I can't believe it!

I actually did pretty well on the final exam in my law class! I thought for sure that I was getting a B in that class. I got my test back last night, and I did well enough that I'm on the borderline between an A- and an A. I'd be happy with an A-, but I would be thrilled with an A, as it would allow me to retain my 4.0. The law class was scored out of a total of 1000 points. We received 250 points just for showing up to class, 250 points for participating in our group presentation, and then 250 points for each of two exams. I scored a 199 on the first exam, and had full credit for class participating and attendance. I scored a 241 on the final exam, which gave me a total score of 940. In order to receive an A, you had to score 95% or higher. an A- was 92% - 94%. I'll cross my fingers that the instructor bumped me up the percentage point to get an A, but if not, that is still okay. It was a very, very difficult class, and I'm pleased with an A of any variety.

Disturbing

While cruising through the government websites that provided the GIS information, I found one for registered sex offenders. Recognizing the caliber of people I graduated high school with, I wondered if any had the dubious honor of making this list. Sure enough, I recognize two names from my high school that are on the Howard County Registered Sex Offender list.


Todd Haworth
Offense: Sexual Misconduct with a Minor


Scott Evans
Offense: Child Molest

Way to go fellas. Way to represent.

Public Information

It is sort of amazing the amount of information that is available on the web. We hear every day about folks suffering from identity theft, or private information being released on the web. A buddy of mine at work pointed out another source of info. Does your county provide a Geographic Information System (GIS)? Hamilton County, Indiana, does. You can look up the entire tax filing for each property in the county. Want to know where Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers lives? Just pull up the digital GIS info and checkout 14301 113th Street E. Poor Reggie had to pay over $60,000 in property taxes last year.

That this kind of information is available on the web just completely boggles my mind. You would think that this would be protected some how, but since it is of public record, anyone can get to it. I'm sure Reggie doesn't want folks dropping in, or even looking at his tax records. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there is much he can do about it.

Fun Game

Here is a fun and simple game. See if you can beat my high score.

Financial Advisor

Jenn and I went to a financial advisor (American Express Financial Advisors) to discuss our savings plans for the future. We both wanted to start saving for a college education now, so that we would be well prepared by the time our soon to be born child reached college. I was also worried that my life insurance was inadequate, and that my retirement portfolio needed better management. We spoke to the advisor for a little over three hours, and he had a lot of good things to see. We both felt a little relieved to be getting a professional on the case to help us out. Right now, we are very lucky in that we don't have enormous debts hanging over our heads. We are in a position where we can live our lifestyle without worrying about money, and we want to make sure we can keep on living that way. With Jenn leaving her full time job to raise our kids, we are losing a significant source of income. We will need to watch our budget a bit more, but we have been living off of my salary for a while, so I'm not too concerned. The benefit of having Jenn at home to raise our kids far out weighs the money we are giving up. Plus, the cost of daycare is just outrageous.
Next week we will go in with a bunch of our old bills and bank statements so that our advisor can start putting together our plan. I'm excited to get this started, as it will be one less worry on my mind.

Serenity Now!

My law class is finally over!! Yeah!! I really struggled in that class. Not because I didn't understand the material, but because it was so difficult to determine what to study. There was enormous amount of information that we covered, and the instructor gave very little indication on what information he felt was most important. Several students in the class were very upset over the format of the class. On the first day, the instructor indicated that each lesson would be provided by one of the project groups in the class. That presentation would count as part of your final grade. There would not be any writing assignments. Participation in class would contribute to your grade, and then two exams worth 250 points each.

