Important Events
There are many different events going on in the next month, so I need to tell you what they are. Pay attention, and participate in as many as you can!

The first one is one of the more important ones. Today there is a charitable bike ride to benefit C.U.R.B., a non-profit organization for disabled people. (I think I mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again.) It starts at 11:30 am at Long Beach City Hall; it costs (at least) a $10 USD donation to join in, but remember that this is a charity. Even if you don't feel like riding, you can still donate. Stop by City Hall before we leave to make your donation. Also, you should read the comments, as I'll be posting a URL for C.U.R.B. later, if I can find one.

The next event takes place directly after the bike ride (or, technically, during it, since I have to stop before completing it). This afternoon my family and me are heading off on vacation. We're driving up to Pennsylvania, right near the border on New York (I think). After a few days there, we'll be driving to Lake George, New York. That's upstate, for those who don't know. Point being, I'm not going to be hear for a good week, though I'll be back before school starts. Which leads into the next event....

School starts on September 8th, which means that summer will be over. It also means that I'll be in 10th grade. The key points of this are the classes that I'll be taking. Or at least the classes I was supposed to be taking, seeing as how they really screwed up my schedule. I'll rant about that some other time, if they don't fix it and make it better. See, I signed up for Computer Repair, Networking, Photography & Videography, and full-time lunch; Casey signed up for the same, except some sports class instead of Photography & Videography. On my schedule, I got Computer Repair and Photography & Videography, but only alternating lunch (during the 1st semester) and no Networking; Casey got Networking and his sports class, but alternating lunch and no Computer Repair. Not to mention the one and two-half periods that I have free the 2nd semester. But, like I said, I'll rant on that later.

The last event to report, and the second in priority since it's not a charity function, is the public discussion we will be having for CMSformE during the weekend of September 10th through September 12th. The discussion starts at 3:00 pm EDT on Friday, and it ends at 12:00 midnight EDT on Sunday (Monday morning). Join us in our IRC channel and participate in the discussion!

Well, that's about it. Be sure to check the comments, and later posts, for updates on any of the events listed above.

Time Now: 10:10 AM
Posted by Gordon P. Hemsley @ 8/31/2004 09:40:00 AM [ 0 comments ]

 
Clarification (and Schedule)
Two news items on the agenda today (because I don't want to go into all the details of the past 5 days).

The first one is that Gordie Tepper sent me an e-mail. He would like me to clarify something, and since I have a policy not to edit my previous posts, I chose to do this instead: Actress Shawna Waldron may not necessarily be his girlfriend, but he was visiting her in California. (Hopefully that should clear anything up, and I won't have to make a clarification of my clarification.)

The second is that my school schedule for 10th grade has arrived, so I'm ready to answer any questions regarding it. I must note that I am a bit perturbed at the fact that I only have lunch every other day (AGAIN) for the first semester, and then three free periods every other day for the second semester. To find out more, feel free to contact me in one of the many ways possible.

Time Now: 3:51 PM
Posted by Gordon P. Hemsley @ 8/27/2004 03:48:00 PM [ 2 comments ]

 
People Suck
I have come to the conclusion that people suck. That is mostly thanks to certain people at phpBB.com. I'm sure you know who you are, and that I don't like you reading my blog.

That is all.
Posted by Gordon P. Hemsley @ 8/24/2004 09:34:00 AM [ 3 comments ]

 
Computers, Straight Up
Well, it's been over a week. I'm sure you've missed me and my wonderful posts about my wonderful life, so here's another installment.

Block party was last Saturday. Thanks to everyone who didn't come. Quite an uneventful day. I think EasyMOD was released around that time, but I can't remember.

Fast forward to Thursday. I went to the library, to renew my C book and to take out some books on the Beatles. I really wanted Anthology, but they didn't have it. (In fact, it appears that someone took it out that very same day!) Anyway, afterwards, we went to Radio Shack to pick up a router and this switch thingy that can switch between speakers and headphones (since my wonderful motherboard doesn't have a Line Out port). While the girls went shopping, I caught up on some Beatles history.

I also forgot to mention that earlier in the week, my cousin sent me a corrupted CD that I had to recover data from. More on that later.

So, the new router was meant to split the Internet connection that feeds to the basement here into two so that we can give both computers Internet without having to rewire everything. I started working on that that night, but after I spent hours on it without getting it to work, I gave up and moved on to something else.

During this time, the CD recovery was also continuing. It took a couple days before it was done.

So, what I actually moved onto (and this was at 3:00 in the morning) was reading more about the Beatles. I had gotten the book Ticket to Ride, which was written by the only American reporter allowed to accompany the Beatles on their 1964 North America tour. I had seen a short interview with him recently (even though the book was released last year), and I knew then that I wanted to read it. So anyway, I read that, along with the other books that I had taken out, for about 2 hours. Then the 5:00 news came on (I had had the Olympics on while I was reading, though I didn't watch much of it), and it was too distracting to continue reading. So, I think my mom had gotten up by then and convinced me to go read in bed, so I could go to sleep afterward. I remember now that I had also been reading about how John and Paul composed songs, namely With A Little Help From My Friends (I think that's the correct title...). So anyway, I read some more, and then I went to bed.

Now I'm wondering if I blended two days into that sentence... but it's not that important, so let's move on....

Last night I finally decided to try again with the Internet connection. Smart me, I actually looked up an article on the Linksys website that told me exactly what to do. For hours, I was running back and forth, up and down, to make reset everything and make sure all computers worked. And next time I follow one of those articles, I won't assume that they're wrong and I'm right when things happen. I will actually follow, word for word, what they're saying, even if what they say doesn't directly give me what they say it should.

