Lightning struck a tree in the neighbor's backyard last weekend, causing our loss of a 27" TV, dishwasher, a surge protector, and, as we found out last night, our garbage disposal too. Not enough damaged to warrant an insurance claim, just enough to make it hurt...
What a busy couple of weeks I've had! I celebrated my 27th birthday on the 24th of June, got some nice presents from my family, but didn't do much else. The new faculty have started to arrive, and I just brought up my first Windows 2003 server in my domain at work. It seemed to go pretty well, though the users are griping because a group policy change now resets their home page to my default every day, rather than letting them choose it. Oops. Don't know if I'll find a workaround for that one or not, they may just have to suffer. It's actually not a bad solution, since they tend to ignore the e-mails my co-worker and I send them. Then they do something dumb, like delete jdbgmgr.exe, or turn their computer off in the middle of a service pack installation, even though they were e-mailed about it several times...
And last, but most certainly not least, Star Wars Galaxies has been released. I'm having a blast with this game, I never really got into EverQuest, and haven't played any other MMORPGs, but several friends of mine and I are all playing on the same server. If you're looking for me, I'm on the server called "Intrepid" and my character's name is "Morrolan".
I need to come out of my shell a bit for the next few weeks, since I'm heading to Gnomedex later this month. I'm guessing that those people who have been clicking my name on the Gnomedex blogroll would like to have something current to read before the conference.
Since my 27th birthday is tomorrow, those of you looking for last minute gifts should consider the new PowerMac G5, introduced today from Apple. I don't mind that it won't ship for a month or so, really...
I'm down on the farm in Ventura, Iowa, my hometown. I installed the air conditioners for my grandmother today, fixed a wobbly front step, and got her Quicken working again too. I think the phone company must have upgraded their lines recently, as the computer connected at 50 and 52K when I dialed in. That makes downloading the numerous updates and patches their computer needed a little more reasonable than back when the most we could get was 26.4K.
Oops! Looks like Apple let the cat out of the bag a bit early about their PowerMac G5 systems that will probably be announced on Monday. Last night, this screenshot was captured of the Apple Store, giving away some details of the new machines. I think some web guy saved to the wrong folder, and is probably cleaning out his desk while we speak. I'm glad this happened, in a way, because I think Apple is dumb to cloak their products in such secrecy. They're only computers! Dell doesn't do that, my Dell field rep shows me the roadmaps from time to time, and I know months in advance what new products are in the works, some of the features they'll have, and when they'll ship, down to the exact day, it lets me know how to plan our PC purchases, rather than play the waiting and guessing game with Apple, and never knowing if you're about to get screwed because a newer revision will be released next week.
