We caught Michael Moschen's show

We caught Michael Moschen's show at the GBPAC last night. He does amazing things with geometry, timing, and physics that I can't even comprehend being able to do. Definitely a good show to take your children to, if he's ever in your area. Some technical problems with one of his bits caushed him to stop it, and then attempt it again after the end of his show. I actually preferred that, as it gave him an opportunity to explain what it was about, and what his inspiration for it was. Most of his show doesn't have any talking in it at all, and I found myself wanting a commentary track (like those found on DVD movies) to explain how he came up with the ideas and how he implemented them. He has a video tape out, that has a lot of his explanations on it. Too bad it's not available on DVD.

As you can see,

As you can see, we've acquired a kitten. She's about 7 weeks old, and has been named Pixel after a certain other cat...

I promise this won't turn into a weblog about my cat. That said, here's a bit about what Pixel's been up to:

She seems to be catching on to the concept of the litterbox, and after $92 in vet bills, is rid of the several diseases she brought with her from the farm where we got her. She's very affectionate, and seem to prefer finding people who are laying down, and then sleeping on their chests. She's learned to use her claws to climb on household objects and people, so those front claws are going to be removed when she's old enough. She likes to meow pathetically until she gets attention, especially early in the morning.

There are a whole bunch

There are a whole bunch of new patches out from Microsoft today. If you're on a Windows machine right now, take 5 minutes and patch it, as at least one of these is extremely important, and likely to be exploited by a worm/virus and your local hacker any day now. I spent most of the afternoon meeting with Dell and EMC reps about their new storage area network (SAN) offerings, and figuring out how such a thing might fit in here at the University. It's pretty neat technology, it's just paying for it that's difficult...

Yesterday, another $2 million was

Yesterday, another $2 million was slashed from our budget here at UNI. That's going to hurt, as we've already cut a good chunk of the "fat" off the University. This is going to result in people losing jobs, no doubt about it. I'm pretty sure my job isn't in any danger, as I provide an "essential" service, but I'm guessing a lot of adjunct faculty and "non-essential" support staff are going to be out of work.

After some minor pain and

After some minor pain and suffering, and dealing with surly Dish contracters, I finally have HDTV capability. Right now, I only receive four channels, ESPN HD, Discovery HD Theatre, HDNet and HDNet Movies, but boy do they look nice. I'm half-watching the 49ers and the Seahawks right now, and the clarity is amazing. You can almost see each individual blade of grass. My receiver, the 6000u, is capable of displaying my local channels too, as soon as I find an antenna capable of receiving them. I've tried 4 indoor antennas so far, without much luck. It may be time to investigate putting up an aerial antenna, or asking my neighbor if I can drop my distribution amp in his house and run some coax across our yards, as he's already got one.