I expected that each group would present for up to maybe an hour, and then the facilitator would teach the rest of the class, reinforcing the points he felt were most important. Instead, as soon as the presentation was over, class was over. One class, the group finished their presentation within an hour, so we went home. Class is supposed to last four hours! This didn't help on the exams. I studied for what I thought was important on the first exam, but it wasn't enough. I scored a 199/250, which was average for the class. The instructor does not grade on a curve though. Instead, there are 1000 total points available for the class. He indicated that you would receive 100% credit for the presentation and participation just by showing up. That left the two exams. The grading scaled was figured as

Score	Grade
950 - 1000	A
920 - 950	A-
900 - 920	B+
800 - 900	B
780 - 800	B-
760 - 780	C+
660 - 760	C
600 - 660	D
<600	F

So after the first exam, it was impossible for me to get an A in the course. The best I could hope for was an A-. On the other hand, I could show up and do nothing more than right my name on the paper and pass the course with a C. I didn't even need to get half the points available on the exam to get a B in the class. So I was really torn about how much effort I wanted to put into the last exam.

I'm not used to writing with a pen, so the blue book exams were pretty tough on my hands. It took me two and half hours to complete the five exam questions, and my hands were killing me by the end. I probably could have put more down on the last few questions, but I was just tired of thinking about all of that stuff, and my hands hurt. I figured that I already had my B from the first few questions, and I had very little chance of getting my A-.

This course gave me a real distaste for the law. I don't feel that the judicial system is working properly, as it does not appear that the goal is to promote justice. Instead, it is a place where attorney's are encouraged to use every underhanded trick in the book to increase their odds of getting a favorable judge and jury, and then to bend the rules and push the interpretation of laws to the breaking point. I don't understand how this system can work. It just reaffirms my choice not to get into law earlier. Blech!

Full Screen Video on Second Monitor

For the longest time, I had been experiencing an issue with my laptop setup when playing videos. I have my laptop screen set as the primary monitor, and an LCD connected to the DVI port of the laptop set as the secondary monitor. The desktop is extended to the secondary monitor. Whenever I play videos using Windows Media Player 9, the video is displayed in a window on the primary screen, and full screen on the second monitor. If I drag the window to the second monitor, the primary monitor goes full screen and the second monitor gets the window. This was a minor nuisance, as I don't usually play videos, but it was a problem. Today I finally decided to hunt down the answer. I found that it had to do with the overlay settings for my NVidia graphics card. The overlay property for the card was set to automatically mirror video as an overlay on the other screen. Once I disabled the property, the full screen video was gone. I could still expand the WMP window to display full screen if I wanted, but I wasn't forced to see it on both screens.

If you are experiencing this issue as well, here are some step-by-step instructions on how to turn it off.

1. Right Click on your Desktop, and choose the Properties item
   
   
   Right-Click Desktop Menu
   
   
2. From the Display Properties Dialog, select the Settings Tab
   
   
   Display Properties Dialog Box
   
   
3. Click the Advanced button in the lower right corner
   
   
   Display Settings Tab
   
   
4. From the Advanced Settings Dialog box, choose the GeForce tab
   
   
   Advanced Settings Dialog Box
   
   
5. From the additional menu on the left, select the Overlay item
   
   
   GeForce Settings
   
   
6. On the Overlay Settings, notice that the Full Screen Device is set to Auto-Select.
   
   
   Overlay Settings
   
   
7. Change the Full Screen Device to Disabled
   
   
   Disabled Full Screen Device
   
   
8. Click the OK button
   
9. Click the OK button on the Display Properties Dialog box
   

Now when you play videos in Windows Media Player, the non-windowed screen will no longer play the video in full-screen mode. To revert to playing full screen, just go back through these instructions, and change the full screen device to Auto-Select.

Getting Closer

Jenn had another checkup today, and it looks like things are progressing towards a delivery. The baby still hasn't fully dropped into the pelvis, and Jenn hasn't dilated much, but the doc did say that she was about 50% effaced. The Dr. made sort of a funny comment. She said she would just love it if Jenn broke some membranes over the weekend. That is something you don't hear everyday! The doctor is still a little concerned about the size of our baby. She doesn't want Jenn to experience any more pain than necessary, so as soon as the baby is able to deliver, she will likely induce the delivery. It would be great if everything fell into place over the weekend, but from the sound of things, the delivery is still a couple of weeks off. We have another appointment on Tuesday to check on progress. I'll have another update for everyone then.

