Saturday
I had some trouble waking up, but made it to the school at 6:09, well before any of the carpool riders had actually left. I was driving the Saturn, so I took three passengers and headed for Kane Hall at the UW. Traffic was virtually nonexistant, and we arrived around 6:30. Once there, we watched as the entire lecture hall filled to capacity with eagar students awaiting the anouncement of this year’s game. After the usual techincal difficulties, and then the usual hour and a half of talk, the game was revealed. Compared to some unveilings (especially 2001), it wasn’t as intimidating. That may just be experience, but still, this game is unique, despite reusing many components from previous years, and its still a doozie. After the game was announced, raffle tickets were sold by team 824, SWAT Robotics, the team hosting the event. The grand prize was a Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz Compaq Laptop. Since it was for a good cause I pitched in, eventually amounting 17 tickets at $5 a pop. Of course, the reason I tell you this is that I WON THE RAFFLE and got a brand new laptop worth $1600 for a mere $85. Of course, this means Mobius, the laptop I’m using right now suddenly seems to be a little older. I still love it though – I just have to find a good home for it once I get everything I want working on the new laptop. Parents are probally high on the list. After the celebration subsided, pictures were taken, and I signed to acknowledge that I had won, then I got to leave with a brand new laptop – currently awaiting its official name and compiling the Gentoo Linux bootstrap. Pretty much everything else has gone well today – I got cable modem installed at the house, Bob and I found the old EDUbot, battery, and charger , and the new laptop seems to be more linux-friendly, or at least linux is more friendly to the new laptop.
Now I am sitting in Bob’s bed plunking away at this computer while the new laptop compiles, and bob works simultaneously at his laptop and his desktop. Good times!