Print Story Just a crazy roughneck's daughter
Working life
By FlightTest (Sun Apr 27, 2008 at 07:05:07 PM EST) (all tags)
Jumped headfirst into the water

Another diary written at KATL.



Movies

We saw two movies recently. Transformers, which I thought was a pretty good, if much too long, action flick, except the ending sucked. Kinda seemed like they ran out of ideas and couldn't figure out how to kill off Megatron and not Prime. I did like the special effects of the cars transforming, and Megan Fox was easy on the eyes. We also saw Jumper, which Mrs. FT didn't really care for, but I thought at least had a decent sci-fi premise. The action was hard to follow in places with the camera angles and "jumping".


Work

I wrote most of this on the way back from Virgina. I flew to Norfolk Tuesday, then two days of death by powerpoint meeting. I couldn't talk them into letting me fly into Newport News this time, it was over twice as expensive as going into Norfolk. I got to drive under water for the first time, over and through the Hampton Roads bridge/tunnel. Also, I had some time before my flight left Friday morning, so I went over to Virgina Beach and stood on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. Stupid, yes, but I hadn't put my hand in the Atlantic Ocean yet, one more thing on my list of meaningless things I want to do in my life checked off. I guess I could have posted this from KATL, but I'm a cheapskate and won't pay for wifi on the road. I meant to post it Friday night or Saturday morning, but the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley.


Traveling

Flying commercial has officially lost its magic for me. I always used to like the window seats, but I'm going to ask for isle seats from now on. On the other hand, the traveling itself doesn't bother me as much as it used to. The TSA crap still annoys me, and I recognize its uselessness, but I don't dread it anymore. However, the mother of the little brat jumping up and down on the seats at the gate is really starting to get on my nerves, as she seems to refuse to control her spawn. Oh good, she's drug him off somewhere else now. Also, the idiot conducting his company business on a cell phone in a loud voice across from me can die as well. Maybe I should pretend to take notes on his conversation. Hell, I could be doing that right now and he wouldn't know any different.


Money

I converted our finances from Quicken 2005 to Moneydance. Really the driving reason was we could access the data from either my computer or Mrs. FT's. I probably would have put it off a lot longer except Intuit will stop Q2005 from electronic download of bank balances, etc. on April 28th. Converting our accounts was a bit of a pain, but once I figured it out I didn't run into any problems, like duplicated entries, that others have encountered. It's close enough to Quicken for what I do that I'm more than happy with it. Only annoyance is it's supposed to work under FreeBSD but I was unable to get the port to work. Meh, no biggie I guess.


New Computer

I still haven't pulled the trigger, though I'm pretty set on the Lenovo T61p laptop. I guess I have until the end of June to get XP Pro, although now Dell is saying they'll continue to offer XP Pro after the "deadline". I wonder if any large companies have voiced to Dell that they'll have to switch to white box computers and install XP themselves once Dell can no longer offer XP Pro? Lee M. had the bright idea to order it with a single 2 meg DIMM, then get a second 2 meg DIMM elsewhere. It turns out to be within a few bucks of ordering it with 3 megs from Lenovo, so easy decision there. Since XP SP3 is out Tuesday, might as well wait until I can get that pre-installed as well.


Life is short, fly fast!
< "Kubuntu v8.04" | I've been rooted. Suckit. >
Just a crazy roughneck's daughter | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback
Quick warning from a T61 user by Gedvondur (4.00 / 1) #1 Sun Apr 27, 2008 at 09:02:07 PM EST
Don't put four gigs in it with XP.  Its beyond XP's usable memory limit (for 32 bit XP anyway).  I researched this a couple of months ago, and there is the possibility that XP will become unstable with more than 3gb of memory in it. 

I even called Crucial Memory and asked them about it.  That's why Lenovo doesn't offer XP Pro and 4 gigs of memory, rather three.  I have three in my T61, runs like a dream.

Gedvondur
"If you do not sin, then you too may some day float like a big pink Goodyear blimp of The Lord." -theboz


I know XP can't address more than ~3.5 gigs by FlightTest (4.00 / 1) #2 Sun Apr 27, 2008 at 10:09:18 PM EST
We have a couple machines (Dell) at work with 4 gigs and they vary from 3.2 to 3.5 gigs available, with no instability problems. I've never heard of XP becoming unstable with 4, though I'll check into it. In any event, I'll order it with 2 then figure out whether to get a 1 or 2 gig stick later.

Thanks for the warning.

[ Parent ]

Shoulda said by sasquatchan (4.00 / 1) #3 Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 09:32:01 AM EST
you were near PHF.. I would have met you for lunch or something. ORF is, as you say, on the other side of a nasty (traffix wise) bridge/tunnel.



I had actually intended to post before I left by FlightTest (2.00 / 0) #4 Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 03:13:22 PM EST
But yeah, IFI. I think the next few trips to that area are unfortunately not going to involve going into Hampton, we'll be working at Wallops Island.

[ Parent ]

When I worked by sasquatchan (2.00 / 0) #5 Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 03:56:21 PM EST
at LARC, I passed on getting the flight physical, and that turned out to be the right decision. The guys who went on the experimental aircraft to run the computer systems said they'd fly LARC to Wallops and back, and spend 5 hours circling in the pattern over one or the other. Paid OK, but was boring as heck for 'em. I had more fun learning to fly a 757 in the simulator, since I was responsible for the hardware/software interfaces..

Anyway, LARC is about 15 minutes away, and lots of off site eateries in the hampton area, so if you make it back..

[ Parent ]

where i work by LilFlightTest (4.00 / 1) #6 Fri May 16, 2008 at 11:23:38 PM EST
the dells will come with vista but we can install XP with the license.
---------
if de-virgination results in me being able to birth hammerhead sharks, SIGN ME UP!!! --misslake


Just a crazy roughneck's daughter | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback