Earth Day and Things

I have a couple things to say tonight.  First of all, happy Earth Day.  It was a pretty nice day today, and I’m looking forward to the weather getting springier and springier.  It’s a nice environment, let’s try not to go too far out of our way to destroy it.

Second of all, if you run or work at a restaurant, please, please avoid having wobbly tables.  It is annoying, especially when you’re risking getting a bowl of soup in your lap.  Tweak the table, call a fixit guy to come look at it, or even stick a matchbook or two under one of the legs if you have too.

Gentoo and Xorg Updates

Just a reminder to myself and others…  On Gentoo, at least on amd64, when updating X you sometimes find that your mouse and keyboard don’t work.  The solution to this, it seems, is to just reemerge xf86-input-evdev and then restart X.  I don’t remember what causes this, but luckily it’s not that time consuming to fix.

On a non-computer related note, it’s finally spring.  Last weekend (the 9th and 10th) represented the first truly nice days of the season, and while it’s a bit cooler now it’s fairly obvious that winter has left us.  So go outside, and enjoy the weather.

Spring and Optimism

It’s coming up on mid-February, and the weather is beautiful.  Not only is it warm out but we’re also getting plenty of sun.  Well, it is a little cloudy right now, but it’s been beautiful.  I really don’t even need a coat going outside.  Of course this won’t last forever; already it’s supposed to drop into the 20’s come the weekend.  But I’ll enjoy it while it’s here.  Soon it will be March, then April…  And soon it’ll be too warm.  But whatever.

Well, all the quirks of Rochester weather aside this has made me feel good, despite hard times in classes and such.  The whole seasonal affective disorder (SAD) thing never really got to me much (I don’t think), but the sun definitely uplifts me.  So, despite not knowing what I am going to end up doing over the summer I can say that I’m quite happy right now.

So I’m feeling optimistic.  I know that doesn’t necessarily jive with some people, but for me a positive angle on things is healthy.  Now, there’s a difference between being optimistic and delusional, and it’s something every optimist (and pessimist) should watch out for.  But, at least for me, if I am to get through life I have to try at least to be happy about it.

And you know what?  Ask me when the weather’s crappy, or when I’ve just had a bad day, and I may very well feel otherwise.  Bad days do that to everyone.  I guess overall I would say I’m 51 % optimistic.  Well, whatever, take it how you will.  But at least join me in taking pleasure in the fact that it will be spring soon.

4th of July Pics

Well, only a few of these are from the 4th (firworks), but the rest are from this past weekend.  After seeing the fireworks at UB we went to the mountains Saturday and Sunday, and did a little hiking.  It was a good time.

There are a few shots of the fireworks at UB.  They were nice, although I would have liked it if they hadn’t played music during the show.  Due to our spot, I couldn’t really avoid the pillars.

The pic above is a view off of our cabin porch.  The water is the Allegheny Reservoir.  On Saturday me and a couple friends went on a hike up the hill the cabin is on via an old logging road.

A spring at the top of our hill (the cabin is about midway up).  This hill has a lot of springs on it, which is neat.  You can see a black PVC pipe someone used to try to get water to a different cabin years ago.  (The guy made the mistake of using electrical conduit, which isn’t drinking water safe.)  Our cabin gets its water from a different spring.

How this old refrigerator got to the top of the hill maybe thirty years ago is a long story.  But, it’s there, and it remains a monument to human stupidity.  This fridge is further up the path than the spring from the last pic.

A picture from the top of the hill, beyond the refrigerator.  I had never actually explored it this far before; someday I’m going to keep following the old logging road and head to the other side of the mountain.  It won’t be a long walk, but it will be interesting.  At this point in our hike, though, we turned back.

Well, I’ll probably add more pics later (yet again), but here’s a little flash and a little greenery.  I hope you all had a good weekend.

Happy New Year

Well, here we are in 2008.  And so far, things are off to a good start, so it would seem.  I didn’t do much today (well technically yesterday, as it’s past midnight on Jan. 2nd now), though I did go see Across The Universe, which was an interesting movie.

Well, most of my break is over with, and soon I’ll be picking up where I left off with my classes again.  Not bad, I guess, though I wish I had three weeks instead of two.  But what are you going to do?

On another note, it’s been kind of warm here.  Not very warm, but a bit above freezing.  Over the weekend I was in Endicott for a Christmas party, and it was almost like spring out side.  Here are a few pics:

endicott1.jpgendicott2.jpgendicott3.jpg

These were taken from my hotel window in the evening this past Saturday.  Pretty crazy.  It was a little cool out that day, but other wise like spring.   Hopefully this is not a permanent trend; I like the snow.  Luckily we got some here at home earlier, so that’s nice.  Who knows, winter is really just beginning.  Maybe there’ll be a nice, bigger snowfall coming up.

Well in any case, have a good year.  Before you know it it’ll be December again…  (Not that I have a big problem with that, of course.)