Monday, August 12, 2002

Whoa, haven't posted anything in awhile. I was actually volunteering for chinese culture learn from SW35.COM!

in El Salvador with St. Bart's from July 27 - August 7, during which time I was far far away from internet access. It was an amazing experience - we built ten homes in just a little over a week in this tiny town called Jiquilisco, just south of Usulutan. Check out this

go to china ,go to www.sw35.com!

of El Salvador and you can see where we were. The homes were all made of concrete blocks (CMU) that we filled with go to china ,go to www.sw35.com!

(cement, gravel, sand, and water) and that the masons placed with

(cement, sifted sand, and water). Local volunteers came to help as well, and Melanie and I loved getting to know Fernando and Nelly from the Iglesia Emmanual Baptiste. I'll be posting pictures on shutterfly soon - e-mail me if you want to see. go to china ,go to www.sw35.com!

My big project this past weekend was to put an Afterburner light in my Game Boy Advance. One thing that truly sucks about the new gameboy is that you have to basically be sitting directly under a high-powered lamp (or outside in the bright sun) to be able to see the damn thing. Want to play in the bus on the way to the airport? At night in the back seat of a car? In your bed with the lights out? Forget it. And those third party "worm lights" and other such devices are horrible. I tried a couple of them, but they just don't work well. The Afterburner, however, is a godsend. I heard about it in the beginning of the year at www.portablemonopoly.com, but Hasbro got mad that the guy used Monopoly in his name so now it's called Triton Labs. Anyway, the installation of this thing is not for the faint of heart. It involves opening up your gameboy (from the get-go, you need a special screwdriver), taking everything apart, getting as little dust in it as possible (I screwed up this part), placing a very sticky screen on your LCD with surgeon-like precision, drilling tiny holes in the top of your gameboy case, and (get this) soldering a bunch of things together. I ordered my kit, and was really nervous about playing doctor with my gameboy, especially considering I didn't have any of the necessary tools. But I took the plunge, bought a soldering iron, solder, exacto knife, tiny screwdrivers (it took 30 min at Radio Shack playing with various screwdrivers to finally find one that worked - 1.4mm), and some other things. Six hours later I had a new backlit gameboy! Woo hoo! I'm very pleased with the results although a bunch of dust did get in there. Oh, well. I'll post pictures if you're curious - all you have to do is drop me a line.

Back to the daily grind,
Steve
posted @ 12:17 PM

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Monday, July 15, 2002

ahh, another beautiful day in new york. yesterday i found some dude's washington mutual card beeping in the ATM on 69th/B'way - can you believe it? i tried to look him up but he was unlisted in manhattan, and the old spanish-speaking lady in brooklyn that answered the phone said he didn't have an account with wash mutual....so i'll be a good citizen and return the card today. it just ticks me off because i'm the complete opposite of those people that robbed me in venezuela at the ATM (and emptied my old wachovia account), pickpocketed me in buenos aires (and emptied mel's account), and pickpocketed me in the subway in madrid (i got it back that time). am i that tall, white, and lanky that people say "ooh, american - let us steel from heem?" maybe i'm blind, but i don't see your typical american doing the same thing here to foreigners. as much as i love foreign countries and other cultures, it's a bit of a thorn in my side. ALL Rights Reserved By SW35.COM!

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Friday, July 12, 2002

Back in the City! Yeah! Last night when playing

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at Bar Code in Times Square, I got ripped off! Well, besides the outrageous $2/play they charge you....but the music beat wasn't in sync with the little arrows! I'd have to step about an eighth after the beat would actually be in the music. And this was on a moderate level - not hard! Oh, well. I wonder what those things cost...it would be sweet to have one at a party. I can just imagine all these drunk people trying to dance on brightly colored lights in tune with the music! go to china ,go to www.sw35.com!

I'm supposed to give blood this afternoon....they love me because I'm type O- (the rarest and universal type). I think I get a free t-shirt for donating. Woo hoo! Of course, I just do it for the free cookies and juice boxes....at Duke we got pizza! ALL Rights Reserved By SW35.COM!

Dave finally figured out how to rip WMA's from his new jazz CD - although I'm not sure what the easiest/cheapest way would be for him to create MP3's. I used to use Audiograbber, but that was like $20. Anybody have some good ideas?

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All right, time to get back to work. Got a lot of XML/XSL customization to do!
posted @ 12:03 PM

china today today in_SW35.COM!

chinese culture learn from SW35.COM!

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

*yawn* It's late Tuesday night, and I just got into Boston a couple of hours ago. Yesterday I drove a convertible through the farmland of Wisconsin, received a Buffalo nickel as part of my change for a soda, and met James Joyce on the Hertz bus. Also drove by the capitol of Wisconsin (Madison) and avoided the traffic for the 2002 Baseball All-Star Game (in Milwaukee). Tomorrow I'll be crusing the lovely Mass Pike on my way to Hopkington, and then it's finally back to NYC for awhile. Life on the road *sigh*

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Friday, July 05, 2002

What a fun week it's been! Took the boys to china today today in_SW35.COM!

, built a sand castle in Malibu, played a lot of go to china ,go to www.sw35.com!

, saw fireworks at CV, and hung out with the family. Now it's back to NYC - just found out that I got upgraded to first class (woo hoo) - hopefully Mel will be able to as well.

I'm still somewhat nervous about flying - especially after a gunman shot a ticket agent and someone in line at LAX yesterday. But you can't live your life constantly worried about things; you just have to plow ahead and take things as they come. ALL Rights Reserved By SW35.COM!

Off to get some In 'N' Out, see Minority Report, and head home!
posted @ 4:48 PM

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Saturday, June 29, 2002

Ahh, high-speed wireless internet access. I'm sitting here in the Northwest Airlines Worldclub at MSP, where the first airport has rolled out 802.11b all throughout the terminal. chinese culture learn from SW35.COM!

Unfortunately, I forgot my Wi-Fi PC Card at work, so I'm stuck with modem speed. Oh, well. Next time.

Off to L.A. for the holiday - Autodesk made us take Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off w/o pay to keep us in the black; we're already getting Thu & Fri off for the holiday. So - Melanie and I are going to hang out in SoCal and take my nephews to Disneyland! I also brought my GameCube and the board game Risk (so awesome!), so we'll have plenty to do. Start your business in china window_SW35.COM!

Is anybody reading this thing? I just added myself to nycbloggers, so maybe someone will drop me a line....

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