btornado's Journal: 2003/2004 Updates

Wow...it's been about a year since I posted an entry in here.

So...where do I start.

I graduated from North last year around in June. Had a graduation party, got some nice swag. A few weeks later I ordered an IBM Thinkpad R32 laptop with some of my graduation money. I named it Poseidon - being the first of my computers named after a Greek god.

I built Hades from some spare parts that I had around and from a motherboard and processor that I bought from Nils. Hades is a Pentium II 266 with 192 MB of RAM. At that time I installed RedHat 7.3 on it and that remained on there for a while. I mainly used it as a place to ssh to and run irssi.

My family went to Jolli Lodge in June. I shaved my head, and that was probably the highlight of that trip.

I went to Earlham in August. I did pretty well. I became a real Linux user when I installed Gentoo on both Hades and on my main box, stella. Gentoo is just awesome. I also replaced RedHat on Poseidon with Gentoo.

In the spring I got a job at Earlham as one of the Computer Science System Administrators. I am going back there later this summer to work.

I bought a few more computers. I bought an old IBM Workpad z50, which I am using right now. It is an old Windows CE Handheld Professional PC. I found a site that had instructions on installing the hpcmips port of NetBSD on it. So that's what I did. I got an IBM Microdrive and put NetBSD on it. It's just awesome. I can run X and ssh to my boxes with a wireless card. I also bought a Sun Sparcstation 5 that right now is sitting on the floor unused. I had plans to put Gentoo on it and run it as a webserver. But I made our old Compaq computer the webserver so I might have to find some other use for the Sparcstation.

I got a digital camera for my birthday this year, which is really fun to play with. I also got a film SLR camera which I used for my photography class in the spring semester. I have 2 rolls of film that need to be developed, but one of them is a color roll and I don't know how to develop that (yet). I'm hoping that the darkroom at Earlham will be open during the summer so I can develop my stuff there. If it's not I might just have to give it to Target or Walmart or some place.

I'm going to Ireland next week because my dad is going on business and my mom and I are tagging along. I'm looking forward to it because we studied the Bloody Sunday incident in Northern Ireland in our Cinema and Adaptation class that I had last semester. I was hoping that we might be able to go up there and see some of the places that we were studying. I don't know if we'll be able to make it up there, but it will still be a fun trip nonetheless.

I'm reading Lord of the Rings again because we read The Fellowship of the Ring in our Cinema and Adaptation class and I wanted to continue :). I'm currently at the beginning of The Return of the King right now. I'm hoping that I don't finish it by the time I leave for Ireland next week so I can have something to read on the plane.

The film Return of the King is just stunning. I seriously cried at the end, and when I watched it again I cried even harder. I'm looking forward to the DVD release, although I already have a DivX copy. I'll still buy it, plus the extended edition in November.

Peace.