Resurrected

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Last April, the hard drive in my computer died, taking all of my photos and music with it. I quickly purchased a new hard drive, and let the old one sit until I could make an attempt at getting into it (a project that, unfortunately, was going to require more than the standard suite of disk recovery tools included with the computer).

With some extra money I earned over Christmas season (hooray for the pseudo-commission pay structure I have at work), I was able to pick up Disk Warrior 4 and throw it at the drive. It had to run overnight, and wasn’t able to repair the issues, but it was able to temporarily mount the drive and allow access to most (though not all) of the filesystem. I wasn’t able to get more ‘official’ stuff, like my schoolwork for earlier quarters or old mail or contact lists (basically, some of the ~/Documents folder and all of the ~/Library folder were just gone)…but I was able to bring back all of my photos and music.

So, after about a week and a half of working during any spare time I could find, all my photos are backed up on DVD, and all my music is back on my computer and at my fingertips. 17,978 individual tracks that take up 81.43 Gb of space and would require 92 days, one hour, twenty-two minutes and twenty-eight seconds to listen to straight through from beginning to end.

It’s so nice to have it all back.

This isn’t right…

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Seattle 28, Anchorage 32

Admittedly, things are looking up when you glance through the forecast through the next week. Still, there’s just something wrong about Seattle and Anchorage both getting snow…and Seattle being colder than Anchorage.

4,000 Lattes…to go?

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From this morning’s introduction of the iPhone, as Steve Jobs was demonstrating various features of the gadget (as reported by MacRumors):

10:27 am finds moscone west
10:27 am finds a nearby starbucks
10:27 am presses a button and calls starbucks
crowd laughs
10:27 am orders 4000 latte’s to go
10:27 am oh sorry – wrong number
10:28 am hangs up

Prank calling Starbucks live on stage at MacWorld? Nicely done, Steve! ;)

(via blog.ariffic)

Thomas Jefferson’s Koran

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Heh. This is very cool (that is, cool that a Muslim was elected, and very cool that he’s going to be sworn in on the Koran and not the Bible…not so cool that some idiots are up in arms about this)…

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he’d take his oath of office on the Koran — especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the holy book at tomorrow’s ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We’ve learned that the new congressman — in a savvy bit of political symbolism — will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

[…]

Ellison will take the official oath of office along with the other incoming members in the House chamber, then use the Koran in his individual, ceremonial oath with new Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Keith is paying respect not only to the founding fathers’ belief in religious freedom but the Constitution itself,” said Ellison spokesman Rick Jauert.

One person unlikely to be swayed by the book’s illustrious history is Goode, who released a letter two weeks ago objecting to Ellison’s use of the Koran. “I believe that the overwhelming majority of voters in my district would prefer the use of the Bible,” the Virginia Republican told Fox News, and then went on to warn about what he regards as the dangers of Muslims immigrating to the United States and Muslims gaining elective office.

Excuse me? The “dangers of Muslims immigrating…[and] gaining elective office?” Just what ‘dangers’ are there? And this guy’s a Representative?

How incredibly sad. I’m glad he doesn’t represent me.

Goodbye Vogue, Hello 2007

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Happy New Year, everyone!

Spent last night out at the_vogue, which was absolutely packed with people ringing in the new year and bidding a fond farewell to the club on its last night. I took a few pictures, but not too many — concentrated more on just having a good night out at the club. I almost made it to close, but as I’m still fighting off the last of the cold, I bailed out a few minutes early to beat the worst of the post-club drunk traffic and made it home by two.

There’ve been both good and bad points to 2006, but overall, Prairie and I are both looking forward to closing it out and getting a new year under our belts.

Here’s to that New Year. Hopefully this will be a good one for everyone.

We’re Back!

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We’re loopy as all get-outs, due to a delayed connecting flight pushing our arrival back in Seattle from 5:00am to 6:30am and sending both of us far into the realms of sleep deprivation, plus having to battle the head cold that I picked up midway through the week…but we’re back.

More details, pictures, and so on will arrive as soon as I can think clearly enough to bother. :)

Update: Dad has posted his pictures from our trip!