glasses, getting new

So it's time for me to get some new glasses. For the last 3 years I've exclusively worn contacts and my eyes are starting to pay the price. The blood vessels are rising to the surface in a search for oxygen. Poor things. So, I am getting new glasses (with a current prescription, unlike my old ones..) to remedy this problem. However, I'm having trouble choosing. Here are my top 3 choices, ranging from conservative to edgy:


Please leave a comment, voting for 1, 2, or 3. If you aren't a gmail/blogger/blogspot person, you can leave an anonymous comment with your choice. :-)

clarity, having some

So I have realized, anew, how great it feels to just get things done. Lately I've been spending a lot of time whining about how much stuff I have to do (which is a considerable amount) but not really try so much to do anything about it.

The largest bane of my existence is the conference I'm working on planning. Last night I grabbed it by the horns and spent 2 hours just sending e-mails. Today I got to work and had over 50 related responses. I've since spent 3 hours replying and organizing and planning. I've gotten more done for this conference in the past 2 days than in the past 2 months. It feels really good.

Through this process over yesterday and today, a lot of things just clicked into place, mentally. I guess we sometimes need to remind ourselves to shut up and just get some shit done. Like eating our vegetables, we usually feel better about it once it's done. :-)

days, really long

I've had many very long days over the last few weeks. Preparation for my NY trip made things crazy for a few days before my departure, the trip in NY made for long days since I needed to utilize all available time. Now that I'm back it's pretty nuts. I did 5 hours of grading yesterday (technically, my last day of vacation) and about 8 hours of grading today, plus taught 2 classes, created curriculum for the classes from scratch, and prepared a comprehensive cheat-sheet-handout for each of those classes. Right now I'm at work hour 12 for today and I have 2 more to go. Yippie!

In a few days when I have more time, I'll post a real NYC posting with some pictures and a link to an online gallery (which I have to upload still..). I have class this weekend, and next weekend too, so free time will be at a bit of a premium. Maybe while I'm at the hotel after class on Friday...which depends on if I go out with Thomas. Or, during class, if it turns out to be really boring. ;-)

dell, getting tired of

So you all may have heard that I had to replace my hard drive that went wonky. Apparently it suddenly developed some bad things on it (or so the diagnostics told me) so I ended up having to replace it which turned out to be alright. This made me slightly bitter because the HD manufacturer has a standard 3-year warranty, but since it's OEM in a dell product, the manufacturer wouldn't touch it. At the time, the system was *just* over the 2 year dell warranty cut-off, and they won't honor the standard 3-year manufacturer warranty. Thanks, dell.

So I thought my problems were over, right? Nope! I now have the infamous "flashing amber light of death." My system will NOT even attempt to boot up, the power button just flashes this lovely amber light. After a bit of online research, it seems that a simple replacement of the power supply isn't always the solution to this issue. I really can't afford to replace the power supply in hopes that it fixes everything. What gives, dell??? This computer is 2.5 years old and now has had a second *major* problem. Aside from this, I've been marvelously happy with the system, it has never done anything weird or buggy.

This amber light thing sounds more like a defect in their systems...the dozens of forum posts I've been finding are indicative of a larger issue than a few power users simply overtaxing their systems. I used mine on a pretty average basis for the first year, but in the second year, I had my laptop and hardly ever used the desktop system but a few times per week.

The computers I had while growing up all made it to a good 4-5 years old before we tired of their incompatibility and slowness, however, they continued to keep trucking on even at point of disposal.

So, dell, what gives? I'm not likely to be a customer of yours again.