Game Crazy

I went game crazy this weekend. Jenn was going out shopping with her mom, and I had a list of things that I wanted to get done. I needed to get a pair of steel toed shoes for work, and I also wanted another pair of Columbia pants. I could get both at Galyan's. I needed a hair cut. I wanted a new body pillow, because Koby has the disgusting habit of drooling all over the one I have now. It is no fun to crawl into bed at night only to find a soaking wet, cold body pillow in your spot. Eeesh! I also wanted to get a GameBoy Player, which is a device that lets me play GameBoy games on my television screen.

I started out going to Great Clips, just down the road. They were having a $5.99 haircut deal, and it was an hour wait to get in. I put my name on the list, then headed to the bank for some cash. After robbing the bank, I dropped into the Target to find a body pillow. To my dismay, they don't stock them. The clerk said that they only stock them in the spring and fall, when college students are moving about. I thought that was pretty strange. I also stopped in at McVans Video Games. Jenn has been asking me about Super Mario Brothers, from the old Nintendo. I stopped in to see if they had either the original, or the GameBoy remake of it. I stuck out.

After my haircut, it was down to Galyan's, where I found a pair of steel toed shoes and a nice pair of pants. The pants have removable legs, so they can be shorts too. They are one of the few kinds of pants that can fit my enormous legs. The mall was crazy. The entire place was packed, and traffic in and out of the mall area was absurd. I scooted out of Galyan's, avoiding as much mall traffic as possible, and hopped over to BestBuy. I quickly found the GameBoy Player, but I was also side-tracked by a copy of the original Diablo for the PC for $9.99. I loved this game, so I decided to grab it. These were going on gift cards, so the money didn't bother me.

My next stop was at the EBGames store. This is where I got into real trouble. I found the Super Mario Brothers Deluxe game right away, which was the GameBoy version of SMB. Unfortunately, the clerk then let me know that I bought two used games, I could get one for free. Now you know I can't pass up on that deal. So I looked and looked, and I found a used copy of Dr. Mario, which is a puzzle game that I love. I also found a copy of Soul Caliber 2 for the GameCube. Soul Caliber is currently the most popular fighting game for the Cube, so I decided to give it a shot. Then the clerk told me that if I got a EBGames membership for $10, I could get 10% off of my used games and a free magazine subscription. I must have had sucker written all over my face that day.

I got home and had just too much fun the rest of the weekend. I installed Diablo and played that for something like 5 hours. I played Soul Caliber way into the night. I played Dr. Mario until my ears couldn't take that old time 8-bit music anymore. The next day, Jenn and I played some Soul Caliber, and I hooked up the GameBoy Player to play some Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga and Metroid Fusion. Other than spending too much time reading my law book, it was a fantastic Sunday. The snow was coming down, and we had a fire going. I'd like to have another five days in a row like that.

Woowoo

I'm a dork, and I can prove it. I just won 3rd place in a contest to name a video game from an obscure picture. The prize you ask? This crappy picture:

Shopping Trip

I went on a shopping trip this past weekend. I needed to get a couple of birthday gifts for Jenn, and I also wanted to look for a Gameboy Game. I wanted a game for the Gameboy because I figured there would be times in the hospital when Jenn and the baby would both be resting, and I couldn't sleep. I wanted something to keep me occupied. I know this is probably wishful thinking on my part, but you never know. Plus, it was a good excuse to go hunting for a game.
I read a bunch of reviews online, and it seems that Mario & Luigi : Superstar Saga was a good game to get. It is a role playing game (RPG) with Mario & Luigi center-stage working together. I like RPG games, and I've liked the majority of Super Mario Brothers games that I've played, so it sounded like a good deal to me. I went to the Castleton Mall first, as I wanted to make sure I got Jenn's birthday gifts before I did anything else. Once that was done, I checked into the Electronics Boutique at the mall. They had a really small selection of Gameboy Advance (GBA) games, and were sold out of Mario & Luigi : Superstar Saga (ML:SS). So then I headed over to BestBuy. The only copy they had was running in the GBA SP demo model. Otherwise, they were sold out as well. Next, I headed over to the Walmart. Once again, sold out, save for the demo model. Finally, I stopped at the new EBGames store. They had a copy left, and at a decent price too: $29.95. I'm pretty happy with Nintendo for pricing the GBA games as low as they do. It makes them a lot more accessible than the $50 GameCube games.
So I've played ML:SS for about an hour and a half, and it is a lot of fun! There characters have a lot of personality, and the game has that indescribable fun-ness that the Super Mario Brothers series is famous for. I even caught Jenn playing it for a few minutes the other night! So I may not end up with the time to play it, but I'm prepared in the case that it should happen.

