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BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND Haven't written much lately - as I always say, happy people don't blog much because they're too busy living their lives. I suppose the same is true of busy people as well.
NEW SCHOOL We were able to get the child into the new school I was talking about back when I was talking about getting her into a new school, and she seems to be doing pretty well.
I imagine in large part that's due to the fact that the school has been more than forthcoming with her over the fact that she is there at the school's sufferance, unlike a public school which has to put up with her shit, so if she doesn't walk the straight and narrow, they'll just boot her ass out. At that point, *I* become her teacher, and she wants with all her heart to avoid that situation, so she's apparently being pretty cooperative at school.
This is a good thing, because while I'm still just as disappointed in the level of arithmetic they're teaching here as I was when she was in public school, a lot of the other topics seem to be handled in a much more adult and rational way, and they're going on a *ton* of field trips and doing some pretty nifty stuff.
DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE I'm actually writing this post about an hour after having returned from seeing 'Paranormal Activity' at the Westminster 24. I hadn't read much about the movie, but I do enjoy a good ghost flick, so I thought it would be a fun afternoon activity while my wife napped.
As it turns out, the film isn't about ghosts, it's about demons. There are some genuinely creepy moments, but the whole thing came off to me as very silly, *especially* the Hollywood ending, which I've been given to understand was not in fact the original one, and was suggested as a mechanism for attracting a larger potential audience.
Lame.
GRADUATION DAY COMETH Go me. On the 19th of October, I will have completed my degree, and will hopefully have a hell of a lot more time on my hands thereafter. This makes me very happy.
WINTER ALREADY Two weeks ago, or thereabouts, I got sunburn from being outside too long at nearly dusk while I smoked my pipe. This week, it's been snowing, and this morning we woke up to a dusting heavy enough to require scrapeage from the windshield before I could drive the truck.
God, I'm depressed about this. I hate winter.
COOLANT? WHAT'S THAT? Earlier in the week, I had to drive downtown to replace a computer part (more on that later) and ended up having to print a map which didn't want to be printed, so the long and the short is that I got the child in to school about a minute and a half tardy.
My fault, but the school assumes that it's the child's fault when they're tardy unless a parent vouches for them *in person*, so I had to park in the lot and go in with her to let them know that she was not to be held in for recess over this. That went smoothly.
What did *not* go smoothly, however, was getting the truck started again after I got back out. It turned over just fine, but was running like it might have been firing on two, maybe three cylinders.
"Klunka-klunka-klunka..."
This was no good, but I figured maybe it would rev back up to full speed if I put it in gear. It went into gear just fine, but then as soon as I applied torque, the engine died.
And died again the next time.
And the next time.
I did eventually manage to get out of the parking lot by revving the engine in neutral and knocking it into reverse while the engine was revved. After that, it stayed up and gave me no further trouble that day.
However, the following day, as I was coming back to the house from dropping the child at school, the 'check gauges' light came on, which is never a good thing. I dutifully checked the gauges, and discovered that my engine temperature was hovering at around 260 degree Fahrenheit. Fortunately, the school is less than five minutes away by truck, so I was able to park it in front of the house and let it cool off (the snow helped some) and check it out.
No coolant. At all. Apparently in addition to the two-quart-a-month oil leak, my truck now leaks coolant as well. Took it to the gas station a block away and filled the coolant reservoir, and it was good as new, or so I'm hoping. Fingers firmly crossed on this one - this month is the last month we pay on the loan.
ALL MY COMPUTER PURCHASES ARE BELONG TO SYSTEM76 While I'm thinking about it, I'd like to shout out to Tom Aaron and System76 for their *fantastic* customer service. System76 has redefined customer service for me over the last few weeks.
I purchased a Starling netbook from them earlier in the year:
http://system76.com/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=92 Within a week of it's arrival, it had become my main system, and I'd handed my old laptop down to my wife. Everything worked out of the box with Ubuntu 9.04 and it was peachy, peachy, peachy.
However, a couple of weeks ago, the battery stopped charging unless the system was turned all the way off. This is not good - a computer approximately the size of a Gideon Bible is an attractive prospect to me because I travel to meet clients. Having to plug in every where I go really shaves a lot of utility off of the device.
I'm happy to say not only has System76 worked with me very efficiently via email to determine that the problem was indeed the battery hardware, but Tom Aaron of System76in fact had me drive downtown to their corporate office, where he allowed me to borrow his *personal* Starling battery so I didn't have to go without while I wait for them to order the replacement battery on warranty.
Amazing. I'm blown away. These guys have my business for as long as they can keep this sort of thing up.
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That pretty much wraps this update up, I think. Time to get get some food and a sophisticated adult beverage.
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