Year: 2003

Another One Bites the Dust

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

As I was going to check my e-mail this morning, I found that the screensaver wouldn’t wake up after shaking the mouse. I then noticed that the PC was off and the power switch wasn’t having an effect either. I had a hunch that it was another dead power supply.

I dug out my power supply tester and, sure enough, it was dead. Dead power supplies are fairly rare, but I was especially annoyed that this was the second time this brand had died on me. Around this time last year, my original power supply died and I replaced that with a 300 watt power supply from JGE. Then, that replacement died only a week later and I replaced it with the same model.

That replacement last until today, apparently. But, I wasn’t going to be fooled again. I wondered about JGE’s quality control at the time and I’m now convinced that it’s not very good. So, I drove down to Fry’s and selected a 350 watt Kingwin power supply (I would have gone with 300 watts again, but the 350 was about the lowest wattage I could find.)

So, $50 later, I had a new power supply. I took it home and installed it: voila, a happy PC once more. Interestingly enough, a sticker on the box said “Silence”, but I figured that was just marketing hype. However, it was actually markedly quieter than my old power supply.

So far, I’m pleased with Kingwin. And, it’s bound to last more than a week ;). In any case, I won’t be buying JGE again.

Katie’s Party

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

I went to Katie’s party on Saturday night and I had a good time — it was just what I needed after moving things all day (I helped Leia move in the morning and my new roommate Mike move in the afternoon).

Katie lives in a large house in Highland Park — she doesn’t own the house, but she’s staying there to fulfill some insurance requirements for one of her friends (somone had to stay in the house, apparently).

Each room was decorated in a theme based on a country. For instance, the foryer had a Japanese theme (complete with a giant kimono encased in glass hanging on the wall). That room scared me a bit, but some of the other rooms were more tasteful. As I headed out for the evening, Katie suggested that I blog about the food. Sure, I can accommodate that :).

I first had some mini double-chocolate Oreos. Yeah, both the cookie and the creme-filling were chocolate. Don’t get me wrong — I’m a a chocolate nut, but chocolate-filled Oreos didn’t quite have the same creamy essence as the original vanilla creme. Perhaps if the filling was dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate, they might be even better.

There were also some iced sugar cookies. Yeah these were the regular sugar cookies with thick pink icing that you can find at any grocery store. But, they were very tasty (as always). I think I had two of these.

In the freezer were some Blue Bell ice cream sandwiches (the small kind). These were obviously fresh from the creamery, as the cookie was still crisp. I didn’t mind that, though I suppose I’m more used to having ice cream sandwiches with more of a soggy cookie. Fresh ice cream sandwiches have more of a crisp cookie because the cookie is completely dry and crisp when ice cream sandwiches are made (like a graham cracker). But, over time, it absorbs some of the moisture from the ice cream and softens. (I learned all this from Unwrapped on the Food Network.)

This party was well-stocked with snacks. It’s not often that you’re offered iced sugar cookies, and you can’t go wrong with ice cream sandwiches either. It seems that the major snack-categories were all covered. Snackarific.

May Have Found a Roommate

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

I’ve been looking for a roommate for a while now and I may have found one. Since Jason moved out, I’ve been signed up with several roommate-finding services (Roommates.com RoommateAccess and RoomieMatch, to name some of the more useful ones).

As usual, the services would send me matches every day based on my location and the apartment’s rent. I’d look over of them, and send messages to people that I thought would make for a reasonable roommate.

So, among those, I sent a message to Michael yesterday afternoon. He stopped by to check out the apartment yesterday evening and today we’ve agreed to become roommates. We’re going to the leasing office tomorrow to fill out the paperwork. It all seems too easy ;).

If all goes to plan, Michael will be moving in this weekend (since he has to be out of his current apartment by the end of the month). I’ve offered to help him move, so this may be the second move I’m helping with this weekend. It’ll be good exercise, so I don’t mind.

Dallas Camera Club Competition Meetings

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

I discovered the Dallas Camera Club last month and I’ve been going to their meetings since then. They have meetings on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month; the 3rd Tuesday is their regular meeting while the 1st Tueday is the competition meeting.

Not having much interest in entering pictures, I didn’t give much thought to competition meetings. However, at the last regular meeting, they had to finish some business from the last competition meeting since they ran out of time. So, I had the opportunity to see what went on at a competition meeting.

In addition to participants handing in images for that month’s competition, each competition meeting also includes commentary and results from the last competition. When the photos are turned in, they’re sent off each month to a judge such as a professional photographer or a photography professor. He or she then scores each photo and records some commentary on an audio cassette.

The pictures are mailed back to the club and the commentary is presented with the images. The room is dimmed, with the exception of a lit easel in the front of the room and, timed with the commentary, the various photographs are displayed.

So, of course, all of this happened at a regular meeting and I was pleasantly surprised — I had in mind that the competition meetings would be fairly boring as people turned in their photographs and received their scores. On the contrary, it was fascinating to hear the comments of a professional on such a variety of photographs.

The audio commentary really made the photo sequence much more interesting. And I now find myself really looking forward to the next competition meeting (August 5th).

Adrian’s Road Trip Log

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

My brother Adrian and a couple of his friends decided to make the most of their time off to drive from our house in Pittsburgh to the Grand Canyon. And, Adrian thought to take his new PowerBook along and write a log, uploading it from time to time via free WiFi that they happened to come across.

Andy, Dave, Randy and Adrian all went to high school together and they’re good friends. The PowerBook is Adrian’s so all of the entries are his, with the exception of the occasional entry from one of his friends. They also brought along more cameras than people and they took plenty of pictures (some of which are included in the log).

They started the trip last Sunday (July 13th) and made it to the Canyon by Wednesday. But, instead of turning around and heading back, they decided to head on to Las Vegas — and from there, on to LA.

One twist is that Dave is part of the ROTC program at Virginia Tech (in the Navy, in his case). So, the four of them had to get Dave back to Blacksburg by midnight on Saturday in case he was called to a ship. So, you’ll see references to that from time to time.

Adrian’s not a blogger, but I enjoyed his writing style. And, if he wanted to try blogging, I’d be happy to setup something here on HandCoding.com for him ;).