Hectic

Life is getting more and more hectic. Here is a rundown of what I did yesterday

0700 - Alarm Went off
0725 - Got out of bed
0735 - Out of shower, getting dressed
0750 - Chugging breakfast (SlimFast) heading out door
0805 - Arrive at work
0815 - Retrieved first cup of coffee - begin checking e-mail
0845 - E-mail replies completed, start work on document revisions
0930 - Break for meeting with product vendor
1030 - Continue to next meeting to analyze what went wrong on last project
1130 - Break for lunch. Play three games of euchre. Have cup of noodle soup
1230 - Return to desk. Checkout Yahoo News, Slashdot, Fark, and the Nintendo forums
1330 - Resume work. Continue coding on new project software upgrade. Second cup of coffee.
1715 - Work day over. Get colleague and head to Windows User Group meeting
1800 - Arrive at IWUG meeting. Eat pizza and chat
1830 - Meeting starts. Discuss wireless networking
2015 - Meeting over, head home
2030 - Arrive home. Assemble new glider (rocking chair) for baby's room
2130 - Finish glider and dispose of box. Watch last half of CSI
2200 - Review glider with the wife, and find that it is good
2215 - Sign on to forums.
0030 - Think about getting some sleep.

Needless to say, it made for a really long day. I crawled into bed around 12:30am, but I didn't fall asleep until well past 2. I'm not sure what it was. I was hot, uncomfortable, the dog was lying next to me. The IWUG meeting was pretty informative. It gave me some ideas on how to protect my network, and how to find out if there are some attacks running against it.

New Addiction

I have a new vice: the Nintendo NSider Forums. Nintendo completely revamped their website, and enhanced the forums section of their site. Now, if you go and sign up for an account, you can read and post messages to fellow gamers. The site is focused on Nintendo products, but that is fine with me, as I spend most of my time on the GameCube lately. There are also some incentives to keep posting and reading messages. There is a ranking system that gives you an improved rank based on the number of messages you post, the time you spend online, the number of messages you read, and the number of message boards you read. I'm currently a Tektite, which is one of the critters you find early in the original Legend of Zelda game. I go by the username JadeMason, so if you get over there, do a search on that to find my messages. I have already progressed through the ranks of Goomba, Cappy, and Pirahna Plant. Next I'll be an Oktorok. Woohoo! I am such a dork. There are also some additional incentives to be active. As you increase in rank, Nintendo will send you different offers in the mail. In addition, if you get a certain amount of notariety on the boards as a good user, the staff at Nintendo may select you for Sage status. It is essentially an honor they give to people who post consistently, and post useful or pertinent information. It is a little shady on the details, but I think Sages get discounts on some games, and are encouraged to write reviews for Nintendo that may be quoted on boxes, or in print.
Lately, I've been spending more and more time on the boards. I would say that the majority of the folks there are young kids. Many of the messages are relatively brainless, and have very little substance. As an example, I must see the thread "Which Smash Brothers Character is the Best?" at least twice a day. It is a totally subjective question, and about 80% of the responses are "I like character X because he's da bomb!" Fortunately, there are enough intelligent people on the board that I can usually find an intelligent conversation pretty quickly. Not only that, but these folks are all video game addicts like myself. My current stats show that I have been on the message boards for 2102 minutes since 12/29/2003, and I have posted 187 messages. So I'm spending a little over 3 hours each day logged into the boards, and I post a new message about once every 11 minutes that I am online. Yep, it is like my very own personal form of crack. :-P

