Donnie’s Blog

When I was out acquiring my Mac mini, I happened to be in the neighborhood of my old elementary and high school. And what do I see?

This is where the elementary school portion of my school was. Along the right side were the Kindergarten through 3rd Grade classrooms. The big tree was in the middle of the area where we would have recess.

I think the line of trees in the middle ground is where the parking lot was. Behind that was the high school complex.

This is where I worked during the last couple years of high school. There was an office equipment maintenance shop there, and I would do all kinds of work there, usually involving cables and tight dusty crawlspaces. Looking back, I can see why the guys had me do that stuff.

Anyway, I am so *sniff* heartbroken *sniff* to see my school razed to the ground.

Yeah, right.

I just wrote a post over at Infodder about journalist deaths around the world. I thought it was worth mentioning over here too, since it really is a reality that we don’t comprehend in this country.

It’s dangerous being a journalist. I had no idea.

A few weeks ago we finally decided to eliminate Charter Communications from our lives. We have had cable service from them for a long time (my mom says it’s probably been two decades), and more recently we were using their cable modem services. Over the years the prices have just gone up and up and up, until we were paying a pretty ridiculous monthly price for our services.

So, I priced out DirecTV and DSLExtreme, and discovered that we would save $40-50 every single month, for exactly the same services, just by switching over. Also, we finally got our first DVR as part of the DirecTV package, and now we can watch the shows we like whenever we want. It’s pretty awesome.

I just got everything switched over last week, so we are finally back to where we were before as far as television and Internet access. It’s always a hassle to go through something like that, but it’s infrequent. Saving a bunch of money every month doesn’t hurt, too.

So, I got my little convertible when I was a senior in college. I had just gotten my official offer letter from Microsoft, and I triumphantly took it to the dealership and demanded a car. That was back in June of 1998.

Today, in April of 2007, I just discovered that I could lock my trunk so that it can’t be opened using the lever inside the car. I accidentally turned the key the wrong way and discovered that the lock responded positively to this “abuse.” Curious, I tried the lever in the car, and lo and behold, the trunk stayed securely closed.

I don’t think that knowing this would have made my life any easier in the last 9 years. There were never any times where I thought to myself, “Boy, if only I could lock my trunk shut.” But I have to admit that it is a little embarrassing that I didn’t realize my car could do that until just now.

I just hope I’m not missing anything really cool that my car can do…

One of my favorite classical music stations is no more. Now it’s country-western, ugh!

Actually, the station technically moved to the AM band, but that bothers me just as much. Classical just won’t sound as good on AM as it will on FM.

Oh well. Time to buy more CDs…

Today I heard a piece by Jacques Offenbach that is allegedly about a parrot owned by a girl’s boarding school, that dies of constipation. The parrot’s death of course affects the young ladies badly. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to listen to the music, but I’m sure it would have been interesting, to say the least.

If you can read German, or if you can operate Babelfish, here’s a URL to a description of the piece:

    www.jacques-offenbach.de/liste-vert.html

Update: It’s true!

I got my first traffic ticket today. But it’s not like you think. It’s a speeding ticket for going 86 in a 60 zone. But, that’s Kilometres per Houre, which works out to something like 53MPH in a 37MPH zone. That’s not so bad. Going 86 in a 60 sounds a lot more impressive.

Anyway, I was actually caught speeding back in October of last year, the 15th to be exact! I was in Australia at the time, and New South Wales has speed cameras all over the place. I guess that one of them nabbed me. I was a little surprised by that; I thought I had done a good job of obeying the speed limits last trip. (OK, I thought I had done a good job of spotting all the speed cameras in time… whatever.) But I was wrong!

It took them about five months to track me down. The letter showed up today from the Australian government, asking for their fine. Fortunately they take credit cards, so I don’t have to appear in person!

I finally got my mountain bike fixed last week. It’s been two years since I rode that thing; ever since the heavy rains a couple of years ago, which washed out some of my favorite trails. But I discovered some new favorites, so I got the bike all fixed up.

Of course, the first ride was painful… At first I thought I was going to die, and then after a while, I thought that maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad. But I made it as far as I intended to go, and the views were great! The only real hitch was that I got a flat tire on the way down the mountain, but I was close enough to the bottom that it wasn’t a big deal.

I can’t wait to get back out there…

Yay identity-theft!

All my life there has been a constant presence at home - the old green refrigerator that my parents got when they bought their new house. They bought the refrigerator in March of 1975. Now, in September 2006, it finally gave up the ghost. That’s a pretty good run!

So, call me stupid for being all sentimental about a refrigerator, but I had to get a picture with it:

It’s older than me!

Now the hunt begins for a new refrigerator.