Grad-Blog
Drying Up
I'd hate to speak too soon, but the water leaking into my apartment is finally fixed. First the drain for my air conditioning was clogged, spilling water onto my carpet. As soon as that got fixed something upstairs (the air conditioning I think) started leaking water down into my apartment. The leaking was bad because it left a yellow stain on my carpet and my bedroom wall, but at least I could control the leak by the way of buckets. I guess when it rains it pours.
First Class
My first graduate level class lived up to my expectations. I understood little of what was said, and the professor said "Most of this should be familiar to you." The professor talked about various
linear algebra topics such as
vector spaces and
basis vectors. I haven't seen this material since my last semester at
SAC, which was the spring of 2001. On an interesting note, there's a guy in the class who graduated from
UTSA. Well, I must crack open the books (but take off the shrink wrap first).
DSL
I got DSL service at my apartment, so now I can get my internet fix without biking to my office and using Linux (at least I don't have to use Windows.) Getting service was not without it's pains. I, of course, had to get a phone line to get DSL service, and I didn't have a dial tone. I had to have someone come out to fix it, but thankfully it was a problem with their network. I got an automated call when my DSL service was turned on. The voice sounded like a not so deep voiced Barry White. This is the profit of love calling you to inform you that your DSL service has been connected...
I Built This Castle In A Swamp, And Then It Fell Into The Swamp, So I Built Another One
My swamp is finally getting fixed today. Over the weekend the drain for my and my neighbor upstairs air conditioning unit has been clogged, which in turn has made my carpet very wet. A few minutes ago some plumber finally came to fix it. I turned my AC off, but they didn't turn it off upstairs (they probably don't even know about it,) so water continued to leak into my apartment while I sat in front of my fan. Well, hopefully it will all be over.
A New Post!
It's been a week since I moved up here. It's been a week of waiting for the action to start. Next week I have a few orientations (three to be exact) to go to, and the week after that classes start. My TA assignment is to grade an advanced calculus class. I was suprised to be assigned to grade an upper division class when I thought I would grade a freshman level class. At least it will be more challenging than college algebra.
College Station is nice, small, but very dense. It's about a 10 minute bike ride to my "office", so I have a built-in 20 minute workout. It has a copy of almost any chain store that San Antonio has, but it's without SA's ubiquitous, hole-in-the-wall mexican food places (and Main St. Pizza).
Anyway...must go.
A Cool Blast In Summer
For the first time that I remember, a cool front has come through San Antonio in August. It brought the temperatures down into the 80's, and that's almost unheard-of. The cooler weather couldn't come at a better time. I had to be outside several hours assisting my dad fix my car's breaks. The temperature should stay down for my move on Saturday too. Weird.
One Thing I'm Really Going To Miss
I ate lunch at
Main Street Pizza & Pasta with my brother today. I'm going to miss this place. They have the best personal pizzas for the price. My favorite is Green Olives and Sausage. I'm going to miss their sandwiches on Foccacia bread. Oh, and their ranch dressing. As a matter of fact, I think I might make the picture on their website my computer's desktop picture. Well, that might be taking it too far.
I've been going there since I was a student at
San Antonio College, where one of my friends introduced me to it. I must have spent a small fortune there. I think I've eaten there once a week on average for the last 4 years. Here's hoping there's a good mom and pop resturant to spend a fortune at in College Station.
Yellow Dog?
Just for the sake of being geeky, I installed
Yellow Dog Linux on my iBook. I finally got it up an running, so I hit the icon for Mozilla and nothing. No Mozilla. No web browser. I swear I installed it. No problem, I'll just find the software installer and add it. Oh, where is the software installer program? So I spend 20 minutes or so trying to just get a web browser installed. That made me want to go back to my nice, safe
OS X. Linux is gone from my life (for now.) I know, that's not a really great basis for judging a system. I'm sure Yellow Dog is a good Linux distro, but I can't be seperated from my beloved OS X.
Linux is good for a lot of things. Servers, scientific computing, and programming come to mind. It's good at web browsing, email, and chat too. It's when it gets to the media side of desktop computing that it's lacking. OS X (and, ugh, Windows) are better for the "digital lifestyle."
Cars
My car insurance payments will be going down 23% because of my move to College Station. I guess it's because of the small city, but it could also be all those fabled crazy drivers in San Antonio. It's too often that you're stuck behind someone going 50 MPH, but the guy (or girl) behind you wants to go 85 MPH.
Hopefully I won't be needing a car for much in College Station. By my crude approximations on a map my apartment is about a mile from where I need
to be. I plan to walk, bike, or take the shuttle. It's partly to get away from driving, and partly to shed some pounds by walking or biking two miles every day.
Flat Tire
This past Saturday, while going to a friend's house, I ran over a piece of metal that pierced one of my car's tires. The metal piece is about four inches long and a quarter inch thick. Nice way to make that good Saturday feeling go away. At least I got that out of the way for my move up to College Station.