USA Baby

Way way back in August or September Jenn and I went looking for some baby furniture. We knew that we needed a crib and a changing station. The first store we stopped in was pretty scary. Then we went over to USA Baby. They had a nice selection of furniture, and a lot of cute sheets and blankets. We selected a crib, a changing station, and a glider. We got to the register, and a guy smacking some chewing gum took our order. This guy was your stereotypical greaseball salesman with his hair all slicked back and chomping on his gum. He told us it would be six to eight weeks to receive the furniture. In November, we got a call to let us know that our furniture was ready, except for the glider. We went and picked up our stuff. We loved it! The crib and changing station looked great. We asked about the glider and they said it was still on order. At the end of November, still no glider. So Jenn gave them a call to see what was going on. We got a message back that said that the company in California that manufactures the glider never received the Purchase Order. The message said that they would re-fax the order and put a rush on it. They said it may still take six to eight weeks. That was cutting it pretty close to the due date, but still okay. So Jenn went into USA Baby on Sunday with our friend Karla to pick up Karla's bedding (she is pregnant as well) and our mobile. Jenn asked about the status of the glider. The clerk said that she didn't have any updates since the PO was issued, but that she would call on Monday to find out. Today, Jenn gets a call from the clerk. They've lost the PO!!! Again?!?! Evidently, even though the message said that they were going to re-issue the Purchase Order, they never got around to it. So for the last month, they've known that our glider wasn't on order, but they didn't do anything about it. Jenn was assured, again, that they would put the order in and put a rush on it. The attendant said that we could probably get the glider in two to three weeks. Even if they meet the two week deadline, that is putting us dangerously close to Jenn's due date of Feb. 18th. Not only that, but why have they bungled this order so badly? We've never gotten a really good vibe from the staff at USA Baby. One girl working the counter was wearing skin-tight leopard print, just what every expecting mother wants to see. A coworker of mine related a story about how he went in at the end of the day on Sunday during a one day sale. The clerk was closing the store, but assured him that if he came back tomorrow, he would receive the discount. So he dutifully went back the next day and spoke to the same clerk, who acted as if he had never seen him before!! So from now on, we are going to avoid USA Baby, and I would recommend that you do the same.

Video Games

I'm a video game freak. I know, a real shocker to any of you that know me. Over the Christmas holiday, I logged some serious hours on the GameCube and PC, playing several games. I finally finished Metroid Prime. I love that game. It was a huge! I received it for Christmas last year, and I played it quit a bit. I got right up to the last boss, but then got frustrated when I couldn't beat him right away. I stopped playing it for a while, but then in December I started a new game. This time I got all the way through. However, now I have a new difficulty level to defeat!! Woohoo, more game time :-D In addition, I received a couple of new games for Christmas: SSX3 and Halo. I loved SSX Tricky, so I was really excited to start playing 3. I wasn't disappointed. The game has a lot of the same mechanics as the last one, with a couple of new maneuvers thrown in for good measure. In addition, this time you can race down the entire mountain. Before, you could race down a single track, but then would need to restart. Now, all of the race tracks chain together to form one enormous track. My best time down the entire mountain is just under 25 minutes. That's right, 25 minutes of continuous racing down the slope. I don't know how the developers pulled it off, but it is really amazing. I was in the habit of starting playing at around 10pm (when Jenn went to bed) and crawling back up to bed around 3:30 or 4 in the morning. Fortunately, I could still sleep in until 11 or even noon.
I haven't played Halo much, but what I have seen is pretty fun as well. This is a game that I have on the PC, that originally came from the XBox. It is a lot like Half Life, only you have teammates that help you out. Sometimes they aren't much help, as they tend to shoot each other in a crossfire. They do make good alternative targets for the enemies when you are trying to make a quick escape though.
So now I have quite a collection of games that I have not yet completed.

• SSX3
  
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003
  
• Neverwinter Nights
  
• Halo
  

I know that when the little one arrives, I'm going to be much more interested in spending time with him/her than on the arcade. So I'm going to do my best to get as far as I can in the next few weeks. This is also good practice at sleep deprivation, which several people have told me I will experience with the child.

