I’m coming close to finishing off this semester. I look forward to being done with this one. It’s been the hardest to get through so far.
I registered to go to LIT next semester. I’m going to try for an Associates in Instrumentation. My brother, Josh, just started going for the same thing this semester, and he seems to be enjoying it.
As I’ve said before, I’m not sure about having to be at class on time, but it will definitely help me to not procrastinate as much as I have been able to for the past three semesters at NAU.
Just a few of the classes required for Instrumentation are available online, and the good thing about that is that LIT uses the same Web Application as NAU, so I already know how the classes will work, even though I’ll probably only be able to use it for one or two of them during my quest for the degree.
There is one thing I am proud of myself for, though. I have (almost) made it through three semesters without becoming overwhelmed or failing anything. I only took three semesters at Lamar University right out of high school and basically quit going during my third semester. I have a low GPA during those three semesters and I’m not proud of that. I feel that I’ve made it up during the past three semesters, and I have finally gotten over my fear of failure in attending school.
Category: Me
Slacking Off
I’ve been slacking off lately, and it’s been really nice. When I say I’ve been slacking off, I don’t mean what most people mean when they say they’ve been slacking off. I haven’t been spending so much time on my computer when I get home from work. I’ve been playing with the girls, or spending time with Christle. I’m doing my best to keep the television off, because it distracts me from reality too much.
I’ve been more active on MySpace than I’d hope to be, but that’s why I set a cutoff date of November 30th.
I’m caught up on all of my schoolwork. It’s going alright, I guess. I have another paper to write this week. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to discuss GDP or interest rates. It sounds just as boring as it is, believe me.
I have to go to work now…
My Grandmother
She’s in the hospital. She had a heart attack yesterday just after 1pm. She hasn’t regained consciousness yet. I’m on my way up to spend some time with the family.
Water
That’s more than I thought I’d see today. I thought I saw a lot of it when I woke up, but it didn’t stop all day… well, I guess it did, but about 12 hours later.
Hot Wind and Rain
After a cool weekend it rained all night last night. I got up expecting a little coolness to be in the wind when I opened the door this morning, and it wasn’t cool at all. The wind felt like it was coming straight from the Equator. It sucks that the weather has to get hot again so quickly. The good thing is that I got to mow the grass this weekend in 72 degree weather instead of 95-100.
I’m Sticking to My Promise
I am dropping MySpace by December 1st. I have only had a few responses to my posts and I’ve already created a mailing list for those people. It already feels liberating to know that I’m dropping it.
I now have to deal with my commitment and follow through as well. It’s a little different for a few people though. I have just found two people from my past that I haven’t seen in a while. Just now adding them as friends and then vowing to leave MySpace feels kinda weird.
I’m going to limit myself to logging in only once at the end of every day. The best way to do that is to delete the bookmark I have for the site. Making it harder (like typing myspace ctrl+Enter is really that hard) has been proven in scientific studies to lower the amount of time doing it.
MySpace – I’ve Had Enough
Here’s what I just posted on MySpace:
I have had enough of MySpace. I’m giving it up soon. I know I’ve built a small life on here, but it’s not real. I already have my own place on the web – http://www.kunefke.us/blog – where I can share my life with anyone interested. I devote too much time to MySpace, where I probably see 1/3 of the ads I’m exposed to on a daily basis. I’ve got too much going on to devote so much time to this.
I enjoy keeping up with those in my friends list that I know in real life, but I’d rather do it in person, on the phone, or even by email, rather than the completely informal and not a lot of effort needed approach that comes with MySpace. Just being in someone’s email list is better than that. At least they have to think about whether they want you in on the conversation.
No acts have prompted this. I have not had any “bad” experiences with anyone on my friends list. I simply need to free up some time. I am going to stop doing so much on here and plan to close my account by the end of November.
If you are truly interested in keeping up with me, I will start sending out a monthly or bi-monthly email to a special list of people (who want to be included) with a short summary of how things are going and a link to remind you where I am on the web. If you want to be on that list, please send me a message with your email address so I can add you to the list. I would leave my email address on here, but closing my account would also close this blog, so that would be pointless. As long as you can read this blog, you can just send me a message with your email address… wow, I think I was rambling.
I haven’t posted much to my real blog in a week or two, but that would probably be different, if I hadn’t been spending so much time here. Please check out my blog by clicking on the link in the first paragraph of this post, and please don’t use THIS LINK.
I think I made myself clear. I like having real friends. I don’t like the fact that I have 51 friends on my MySpace account, but really only have a relationship with so few of them. I want real relationships, not superficial ones.
That Line
You know which one I’m talking about, too, don’t you? Some people call it pushing your buttons, I call it crossing “that” line. Don’t cross it.
There are a number of different lines to cross though. There’s the personal space line, such as when I’m changing clothes behind a door that’s not locked. I don’t expect anyone to cross the line of the door without at least knocking first and making sure it’s ok with me.
One line could be borrowing a neighbor’s property. You can come ask me to borrow some of my tools, and I’d more than likely be happy to make that happen; but come “borrow” it without asking, and I’d probably have a different reaction. I guess over time that those lines move with stronger relationships, but you get the point.
