In case I don't get any posts in later today (Thursday), I will be heading up to Grand Marais on Friday for a little well deserved R&R. It'll be good to get away from family for a day after a long summer of living at home. Not that I don't greatly appreciate all the help they have been, but at 22, one isn't meant to spend extended periods with the parents, conflicts arise. Hopefully this will provide a little relaxation on all fronts and will come back on Saturday looking forward to the homestretch before I head out to Tucson.

-Trevor

I've been looking around for a laptop to tote around campus this fall. I'm always full of indecision and quite decide what I want. However, contrary to standard procedure, I'm looking heavily at the Dell Inspiron 6000. They seem to be having some summer blowout deals, offering the Inspiron at 35% off. This makes it quite a steal of a deal. Also a quick look showed the possibility of getting a $750 coupon, but that has recently expired (with rumors of it to resurface). However, the difference in the price of the laptop is minimal with or without the coupon.

I've also looked at an Acer laptop, but I'm hesitant due to the lack of knowing much about them and details specs are sketchy, at least I know what I would be getting with the dell.

The real question is if I need this much bang. I feel like I might be a variant of the soccer mom who buys that SUV when a midsize would suffice. Of course, since I haven't boughten it yet, my mind can change, but who wouldn't drool over the latest iteration of Centrino processors? A decent desktop replacement system with battery life of 5.5 hours cannot be denied for long.

Other options include the Gateway 460x, but this has been quieted due to the discounts on the Dell laptops, but we'll see if something comes up.

-Trevor

After a recent bash of Dr. Phil, I decided to uncover just who that dumbass really is. This was a definite entertaining read chock full of little tidbits of quotable information. If this is too much for your tiny ego to handle, you may want to try the babystep unbiased version at Biography.com

-Trevor

According to News.com.au which I do not believe has any affiliation to News.com, scientists have been able to bring back to life dead dogs. I guess this is supposed to be a good thing due to potential implications on human medical technology of the future, TODAY! or tomorrow. Anyway, hopefully all ethical implications will be viewed, but in reality, I probably will never look at this topic again unless there is a major medical breakthrough in my lifetime.

-Trevor

In the beginning God created the heaven and blogs. On the seventh day he created the wisdom that was Trevor. He created him such that he would know nearly the instant that some yahoo commented on his blog, that of Hemeac, even if the original post was that of one from the time of the ancients.

One day, God said to Trevor, "Why hath thou not allowed Charles to post on your blog?"

Trevor was initially perplexed that one such as Charles would want to post since he had a life.

God however commanded that this blog should be shared amongst friends who enjoy all good things in life and there was much rejoicing.

Anyways. Charlie asked whether or not he had permission to post on my website. Why not. I will soon (if not already by the chance you read this) give you permission to post if you so care. Check your "security clearance" as well.

So welcome aboard Charlie.

-Trevor

This is definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity, neswomen is selling 776 nes games on Ebay. As of this writing, the bidding is up to $5800 without the reserve being met. For those who aren't math majors (I was one, but still can't count) , that's only $7.47 per game. That would definitely be interesting to get, but I seem to have other things to spend money on. Oh well, maybe next time.

-Trevor

I heard about the Live 8 concerts recently on the radio about how they want to eradicate the 3rd world debt so that the impoversished people of Africa, Asia, and South America will instantly flourish into the industrial neighbors if only the greedy capitalists would stop forcing them down. You may already be able to see my slant on this item, but this stuff has happened before, and what has happened when we forgave the debt... ... ... nothing. Nothing at all. For those who don't remember, and I have no first hand experience, we tried this around twenty years ago, and nothing happened. The same problems will arise again and again because of one underlying problem, the governments of these countries are corrupt and don't care about the people, so therefore relieving debt that they don't pay doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

One would never know it from their website. They mention often that rich countries must pay NOW, if they don't pay, all these children will starve, and please, WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN. I particularly enjoyed their statement that we should stop forcing these countries to trade with the rich countries. I almost couldn't believe it when I read it. Isolationism is not the answer that we are seeking to help these countries. But I guess if we throw enough money on their doorstep then we don't have to feel guilty when we see who's picking it up.

Further, we need to stop subsidizing our farmers and subsidize "their" farmers, so that will allow the poor countries to feed themselves. That way our farmers and people can starve as well, but let's look at it a little closer. Europe and the United States have some of the most efficient farming operations in the world, however, if some of these subsidies no longer exist, there is less incentive to farm, since crazily enough, people need money to survive in this world. While it may then be true that there may be more farmers in the 3rd world countries, but they are ultimately less efficient than their 1st world brethren. While I am not saying this is the wrong solution, what I'm saying is that there is no conclusive evidence on their website to back up their claims, and give little indication on how I can further my knowledge of this very important issue.

The problem with activists is the same problem with religions, it requires large amounts of faith. Faith that change will be a good thing and that we should trust our minds to our superiors. We are but sheep following the shepard. I of course won't venture by saying that they are mostly anti-consumerists, but that is a rant for another day.

These are a bunch of people who want to ACT, but don't know the consequences of their actions. These are the scariest types of people in the world, because if there are enough of them, sometimes they are actually heard.

-Trevor

Stopped over at the 3rd Annual Georgefest in St. Cloud today and listed to Fred Savage and the Unbeatables. They're great everytime I see them. It was even better since they were playing a couple of new songs that I hadn't heard before. Rumors have it that they are recording again, so I'm excited.

The band before them (can't remember their name) played some alternative metal. They were surprisingly good, much better than some of the shit that's played on the radios, as I could actually understand the lyrics. Overall, the weather was great and it was a good time. If I'm real lucky, I'll be able to check them out again.

I'll be posting a couple of pictures I took of them in the gallery.

-Trevor

After noticing a strange fluctuation in the left window and my calendar not always properly showing up recently, I finally diagnosed that the problem is being caused by Firefox 1.0.4 being unable to properly render the website. Strangely enough, 1.0.3 and the new alpha version (and IE as well) have been able to render it correctly. After trying the new nightly build from Firefox, my website appears to be much more stable. While I don't necessarily suggest that you run and grab the newest version of firefox, it at least allows me the comfort of knowing that I won't necessarily have to redesign my website, but that might indicate some underlying design problems. I guess conforming to standards don't necessarily mean that a website will come up correctly, but oh well.

-Trevor

It has come to my attention recently that Sony and Macrovision have each come up with new protection schemes in addition to CSS to copy protect DVD's. After an increased rate of DVD's that are incompatible with some retail players, I have to wonder how the industry can justify these latest moves. I fail to see how a growing industry can force consumers to pick up a different player in order to view their favorite movies. The only other alternative is to force consumers to purchase computer software (currently illegal in the United States) to remove these protection schemes. It's outrageous, but in a society that is obsessed with protecting property rights, I guess that's the way it is going to have to be. It's pathetic, but I guess we can move to Canada, whoops, they just signed a DMCA of their own...

-Trevor

Artist: Foo Fighters
Album: In Your Honor
Genre: Post Grunge / Alternative Pop

Read more!

Check out this little article about the differences between work and prison. It's similar to all those little joke e-mails you get, but at least if you don't want to read this, you can not follow the link.

-Trevor

If you have noticed, I shrunk down the movie and music blog to one post and added a "more" link. Further, I added a "book blog". I've noticed a problem with the left table not always formatting correctly on Firefox and displaying very wide. If anyone who uses firefox (yes, you NaLeah), please comment and let me know if you are having a similar problem. It works in IE however, but I won't chalk it up as saying it is superior, but it means that I need to possibly find the culprit. Thanks.

-Trevor

I guess it is newsworthy to note that the Queen of England does not know how to use a remote control for Sony electronics. Of course I like her comment that they have too many arrows. It reminds me of at a clinic in St. Cloud that had two adjacent windows with the signs, "Window closed" and the arrows pointing to each other. I can see how that would be confusing for anyone, and possibly get trapped in an infinite loop searching for an open window. Anyways, I guess we will soon be a series based on what products that the Queen is capable of using.

-Trevor

To all those who care, and I believe I'm shouting into the wind... I now rank #1 in google for the keyword, Hemeac. Further, typing in my name gets me the rank of #3. Not too bad considering it took a while to get me there. Unfortunately, these terms are not often searched so I'm thinking I need to post new words into my blog in order to up the results of random keywords, such as Microsoft, Paris Hilton, and platypus.

- Trevor

FYI, I uploaded more pictures today. They consist of a variety of nature shots I have taken of Saint John's from the previous year. I noticed that I am curiously short of any pictures of Saint Ben's. I'll try to remedy this shortly before I leave for Arizona for those who care, and maybe nobody but me cares, so then I'll bore you with them anyways. I've also included shots from the Wobegon Trail since it's close enough.

-Trevor

As I was painting on Friday at work, I was listening to 101.7. Discovering to my dismay that besides playing Rush, 101 also tneds tends to repeat advertisements every hour or so. There was one ad that galled me to a great degree. It was an advertisement for Dish Network and began by stating that "some things just don't make any sense, such as the platypus and paying more for digital cable." That's it, that is the entire list of things that don't make sense! I do not understand how a list can contain only two references. To make matters worse, their digital cable package that is supposed to be cheaper than analog cable is in fact more expensive than the analog cable options currently provided around St. Cloud by Astound. Granted that digital cable has a larger channel base than regular cable, however, nobody at my parent's place would watch the channels. I guess somethings don't make any sense, such as the platypus and Dish Network.

If I was the marketing agent for Dish Network, and clearly I am not, I would begin by either finding one or two non sequitur items that do not make any sense, or possibly scrap the entire idea and focus only on the deal offered by Dish Network. The only thought that occured to me was that maybe Dish Network has incorporated the platypus into their corporate identity, but I could only find a picture of a butterfly on their website.

Dish Network really laid an egg on this advertising campaign.

-Trevor

Just a little FYI, here's the house I'm renting in Tucson and the surrounding block:

Further,

Here's the view from my house to McClelland in the lower left corner of the screen.