SSX3 threw in a really interesting wrinkle though. I beat all of the racing challenges with a gold medal. On my last race, however, I earned a Platinum medal. Hmmm... Platinum, what could this mean. I went online and learned that Platinum medals are earned for getting an outrageously good score. Evidently there are some really high goals set for earning them. This is going to make it much more difficult to finish this game in time. I must dedicate myself to my purpose.... :-P

Online Banking

My bank is terrible at online banking. I've been trying to make my mortgage payments online, and it has been nothing but a headache. My checking, savings, and mortgage are all through the same bank, so I thought this would be a simple matter. Oh no. I was so wrong. My normal mortgage payment is close to $1100. I normally like to pay $1450 so that I can pay down the principal faster. During the first month of our mortgage, I sent a physical check to my bank for $1450. This worked great. I saw online that my account was credited with a payment for that month, and that the extra was against the principal. Perfect! Later that same month, we received our escrow balance from our previous lender, and decided to apply all of it to the principal of our mortgage. I went online and did the balance transfer: $1800 from checking to mortgage. I thought, "Yeah, our principal is going to go down a lot!" Wrong! Instead of applying $1800 to the principal, $1100 was credited as the following month's payment, and the rest went to the principal. I though, "Well, that is close, and now we can skip a month's payment." I would really have liked to have the principal paid down, but I really wasn't too concerned.
So two months later, we decided to make a large payment so that the principal would get paid down again. We paid $2400 this time, online yet again. A week later I checked our mortgage info. Grrrr!!! They had counted that as TWO payments, and only applied $200 to the principal. I was pretty irate with that, so I called the bank. The operator had no idea why that happened, but suggested that in the future I pay less than two months payments in a single payment, and that it would get creditied properly. This meant making two payments a month, but since it was online, that would be easy enough. He backed out the transaction and gave us our single month's payment, and then $1300 against the principal. Okay, so now we should have our normal monthly principal payments, plus the $2350 of extra principal we had paid for the year.
So now it is December, and we have a January payment coming up. I go online, yet again, and make a payment of $1450. This should be no problem, right? The payment amount is less than two months of payments, and I have not yet made another payment this month. So this should go through just fine. Today I checked our mortgage info. Next payment due: January 1, 2004!!! What!!! That can't be right. So I check the transaction history for the mortgage. All of the $1450 that I paid was put towards principal. What the hell is going on?!?! So I call the bank again. The operator is just as confused as I am. I asked her if there was any way I could specify if I was making a principal payment or a normal payment, and she went to talk to her supervisor. The answer: no. Evidently the transactions are entered online, but then are processed by hand by someone at the bank. That doesn't seem efficient at all! So each person who processes the payment has to make a judgement call on what you wanted to do with your payment. This person saw my payment, and decided that, since I had already paid my December mortgage, that this payment must be principal only. Grr!!! The operator suggested that I wait until the payment due date to make my online payment. My concern there is that 1) I'm going to incur a late fee, and 2) my credit rating is going to get smashed. She eased my mind a bit by telling me that I had a 15 day grace period to make a payment, and if it is done within that time, no mark will be placed on my credit. She also said that credit reporting is not done until the following month, so if there is a problem, I can always call back.
I really wish these folks would get their system in order. They need to clean up the interface so that I can specify how much is principal, if it is a normal payment, and how many payments to spread it across. It is ridiculous that this is not automated. The bank should not be making a best guess each time I make a payment. And I definitely should not have to call the bank every month to straighten out their errors!

Piracy

Piracy is a very hot topic right now. The music industry is actively pursuing those who illegally download their products. The MPAA is running ads encouraging people not to promot video piracy. Video game companies have developed complicated measures of piracy protection. Most of these methods fail to stop the growing tide of digital piracy. I know that I used to be guilty of the same crime. In college, I didn't think twice about downloading a CD from a file sharing system, or searching for a serial number, password, or crack for a new video game. Sometimes these products would be available in our dorm before they were released to the public. I thought I was really clever to get all of this stuff for free.

