The Waiting Game

Bad news tonight in an e-mail from my mom.  The doctors have found a lump in my sister's neck, on the trachea, apparently... 

For those who don't know, my sister had cancer over  five years ago.  She had an extremely rare form of tumor that grew under her chin.  It was removed via surgery when she was 16, and followed up with radiation therapy.  Jessi's had clean checkups and MRIs for over five years now, and is finishing her last semester of classes at NAU before student teaching and graduating.  She'll be 22 in April.

Jessi's having an MRI done on Monday in Vegas, but it'll take several days before we get the results back.  Nothing we can do now but wait and hope and pray...

The bad old days

I'm having a bit of computer deja vu today, as I install Windows NT 4.0 on a Gateway G6-200.  This must have been quite the computer in its day, with a Pentium Pro 200 CPU, 72 (?) MB of RAM, and a 4GB SCSI drive. It's got an Adaptec 2940U (one of the best SCSI cards ever made) and a Matrox Millennium in it.  This would have been the fastest thing on the block when it was new.  The warranty just ran out, since the machine was made 1/09/97...

Flower Powered Dalmations

Apple introduced their new iMac models tonight.  I'm underwhelmed.  The new color choices are "interesting", but nothing that I'd want to buy.  They raised the speed of the chips, and added CD-RW to the to high-end models.

Here's what I like:  Faster CPU's, CD-RW drives are finally available, new color schemes are bold, if nothing else.  The addition of the CD-RW drives does make the machine a nice little digital music station for a teenager or a college student. It's probably a little more useful than watching a DVD on a 15 inch screen.

What I don't like:  (deep breath) 

There's no option for DVD-ROM, if the top model of iMac had one of the combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW drives that are available, that would have been very cool.  Watching DVD's on a 15 inch screen isn't great, but if you're a college student, it'd be nice to be able to do both in your cramped little dorm room on your fancy new iMac.

Still stuck at 15 inch displays.  Those CRT's need to be bigger, 15 inches simply isn't reasonable anymore.  iMacs make good "grandma" machines, but many grandmas don't have very good eyesight...

64MB of RAM standard on two of the three models.  That's not even enough RAM to run the new Apple operating system that ships in 30 days.  How many people are going to buy a new iMac and be peeved when it can't run the newest OS less than a month later?  128MB is the requirement for OS X. 

Apple charges an outrageous amount to upgrade the RAM when you order.  They want $283 to go from 64MB of RAM to 256MB.  It's always cheaper to buy RAM yourself and install it, but Dell only charges $184 for the same level of increases on their machines.  You could buy a 256MB chip yourself for $91.79 with free shipping...

Ugly cases.  They're bold, but I wouldn't want one on my desk.

The price of the low-end model has been raised $100.  It's 50mhz faster, and now sports firewire and Airport capabilities, but most of the budget PC crowd aren't interested in those technologies, they want a cheap machine to surf the web and write e-mail on, not edit their home movies or set up a wireless network.

I was hoping for the introduction of new iBooks, as that's the Apple product that most interests me right now.  But, I guess I'll have to wait on those.  Apple also changed some of the options with their Cubes, adding a 450mhz model with CD-RW, and dropping the price of the basic model.  I still don't want one of them, they're a product in search of a market.  Or, as Michael Dell says in his book that I just read, it's "technology for technology's sake" rather than technology driven by what the consumer asks for.

Testing...

I took the test.  I didn't do especially well, probably got a B, but that was the most poorly written test I've ever taken, and I already have a college degree.  The prof. had mis-numbered the exam, which was minorly annoying, but was especially deadly when it came to a section of the test that was a matching exercise.  She used the word "conscious" three times when she meant to use "conscience", and once referred to the illegal production of "fake Ids".  I don't know about you, but since my first degree was in Psychology, I read that and start thinking about Freud, the ego, and the super-ego, not drivers licenses.  In short, I expect better out of a Ph.D. and after all, I'm paying for it...

I cut my finger really well yesterday.  I was working on an old Gateway computer, my hand slipped and sliced the end of my right index finger all to pieces.  It's really hard to type with a band-aid on your finger, and I'm having problems doing all sorts of stupid things like tieing my shoes.  Maybe I'll have to file a workman's comp claim for a cut finger...

I've got a test today in my Criminal Constitutional Law class.  I haven't even started studying for it, but I'm not too worried.  Most of the people in my class are so dumb that the test can't be too hard, or they'd all fail.  I'd estimate that a third of the class are pot smokers who wanted to learn more about search and seizure law...

Number Three

I just surfed over to ESPN's web site, and saw this headline:

I'm shocked.

While I wasn't a die-hard racing fan by any means (I didn't even watch yesterday's Daytona 500) I normally watch a few races every season.  My dad got me into watching, though at first I was going to dismiss it as a sport.  I was intrigued by the strategies involved in NASCAR racing, the risks of running another 2 laps before stopping for fuel, the jockeying for position, and the speed. 

For those who don't know, losing Dale Earnhardt means losing the biggest star of NASCAR, and his death will cast a dark cloud over the sport for years to come...