Sunday, April 20th, 2008 @ 1:04pm
Not a whole lot going on, therefore that explains the lack of updates. I work, eat, and sleep, so that’s not very exciting, is it? So here are some random ramblings:
Picked up a roof rack for my car (finally) this past weekend. Now I just need a new bike to go along with it.
I think what I really need is a vacation, considering this past year has been a long year for me and I haven’t really had a good chance to sit back and enjoy myself. Sure I was unable to work for a little while last fall, but that wasn’t really relaxing. I think I just need a break (that doesn’t involve bones!)
Started running again, and am trying to keep a schedule now for every other day. I want to get up to a 30 minute run, but taking it slow right now by adding 30 seconds each time. I figure if I add up 1-2 minutes each week I should be up to 30 minutes within a month or two. Working various muscle groups back up to the norm as well, but that’s kind of difficult to do when you don’t have gym equipment, and it’s hard to motivate myself to do that at a gym frequently enough.
Thursday, February 21st, 2008 @ 10:51am
So February thus far has been rather uninteresting and uneventful, so I have had very little on which to post about. In the meantime, I thought it would be interesting to pull up some random February facts.
February is the shortest month of the year, but I’m sure you knew that? Legend has it that Augustus took a day from February to add it to his own month (August).
The confederate states were formed on February 4th, in Montgomery, Alabama.
February 29th is the only day of the year which women can traditionally propose to men.
2 full moons in the same month of February occur very rarely, as a lunar cycle is approx. 29.5 days. The second full moon is considered a “blue moon” (although, this is the case in any month two full moons occur).
Groundhog’s Day isn’t the only event to take place on February 2nd. Candlemas also occurs on February 2nd, which is typically observed by Roman Catholics.
Anyway, hopefully something should pick up soon and I might have more interesting things to blog about. In the meantime…
Friday, January 25th, 2008 @ 11:11am
So I’ve been trying to work out recently in attempt to get full shoulder mobility back. It’s interesting to note at how hard it is to do so when you’ve had your muscles ripped apart in addition to having limited use for the two months.
I generally stay pretty active and moving around, so I don’t usually work out. That, and gyms are usually an expense I really don’t feel like paying. But Samford’s new arena actually has a pretty nice new weight room with all new equipment and stuff. So that with the complications of the accident have pushed me to attempt to begin working out. I think I’ve pulled something… twice, but it’s okay as it usually feels better by the next day. My current goal is the ability to do pull-ups, as my last attempt was a big pain of a failure.
The only thing I lack is motivation. Maybe I need to go buy the soundtrack from Rocky or something…
Sunday, January 20th, 2008 @ 3:34pm
Snow and Birmingham is a rare combination, but within the past week Alabama has had two snow events, neither of which were significant in Birmingham. Here at the apartment we only received a light dusting which accumulated on cars and roofs, but nothing beyond that.
It is of interest to note, that Birmingham typically receives an inch or so every year, but we’ve had a “snowless” streak the past couple of years. Birmingham is currently in its longest streak without having any measurable snow accumulation. (Note: A measurable amount according to the weather service 0.1 inches) The last measurable snow amount at the B’ham airport was Jan 28, 2000 (2,913 days). I wonder how long it will continue? Here the other 4 streaks following this one:
- 2/1/1951 to 3/6/1957: 2,225 days
- 2/13/1905 to 12/18/1909: 1,769 days
- 2/13/1971 to 12/1/1974: 1,387 days
- 1/5/1919 to 2/15/1922: 1,137 days
It’s bound to end at some point, but it seems like snow has skipped over Birmingham the past 8 years. Hopefully we’ll see some significant snow either within this year or the next.
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 @ 10:41pm
I figure it is about time to post the reason for my lack of updates. If you wish to know further detail you may need to ask me personally since I do not wish to publicize too many details over the internet.
About three weeks ago I was involved in a Bike vs. Car accident. Hopefully, this will explain why you’ve seen very few posts over the past couple of weeks. The accident could have ended up a lot worse according to witness reports but the important thing is I’m alive and I’m grateful for that.