My attitude regarding piracy has changed dramatically over the past couple of years. Our office used to run a server that everyone would copy their MP3 collections to. A lot of the songs were from CDs that we owned, but it was difficult to tell. Then I started to read articles about companies that were sued for millions of dollars for keeping just such a system. Ours was promptly dismantled. Then I started to think about the industry that I was in. I was in the business of selling software. We create custom software for our customers. Due to the nature of our product, we generally do not attempt to install any protection measures, as there is very little desire by most to steal what we make. Still, we make software, and if our customers were able to take it from us without paying for it, it would really kill us. After thinking about that for a while, I decided to delete any software from my PC that I did not have a legal right to. This got rid of a lot of games, but I found that open source software provided a lot of the same applications and some of the games that I liked for free. And open source software was legal. I had a legal copy of Windows NT, and a legal copy of Office 97. As much as I despise Microsoft, I felt better about running a copy that I had a right to rather than one that I had stolen. Even if I did not own those, I could always run a version of Linux and Open Office freely and legally.

The next thing I did was to delete all of the music that I had downloaded from file sharing networks. I miss a lot of that music, but I still have a large collection of music that I really enjoy. My stand on downloading music now is that, it is okay to download a song if your intent is to discover new music that you might be interested in. However, downloading entire albums is not okay. Just as you wouldn't walk into a record store and steal the physical album, you should not download the album from the web and think it is okay. Many people are convinced that, because it is easy, and because you never leave your house, then you can't really be stealing. That is wrong. If you are downloading music that you have no right to, and you never intend to purchase the music, you are stealing. Just as you can go to a store and listen to any track, I have no issue with someone downloading a track from a CD to listen to see if they like it. If you do like it, then buy the CD. Or, if you just like the one track, open iTunes and pay 99 cents for it. Lots of companies creating iTunes clones which are making it cheap and easy to download the music you like legally. There is not excuse for downloading libraries of music and feeling as though you have no responsibility to pay for it.

What really disappoints me are the people who are now pirating movies. We had an intern this past year who downloaded The Hulk and Matrix Reloaded before they ever hit the theaters. A couple of people that it was really cool, and watched the movie. Movies are so different from music. Music you can listen to while you drive, work, or exercise. You can mix your favorite tracks into a personal CD, or compile a library and listen to it over and over. Movies are much more intimate. As the recent issue of Wired points out, you wouldn't sit down and create a mix DVD of all of your favorite chase scenes, and play that while you work. Downloading movies takes a long, long time. The files are huge. Not only that, but usually the quality is very poor. You end up with some joker in a theater with a handycam, or else a pre-release version of the movie with editing markers all over the place.

Now that I am taking a course on law, it has become crystal clear for me: downloading copyrighted material that you do not have a right to is wrong. Shoplifting a DVD, a CD, or a video game from BestBuy is the same as downloading those items from the web. It costs $0.99 to download a song from iTunes, or $9.99 for an entire album. Those prices are sure to fall. If you really want the disc itself, checkout eBay or SecondSpinfor a cheap used copy. That is legal, and it gets you the official disc and contents. If you want a movie, go to BlockBuster and pay $4 for a new release, or checkout NetFlix For $20 a month, you can get unlimited movies from NetFlix with no late fee. And those prices are sure to fall as well. In short, if you are holding off on going to see a movie, or buying a CD, because you know that you can get it on the web, you should realize that something is wrong.

