most interesting things I have noticed about classes here at the UW, as compared to BYU and BCC, is that very few classes (of the ones I’m taking, at least) are a “full” 5 credits. I am in a 3-credit Advanced Multivariable Calculus class, a 4-credit Thermodynamics class, a 4 credit Technical Communications class, and a single 5-credit Computer programming class.

As far as work is concerned, this schedule means that Thursdays will be my daytime workday, with Tuesdays and Fridays being possible late afternoon excursions to work, with Monday and Wednesday being only for when I feel a particular need to work late. Probably what I will end up doing is working Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

A few days ago, I was reading my daily news and I saw a couple of strange headlines on the Seattle Times RSS feed. When I attempted to view the articles associated with them, I was greeted with a nice but firm “page not found” error. However, by backtracking to the directory above, I found an interesting blank page that still seems to be active. You can check it out yourself.

I decided that I probably really should start backing up my documents on a semi-regular basis. Although I’ve had extraordinary luck with hard drives, I don’t expect any hard drive to last indefinitely, and I’d rather be safe than sorry. I decided to begin with my Documents and Settings folder on my laptop. I first tried backing up using 7zip, my preferred compression program. However, it immediately ran into errors with special Windows files inside of that directory. Not wanting to make a laborious process out of a simple backup, I turned to google, and found this little gem: Windows XP Backup Made Easy. And as the title suggests, the Windows XP backup utility actaully does make backing up easy. Now my entire Documents and Settings folder contents are safe. For now.

Here’s a capture of the backup in action:

Next up is backing up the content of SilverFir.net on a regular basis…

I really need to learn how to sleep.