I’ve never dealt with this one, but there’s the moral lines of relationships with the opposite sex. Apparently a lot of people have a problem figuring out where those lines are without crossing them first. I don’t want to get close enough to see those lines. I have enough problems in my life that I don’t want any more to deal with.
Some people are annoying just to be annoying. They know they’re trying to get a rise out of you, and they keep on doing it until they’ve accomplished their goal. Their next step is to become calm and rational to make themselves feel as if they are better than the person who just lost it. I guess you’d call it a self-promotion. I figured out how to stop it today. Ignore the problem, and only address the problem when absolutely necessary. I’m not advising you to suppress the feelings that rise out of the annoyance, but I am advising you to let it go. I feel so much better now.
My new class started this week, and it looks like it will be both easy and hard. I will have to do a lot of reading, but overall it will be an easy class. I just have to maintain my class schedule better than last semester.
Creativity
I started this blog as a way to get my thoughts out and share stuff that’s on my mind. I have an overwhelming sense of “creativity” in me that seems to have to fight it’s way out. I want to create a NetCast (aka podcast) that allows me to speak my mind rather than type it, but it’s a lot of work.
I have spent the last few weeks struggling with the amount of time I spend in front of the computer instead of with my family, yet I haven’t been able to figure out what to add to this thing. I don’t like the amount of time I’ve spent in front of the computer over the last few weeks, but I also don’t like the fact that I haven’t posted anything in that amount of time as well.
I’m starting my second class for the semester tomorrow, and I have no idea how that’s going to affect my schedule. I feel like Macroeconomics is a breeze, even though it’s not that interesting to me. It may be a little different when I write my papers for it, but I don’t think I’ll have much of a problem with that.
I have to write a paper soon about an economic situation going on in the world. Does anyone out there have any ideas about an economic situation going on right now that I can write about? I’d appreciate any help that doesn’t require me to use any more brain power than I feel like using, which isn’t much. Heck, I’ll even give you credit for the idea.
After this semester, I think I’m going to cut myself off from media for a few days, just to relax my brain. I need the break, because I think I have a problem… an addiction to news. Digg provides the fix most of the time, but I have to go elsewhere every now and then, because I get caught up with Digg stories pretty frequently.
The Texans lost today. The road to an 8-8 season looks like a far away dream for us right now. The Astros didn’t pull it out this season like they have for the past two years. I wouldn’t expect Roger Clemens to come out again after this season. I’d almost be willing to bet that this season’s final Astros game will be Clemens’ last. It really stinks. My only reason for thinking that is because I don’t know why he’d want to play for a losing team again. He probably already regrets signing back up this year after helping them get to the World Series for the first time last year. That was an accomplishment that will probably not be met this year.
I’m not a sports expert, and that’s about all the sports talk I have in me.
I had a great weekend. Christle and I met a few new people and really enjoyed the time we spent with them. This should be a good week.
My Perspective of iTunes 7
I’ve seen some people upset about their recent “upgrade” (they’d call it something else) to iTunes 7. There have been problems with iTunes purchased music not making it’s way over, music not playing correctly, and other stuff like that. I’ve also read that Apple is granting a one time allowance to re-download lost content that was lost due to the upgrade. In my opinion, that means that Apple can easily recognize and admit it’s mistake and make it right all in a short amount of time. We know it’s a short amount of time because this version was just released on Tuesday.
I have seen a number of features that I really like about the new version 7.
- You can force iTunes to update album art to the iTunes version, even if you didn’t purchase the album through iTunes. It takes a while to do it the first time, but I added a Peter Frampton mp3 album this afternoon, and iTunes went out and got the album art immediately. I am highly impressed by this as I have gone through a lot of trouble in previous versions updating each album by going out to Google, searching for the album cover and picking the best one before adding it. Streamlining my own process without even having to ask for it… “cool”!
- I like the visual representation of how much space I’m using on the hard drive. It shows how much is music, video, etc. Part of the presentation also includes tabs for the iPod preferences that used to require a right-click to access. Again, making things easier is tremendous.
- Built-in ability to back-up entire library (excluding Audible purchases) to CD or DVD easily and restore that library later on, if necessary. I’m always concerned that I don’t have a duplicate copy of my music just in case of hard drive crashes. I used to work in hard drive data recovery, if you didn’t know that already. Data recovery is expensive.
- It’s pretty. The previous version was pretty, too, but looking at this makes me feel all fuzzy inside. I almost feel the need to get a mac to enjoy the entire Apple experience.
- Download progress page. It consolidates all downloads on one page, so you can see how far along each is and also pauses downloads when the connection drops. I’ve tested it, and it seems to work flawlessly. You can also pause a download purposely as well. In previous versions you could only see progress of downloads in the top area, and even then, I couldn’t figure out how to switch progress bars between two things that were being downloaded.
- Skip Count allows you to see how many times you’ve skipped a song. This is helpful if your library is larger than you iPod, and could potentially make it easier to determine which songs you want on it. I have a video now, but had a Nano before, and this feature would have been great back then.
I have seen some people complain about iTunes using up way too much memory on their system, but that hasn’t been as widespread as the music complaints. I’ve played quite a few things that I got from the iTunes store, as well as stuff from my personal library and haven’t had the sketchy audio quality others have complained about.
My personal experience leads me to the conclusion that iTunes 7 is better than it’s predecessor.