Summertime!

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This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on June 14, 2007). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

A number of updates this evening…

  • It’s summertime! I had my last final exam today (yesterday was the Chem 101 exam, I e-mailed my Philosophy 100 final paper in this morning, and had my Programming 142 exam this afternoon). No summer classes for me, so it’s time to relax. Yay!
    • I actually really enjoyed this quarter. I was a little unsure about the lineup at first, but it ended up working well, and I had very enjoyable teachers. All in all, I’m pretty solidly sure of getting all A’s again this quarter (knock on wood). We’ll see for sure in a couple weeks.
  • The relaxing doesn’t actually begin for a couple days, of course (isn’t this always the way?). Prairie will be at graduation activities for her students most of tomorrow, and I’ve got to work in the afternoon/evening. On Saturday we’ll be going to the Fremont Solstice Parade (I was bummed that I missed it last year, and have been looking forward to this year’s for a while), doing our best to exhaust ourselves, and crash out early, because…

  • …early Sunday morning I drive Prairie out to the airport for a four-day trip with my mom and my sister-in-law Emily. Mom decided a while ago to have a “WHPUWHM” trip — that is, “Women Who Put Up With Hanscom Men,” (those brave and stalwart women who actually choose to associate themselves with the Hanscom family), and the weekend has come. My aunt Pam wasn’t able to join, unfortunately, but Mom, Prairie, and Emily will be spending four days on their own, commiserating with each other about all the things they have to put up with. ;)

    • This does mean that I’m on my own, bachelor-style, for four days, from Sunday morning through Wednesday evening. Even better, I have a three-day weekend from work, with Saturday through Monday off. Now, the chances are extremely good that I’ll merely end up spending far too many hours in front of my computer, but with any luck, I’ll be able to get some amount of socializing in. (Is the Mercury doing anything on Sunday nights these days? Preferably something that doesn’t need a membership?)
  • We got a new toy! We’d been batting around the idea of getting a laptop computer for a while now for the two of us to share, as with my continuing on through school and our tendency to travel whenever possible necessitating a portable dumping ground for photos when we’re on the run…and Prairie decided that today was the day to take the plunge. Admittedly, there is definitely going to be a ‘period of adjustment,’ as our finances limited us to a price tag in the $600 realm…which meant no Macbook for us, as Apple doesn’t really have a low-end laptop. No, instead, we’re now the somewhat bemused owners of a Gateway MT6705 Notebook PC (oooh, now how’s that for snappy, in-your-face, can’t-forget-it branding!).
    • Getting the computer was a minor pain. Neither Best Buy nor Staples came anywhere close to impressing us with their customer service, but there was a very kind young man at Office Depot who ended up helping us narrow things down.

    • The computer itself seems to be quite nice, though I’m not exactly sold on Vista just yet. While it’s all very nice and shiny, I had rather ridiculous issues getting it hooked into our home network…and to top it off, the Gateway tech support person, while very nice, was clueless (to the point of not knowing what “Static IP” was). I eventually figured it out, and after spending some time setting up user accounts for Prairie and I, and spending some more time removing some of the useless adware that comes pre-installed, I’m now puttering away on the new toy while Prairie putters away on her iMac.

      • I have a bad feeling my G5 is going to be jealous when I get back to it….
  • Lastly, as long as we were setting various bits and pieces up on the new laptop and figuring out how to pull photos from Prairie’s little camera on to it, we also spent some time setting my girl up with her own Flickr account and her own weblog (titled ‘Domesticism’ — a fitting and amusing complement to my ‘Eclecticism’), two things she’d been considering for some time and finally decided to get started on. She’s started off with the story of our quest for our new ‘puter…stop by and say hi!

And…yeah, I think that that pretty much covers it.

3 thoughts on “Summertime!”

  1. Congratulations, Mike. Berta and I think you are doing wonderfully.

    Intro to anything, including Philosophy, can be boring,, as too much is packed into the introductory. Did you enjoy it?

    Berta is really looking forward to the trip.

    Berta and I are thinking about a laptop as well, but we have no idea when [or what. I would prefer a MAC, but Berta does not. Jo Reast, from church, is going too tell us how to get something we can use in the RV.

    I will check out Prairie’s flickr page.

    Now that the semester is over, will you have time to tell me how to put “plug ins” [or whatever those cute little gadgets are] onto the Hanscom Family Website?

    Anyway, congratulations, we are proud of you, and have fun on your time off.

  2. I actually had a lot of fun in the Intro to Philosophy class. Our teacher was Dr. V (um…Vishnyakova, I believe). She’s got a great quirky sense of humor, which ends up being a bit more surreal as her jokes don’t always translate perfectly well from Russian to English. Reading-wise, we went through a few of Plato’s accounts of Socrates’ dialogs plus the Apology, some of Plato’s Republic, Tolstoy’s Confession, and “The Grand Inquisitor” chapter of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Probably nothing earth-shattering as far as Philosophy goes, but worked quite well for a 100-level class.

    I’m getting used to the laptop. I’ll always be primarily a Mac user, and there will always be a certain amount of low-level grumbling at Windows…but really, it gets the job done and the price was right.

    That said, if it might swing your decision any, the new Mac laptops can actually run the Mac OS and Windows — so you can get a Mac laptop, and you can use it like a Mac and mom can use it like a PC. Best of both worlds! Maybe that’s not the option you want to take, but at least it’s an option….

    I’ll take a look at the Google Gadgets soon! They’re on my list of “gotta get to now that school’s over for a bit” stuff. ;)

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