Car

PepBoys took care of my car yesterday. Everytime I called to get a quote on the work, I got a different number. I was going to be happy with any repair that was under $1K. Hare had quoted $1250 at the minimum, and originally asked for $1450 for the repair. That's just ridiculous. The average of the quotes from PepBoys was around $400. The final amount I paid was $782. I wish it were lower, but I feel better about that number than the others. The break down goes

Description	Cost
Rack & Pinion	300.00
Rack & Pinion Labor	170.00
High Pressure Hose	110.00
High Pressure Hose Labor	40.00
Return Hose	60.00
Return Hose Labor	100.00
Alignment	60.00
Tax	32.00
TOTAL	$872.00

I complained a bit that I could have found the Rack & Pinion at Advanced Auto Parts for $220, so they gave me a 10% discount on the entire cost. That was about the same as the difference in the cost of the parts. So my final bill was something like $782. I'm just glad to have it all done with. The car drives a bit more stiffly than it did before. It is sort of hard to describe. Driving the Bravada is very smooth. The power steering in that car makes driving effortless. I have to use quite a bit more effort in my car now. It is not bad, it is just different from the way it was before. I'm sure that I will get used to it within a few weeks of driving. I need this car to hold together for another three or four years before I can start thinking about getting a new car for myself. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I'm Really Tired

I keep thinking of the new Saturn car commercial where the bad drivers warn you about their driving. The first person says "My husband is going to cut you off when the light turns green." The next one says, "I'm driving with my knees." Finally, the last guy looks over, very haggard, and says, "I'm really tired". I crack up every time I see that last one. Right now, I totally identify with it though. I played volleyball last night, and I didn't get the gym closed until 9:30. The players keep wanting to play later and later. I'm going to have to start kicking them out. Then, I woke up at 4:40am this morning so I could get ready to go to Lafayette for work. We had an end of project meeting on-site scheduled for 7am, and I had to meet the crew at our office to travel together at 5:45. So I'm dragging right now. I've had three cups of coffee, but I think I am beyond the rescuing reach of coffee. I'm just getting the jitters. "I'm really tired"
On the upside, I get to leave work an hour earlier if I want to. Our core hours run until 4pm, so I must stay until at least then. Then I can go home, play with the dog, and pass out on the couch.

Solved!!!

Wooohoooo!!! I have finally put together the evil, horrible, outrageously difficult puzzle that my mom found for me last Christmas!! The picture on the left is of the pyramid, finally solved. I've been struggling with this thing for a long time. When my mom gave it to me, she said it was a very difficult puzzle. She and Jenn had already taken it apart, and it did not have the solution. I played with it for a couple of weeks, and to Jenn's infinite delight, I was not able to solve it. Usually when I get a puzzle, I have it solved in a matter of minutes. This one truly humbled me. My friend Jason is also very good at puzzles. When he stopped by, I let him take a crack at it. It stumped his as well. Double-joy for Jenn! I was so frustrated with this puzzle. Not only was the answer not forthcoming, but just getting partial solutions to hold together was difficult. The pieces are made out of some type of plastic or acrylic. They slide very easily. If the structure is not sound, the whole pyramid comes crashing down, mid-construction. This can be very frustrating when you have been concentrating on a particular formation for a couple of hours. Below is a picture of the puzzle with all of the pieces laid out.


Midway through this year I decided to give up and just search for the web for the solution. The web has everything right? wrong. After endless googling, all I could find was that the puzzle was made by Kadon, and sold through their website GamePuzzles Worse yet, they no longer sell this puzzle. The best I could find were a couple of old images which had not been removed from the site yet. They still sell the pyramid puzzle with four length side, but not the five length side like mine.

I was starting to make headway on a solution though. I had come up with a couple of simple rules that I knew I had to follow when forming a solution. The 'L' shaped pieces were the key. Due to the 90 degree angle on the piece, they could only fit into the puzzle in a particular way. If you were looking down on the puzzle, and you placed one of these pieces in, the section that sticks up must fall away from the point of the triangle. That probably doesn't make any sense unless you are looking at the puzzle. Also, some pieces have a nice fit. For instance, the piece shaped like a 'C' fits very nicely with the 'L' shaped piece, when placed in a particular way. I took this as a sign. After trying what seemed like countless combinations with the 'L' pieces, I finally found the one that works. Yeah me!

After some further research on the web, the best I could find were two math wizards that also own this puzzle. They each documented their solution, but I don't know if I understand how to read their solution! In any case, I'm releived to have this challenge behind me. Now I get to be the one to enjoy as other people struggle with this puzzle.