Anything and Everything
Over the weekend Lauren and I got to meet Chef Duff (from ‘Ace of Cakes’) @ Lebowski Fest 2008. It was a pretty good time. I couldn’t believe how many awesome costumes there were. Who would have thought that The Big Lebowski would still have such a dedicated following after all these years.
Today Lauren and I are driving to Louisville, KY to check out the Lebowski Festival. I’m taking Lauren to go see Duff’s band (the main dude from Ace of Cakes). Also, I’ll be kicking it with my good friends Everthus the Deadbeats whom I don’t get to see that often because they moved away.
Anyway, it should be a good time. I’m sure that Lauren will be taking lots of pictures while we’re there and I’ll upload them when I get back.
Lauren’s so excited about meeting Duff that she’s nearly pee’d her pants on multiple occassions. She had previously scheduled her birthday party for today but canceled it when she found out that Duff’s band was going to be playing w/ the Deadbeats. After spending a fair amount of time e-mailing all of her guests to inform them that she was rescheduling her bday bash for next week, I called up Deadbeat Benny to get the low down on Lebowski Fest.
Brace yourself Louisville, because we’re on our way. Break out the whiskey.
Today marks the fourth day that I’ve been using Ubuntu 8.04 as my primary operating system. Overall I’d say that things are going smoothly but there are a few issues that I’ve run into.
Conflict #1
Despite my best efforts, I have not been able to get Ubuntu to utilize my dual display configuration that I was using in Windows XP. I’m using a DVI+VGA setup. From what I’ve gathered in the Ubuntu Forums, Linux seems to favor DVI+DVI and VGA+VGA but doesn’t take kindly to mix and match systems. Although I was able to recognize and configure both monitors in ’sudo nvidia-settings’, they still refused to cooperate with each other in ‘twinview’.
Conflict #2
Battle.net! I don’t consider myself to be a hardcore computer gamer but I do enjoy playing StarCraft. Using Wine I was able to install StarCraft without a problem and everyhing seemed well. It wasn’t. When I went online to play with a buddy of mine I ran into a number of issues regarding menus overlapping each other to the point that my screen looked possessed. I consulted the ubuntu forums to find a cure but was left empty-handed. It appears that there’s a bug in wine that causes this problem. I couldn’t find any solutions in the forums to remedy this issue. SUCK! So now I can play StarCraft on my computer but not online. This is only a minor problem but it still proves to be an annoyance.
So far these are the only two conflicts that I’ve had in Ubuntu. Aside from actual conflicts, I have found myself missing the programs that I’ve grown to love. I miss DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink as well as others. I’m sure there are similar programs out there for linux but I’ve yet to find them.
So what’s my solution?….
When it comes to computers I like to think ahead before doing anything. When I installed Ubuntu I made sure to do so using a swappable hard drive bay. I’m going to order an additional 80GB Sata HDD along with an additional swappable drawer enclosure and fit it with a clean install of Windows XP. This way I’ll have the best of both worlds. My machine will be configured to either OS depending on which drawer is inserted.
I guess I could have installed windows in a dual boot fashion but I like the idea of keeping the different operating systems on separate drives. I might just break down and go to Best Buy so I can get everything up and running over the weekend. Who knows. Maybe a trip to Fry’s Electronics is in order?
Today has proven to be one of the most chaotic weekday that I’ve had in a very long time.
First off all, the whole ordeal started with a late night. I didn’t end up getting to bed until around 3AM which would have allowed me plenty of time to sleep before my 11AM class. However, instead of sleeping until 10:20 I was woken up at 7AM by the Carbon Monoxide Detector in my hallway. I stumbled out of bed to see what all the noise was about and the alarm was reading 276 parts per billion. I had no idea what this meant so I was quick to grab my laptop and figure out what the safe levels of carbon monoxide were. I checked out the site of the company that made our detector and read their figures. The website said that 250 parts per billion was dangerous and that we needed to get to fresh air immediately. I closed my laptop and rushed to oepn all of the windows and doors while simultaneously waking up Lauren and telling her that we had to evacuate the apartment. I threw my laptop into a backpack and we left with the quickness.
I wasn’t feeling very hot and I couldn’t tell whether my symptoms were due to a lack of sleep OR exposure to carbon monoxide. I called our landlord and informed him about the situation. He told me that he was at the hospital because his wife had just had back surgery and that he could be at our apartment in an hour. During that hour I took Lauren to her parent’s house and then stopped by my dad’s to scour the internet over what to do in this type of situation; I’ve never dealt with carbon monoxide before. Most of the website said that exposure to carbon monoxide would result in headaches but I didn’t have one so I was confused. It was at this time that my landlord called and told me that he was downtown.
When I arrived at my apartment I met with my landlord and explained the situation. I told him that our detector had been going off. We tried plugging the detector into multiple outlets in every room of the apartment. The readings were consistent so we evacuated to the balcony to devise a plan. He ended up having some friend that worked for T.J. Environmental Systems so he gave them a call. They said that they would be sending someone out immediately to check the premises. I didn’t now how long that was going to take so I drove back to my dad’s house to do some more reading online. All of the websites were saying that I should consult a doctor if I had been exposed to carbon monoxide so I called my family doctor. The doctor told me that I should go to the emergency room and get checked out just to be safe. LAME! I called Lauren and told her what my doctor had said and that I was going to pick her up to go to the ER.
Lauren and I were admitted to the ER around 10:30AM and sat in the waiting room for about 30 minutes before we were called in to room # E-11. The nurses came in and asked us the typical ER questions regarding height, weight, and etc. When they were finished asking their questions they told us that the doctor would be with us shortly and then closed our curtain. While we were waiting for the doctor to arrive I received a call from my landlord informing me that the guy from T.J. Environmental Systems believes that my Carbon Monoxide detector was not functioning properly. Apparently they had taken it into multiple areas that also had C02 detectors and ours was going off while the others were not. Just to be sure, the landlord and the TJ Environmental Systems guy went out and purchased a brand new CO2 detector of the same make and took it back to our apartment for further testing. The new detector showed zero parts per billion and proved that our detector was faulty. Once I heard this I immediately got out of my ER gown and put on my clothes and headed to the front desk to let the nurses know the news. They had me fill out an ADA form to show that I was leaving without treatment and that I wasn’t to be charged.
So basically… The moral of this story is that Carbon Monoxide Detectors need to be changed out every two years so that this whole situation can be avoided.
Suck.
It’s day two and my computer is up and running at full capacity. Installing Ubuntu was definitely a learning experience. The curve is steep for people like me, who have never used anything outside of OSX and Windows. I jumped off the cliff blindy. I figured the best way to learn was to be immersed in it. That way I would be forced to figure it out.
So far so good. Today I finished installing my secondary hard drives. I tried installing my dual displays but had trouble getting ubuntu to recognize a VGA and DVI display at the same time. After attempting for an hour I gave up. Instead, I installed starcraft because it’s a classic.
Now it’s time to use Open Office to go over my notes for my Geography Exam in the morning.
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