Anyway, by 5:00, I finally got everything working together. So, then I finished up the CD recovery by burning the data onto a new CD. And I still wasn't ready to go to bed, so I hooked up that switch thingy. I got three things done last night, so then I was like, now what?

My parents and I came to a mutual decision (sorta) that it was now time for bed. So I went to sleep. Woke up at 5:00 (that's pm, by the way). Bla bla... Installed some more programs on that curs-ed computer, yadda yadda.

Cut to me going to somebody's house at 8:30 to fix their computer. It was the usual Computer Optimization, with anti-*ware installation, and disk cleanup/defrag. And it took 3 and a half hours to complete. BUT, I got 50 bucks. It seems everybody likes to pay me for just sitting there (I mean, yeah, that's how much I charge for it, but I didn't say anything about that—that's how much was offered to me).

Also, I'm apparently making another 50 bucks for recovering the data from the CD. So, basically, I've gotten a total of 150 bucks for just waiting, and 500+ bucks for sitting around being bored (see last entry).

But, in case you haven't noticed, I make more money in less time doing the Computer Optimization—and I don't have to do them every weekday at the same time. So, I made a good decision quitting.

And that's about all the news I have to report for this past week, except that we got our bus passes today. And mine still has the wrong address on it, even though my sister's was changed (due to the move that happened in February). Also, pardon my grammatical mistakes (and something else that I was going to mention here but forgot in the process), since I'm really just writing this to keep me occupied.

I leave you with this: Why is the logo for updating settings on Windows 98 a drum with drumsticks hitting it? Are they saying "You're changing stuff on the computer. Let's see what happens now. Drum roll, please!"?

Time Now: 1:32 AM
Posted by Gordon P. Hemsley @ 8/22/2004 01:00:00 AM [ 0 comments ]

 
I Quit!
That's right, ladies and gentlemen. After less than a month on the job, I quit on Wednesday. I didn't like working there, as it wasn't the job that I wanted, and it was quite boring. However, even with my two-week vacation, I managed to scrounge up about $500 USD.

I plan on using this money to do one of two things: 1) Buy a bunch of music-related stuff for something I may or may not have mentioned here (including a bass guitar); or 2) Save up for a Macintosh iBook laptop that costs over $1,000 USD.

I have not yet made my final decision, though I am leaning towards the music stuff because it's easier. (I don't know when or where I'll get over $500 more, unless you have some to spare.)

In other news (and there isn't a whole lot), I took a bike ride this evening. My sister and I left around 8:00 pm, and we were back by 8:30 pm. We had gone to Franklin Blvd. and back to New York Ave. in about half an hour. My dad says it was about 2½ miles, but I don't know how true that is. (This map reports that it's 2.21 miles one-way.)

Now, this is significant because I can't remember the last time I rode a bike. (Well, more specifically, I can't remember which of my memories is the last time I rode a bike. My point is, it was a while ago.) Also, this is important because there's a marathon, as my sister put it (it's not a race), at the end of the month that I plan on riding in—and it's about 27 miles long. It goes from one end of Long Beach Island (somewhere in Atlantic Beach) to the other (somewhere in Point Lookout), and back. I don't know the exact addresses/locations, so I couldn't get an accurate map.

One last thing I want to mention is that, last night, I got about 12 hours of sleep, compared to the (about) 4 hours of sleep I would get on work nights. On normal weekends, I get about 9 hours of sleep, which is what I like to get whenever I can.

So, on that note, good night.

Time Now: 3:16 AM
Posted by Gordon P. Hemsley @ 8/13/2004 02:44:00 AM [ 6 comments ]

 
I'm Baaaaaack
Hello again all. It's been about 2 weeks since I last wrote an entry.... Didja miss me? Of course you did. Anyway, into the news....

As you already know, I went to Colorado and Canada over the past two weeks for a family (re-)union. I visited my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Colorado, then some of us took off to Saskatchewan, Canada. And, I just want to state for the record that I officially hate empty fields that go on for miles... er... kilometers... er... kilometres... ah, screw it... miles.

So, I spent 5 days in the land of our neighbo(u)rs to the north, 3 of which consisted of hanging out with a bunch of people none of us had never met before (and that went for them, too), and 2 of which was spent travelling. Actually, we may have spent more time travelling than we did hanging out with people we'd never met before.... But anyway.

Came back to Colorado for a few more days after that. I forgot to mention the big water slide at the hotel in Regina, but it's not entirely important. It was kinda fun, though.

And, so, in 10 days' time, I travelled on 6 different airplanes (if I counted correctly), and spent countless hours driving around aimlessly between field after field. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? I'm not even gonna mention Irene. You'll have to speak to me in person to find out about that one....

"But wait! You left out three days!" I hear you shout. Yes, I did. I spent the weekend relaxing and working on phpLiteAdmin. Then I went to work today. I really wanna quit, but at the same time, I don't wanna quit. So, until I can resolve this conflict, I've decided to work for the rest of the week. See how it goes.

And, so, that's about it for now. Be on the lookout for Hemsley Web Services in the near future (within the next year). It'll be computer/web-related stuff, mostly web hosting.

OK, so that's really it. See ya later.

Time Now: 11:25 PM
Posted by Gordon P. Hemsley @ 8/09/2004 11:16:00 PM [ 1 comments ]