Just keep me in your prayers, as that’s the best you can do for now. Thanks!
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 @ 3:53pm
Well, I’ve completed my first month of biking to work. I have been shooting for my 3 days a week goal, although I’m going to fall a little short for October. I did not get any biking done the second week of October due to sickness, but have met my goal at least every other week in the month. So with 12 trips out of 23 I’m doing okay.
Now, it’s been steadily getting colder this month, which hasn’t been so bad, except for some mornings and days when it’s rained. But, you’ve got to take the good with the bad… More updates in the future once November is complete!
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 @ 12:28am
So my “goal” to bike to work is fairly reasonable. I did a test run this past Saturday to estimate my time, and it took me roughly 6 minutes to ride the 1.02 miles to work (not hitting any traffic or lights). I also ordered a new backpack to accommodate anything I’ll need (i.e. clothes, lunch) since my old one was falling apart. Once that comes in, I’ll be ready to go!
My CPU fan finally came back in today. After a couple of hours of fooling around with various hardware components my new PC is up and running, and quite fast. I’m enjoying the new hardware upgrade and can’t wait to try out something that will push it to its limits.
Thursday, September 27th, 2007 @ 6:04pm
Obligatory Queen reference here if you missed it. So I’m going to be trying an experiment over the next few months that I have been considering for a while anyway, I just now have extra incentive to do so. I found a program in Birmingham called CommuteSmart which encourages commuters to find alternative forms of transit, either by walking, biking, car pooling, or mass transportation.
They are now sponsoring a program where they will pay you $2 for every trip you make to work using one of their alternate forms of transportation, up to $120 during a 3 month period. Since I have a bike, work is only 1 mile away, and the average temperature has now dropped below 95F, I’m going to give it a shot. So to start it off, I will state my goals.
Starting in October (or later depending on when I get the program information back), my during the 3 month period is at least 40 trips. That means at the very least, 3 trips per week. I need someone to help keep me accountable and remind me. Don’t forget, not only will I be saving gas and money AND doing the environment some good, It’ll also help keep me in shape. So for those of you out there who are reading this, help keep me accountable!
Saturday, September 8th, 2007 @ 9:02pm
Not to bore anyone reading this, since this is mostly for my reference to help remind me what I was looking at, I’m putting up some more finds that I’m considering for my new upgrade.
On the hard drive end, I’m currently looking at a 320GB Western Digital 7200RPM. It’s cheap, and probably provides more space than I’ll ever really need in the near future. Although, with something like this I can now rip my CDs at a higher quality than 192kbps and dedicate a whole partition to just that.
In the realm of processors, I feel like an AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3GHz should do the trick. It’s just at 3GHz and still under $200, so you can’t really beat that.
I have not decided if I’m going to purchase a new graphics card yet, and I may hold off on that. I’m currently using a GeForce FX 5900, and it seems to hold its own pretty well. Although, I might be looking for a cheap TV tuner and a new case to house my old components as a home DVR powered by MythTV.
Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 @ 10:47pm
So I’m coming close to finally upgrading my PC after many years. I’ve been looking at motherboards, and may have narrowed it down to the following two selections. The ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe and the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe.
The price range between the two is quite large, $129.99 and $179.99 respectively at the time of this post. While the latter is more expensive, it includes onboard wireless capabilities along with some additional raid options that the former does not offer. Any thoughts or suggestions?
Edit: I’m still looking around for motherboards at this point, as these two seem to have gotten mixed reviews (bad ASUS drivers, non-hardware RAID). I really liked my SOYO motherboard from back in the day, but I can’t seem to find those around anymore.
Update: Found a third motherboard to faceoff to the other two. An ECS KN3 SLI2 which seems to cheaper than both the ASUS motherboards I listed before with as much bang. And it can support up to 32GB of memory. Who knows why I would need that much memory anytime in the next few years, but you never know…