-Trevor

On Wednesday around 9:00, I came down with some flu symptoms. So after sticking around work for a couple more hours, I went home and slept till around 12:30 in the morning. To make an boring story short, I basically slept all of yesterday. At least I felt good enough today to make it to work today. I was definitely getting worried though since I had no appetite yesterday. I don't want to find myself blowing away in a blustery day, but I guess if I'm really worried about that, I should be eating more Hungry Man microwavable dinners.

-Trevor

I can't believe that the weather has been this nasty, but what can one expect when this will be last summer in Minnesota for awhile (or ever) and when I make it down to Tucson, it will be the monsoon season. I think it would have been drier had I gone to Seattle, but that's life. Sigh...

In other news, I got the new Audioslave, Static-X, and Foo Fighter Albums. My initial opinion is positive. 2005 appears to be one of those good years for music, unlike the relatively dead 2004. It's funny how streaky the industry can be.

Went to my sister's place on Sunday after work. Her husband was sick with the flu, so we thought it would be good to take the kids out to the nature preserve. We finally made it, no thanks to my sister's wonderful sense of direction. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were patrolling the area in force. We made it for about five minutes before having to turn around and head to another park in town that had the sweet smell of puke. We then made it to a Dairy Queen for some hot eats and cold treats and I got the standard cookie dough blizzard(tm). Anyways, had a good time. I've posted a couple of new pictures that you may want to check out.

-Trevor

Here are a couple of quick business items:

If you want a full size photo (2272 x 1704) that is in my gallery, e-mail me and I make it available, but @ 2 MB/photo, I thought it would be safer for my bandwidth (not that I have that much traffic) to keep that @ 1024 x 768.

Further, I got my first legitimate trackback from Travel Blog. I was so sick of all the trackback spam that I was highly considering disabling trackback, but this will give it a new lease on life. Thanks. If you happen to read this, comment and let me know how you found the site because I am really to lazy to check the access logs.

Finally, I included Greg's name in the choir singer photo in my gallery. Clearly being the best man in a guy's wedding doesn't guarantee that he'll recognize him.

-Trevor

I posted my pictures for Arizona on my gallery, be sure to check them out. As for the trip, I would have to give it a mixed review. While I found a place that was in my budget, unfortunately Brian and I didn't get a place together. Thinking we had done sufficient planning, neither checked on Parking until Monday which we found wasn't available. This of course cut out options for both of us. To make matters worse, I've been limited since I will often be staying on campus after the busses shut down for the night and so it could be difficult and possibly unsafe to bike too far in Tucson. Ultimately Brian chose a 1 bedroom apartment at Briarwood (on the corner of Mountain and Ft. Lowell) due to the convienience of the Cat-tran that he can take advantage of, and I rented a house five blocks North of campus. Brian's living around two miles North of me, so it will be easy to go and visit each other. It was frustrating since had we known about the parking we could have spent more time looking at available options.

On the positive side, Brian and I got a chance to do a little sightseeing and we went with his friend Tom to a AAA game against the Colorado Springs Something or Other. We got great seats, just above the Visitor's dugout. We found out that Brian Buchanan (Ex-Twins) plays for the Colorado Springs team and I believe he knew who we were by the end of the game (Heckling was kept to a minimum). It was loads of fun.

I'll be sending an e-mail out on my new address, but I'll keeping my old cell number, but changing the plan. Hopefully everyone's summer is going well. Good night.

-Trevor

Thank God I got to use the internet. We are staying at a Best Western just south of Oro Valley (a suburb of Tucson) near the foothills. Well before I get started in the middle, it should be good to begin at the beginning, or start at the beginning...

On Wednesday afternoon my Dad and I left for Brians since our flight left at 6 am on Thursday. So just outside of Clearwater, a rock hit my windshield and left a chip on the drivers side. Hopefully it won't spider over the weekend and I should be able to get it fixed, otherwise that can be $300 that I can't afford.

When my Dad and I got down to Brian's, we had a good dinner and showered quick and went to bed. We left around 4:15 and got to the airport and had no delays. We had a layover at Chicago and my Dad and I had a "nice" and talkative guy who fixed recycling machines at the distribution centers at Targets around the U.S. Our flight down to Tucson was nice and quick with no delays or "nice" guys.

We spent Thursday looking at four different apartments. We then got to our "hotel", the Howard Johnson. I do not believe we could have found a worse place that was rated "3 stars" on Travelocity. I won't go into details, but I never expected to find a bullet hole in a window where I stayed at. Let's just say that we are no longer staying there and got a refund from Travelocity and the Best Western that we are staying in now is actually cheaper (go figure). I took some pics of the room which I can post later when back in Minnesota.

Today we looked at a couple of apartments and looked at where there were house rentals which we will try to look at tomorrow. Some are good and others are not so good, but we haven't found a clear winner yet. I need to get to bed since I'm exhausted and need to get up early tomorrow.

Jenny, I hope to hear all about your trip to Asia and good luck with all the wedding stuff as that is coming up quick. Everyone else, hope you are enjoying the weather in Minnesota because the weather in Arizona is absolutely beautiful.

-Trevor