Atkins Nutrional is filing for bankruptcy protection because it is currently $300 million in the red. I guess the craze that his produced stickers on hamburger that it is naturally low on carbs is finally dwindling. Maybe if we are lucky all that bull about the South Beach or whatever diet craze will pass as well. Now Dr. Phil's weightloss solution is guaranteed to get the media attention it truly deserves.

The future business plan of Atkins appears to be murky, but they are planning to slim down by only selling shakes and bars to those who are supposed to lose weight by eating only those bars. Qu? lastima.

-Trevor

I know everyone is probably already sick of me giving updates on Tucson, but other than unpacking, watching movies, and doing homework, there hasn't been a lot to do when I don't know anyone down here yet. It is crazy though to think I have been down here a week from today, but I think that indicates that my time here will fly by, but that doesn't mean I have any clear indication of where I am going after this, it just means that I will be caught unprepared. I think I am as ready as I will ever be and I have done something that I rarely do, work ahead on my homework. I felt surprsingly ambitious today and worked on about 10 problems for the next assignment (meaning I only have 10 left). If I work on it for a couple more hours tonight, that may mean that I could basically be a day ahead of schedule (a good thing). The homework isn't really hard, but I have a distinct feeling that public schools (and U of A being no exception) love busy work. Hopefully this will be a trend that will not continue once my actual classes start.

While grocery shopping, I found a new peach schnapps since they did not carry Phillips and I was glad I did. This schnapps was reminiscent of the flavorful schapps at Jenny's wedding. It mixed very well with the usual Sprite and Orange Juice making for a relaxed Saturday night, but not too relaxed since I wanted to work on homework as well. I took a couple of pictures of myself drinking it for a review later. If I get a chance I'll work on it tomorrow. Further, I would like to get a review of the Incredibles up, but I am not feeling that ambitious right now. I'll talk to everyone later and hopefully everyone is having a blast up in Minnesota and whereever anyone else may be.

-Trevor

I have photos of my house up in my gallery (check link above). Let me know if you have any decorating tips/comments.

-Trevor

Well it was bound to happen, but I confirmed that my old Panasonic DVD player decided it was time for the big sleep. However, this occured before the move, but I wanted to play around with it some more so I brought it on down to sunny Tucson. So I decided originally to buy a budget DVD player, the Philips DVD622. This should have been an obvious bad buy due to the 90 day warranty. The component video out was not working right out of the box and it had difficulty playing unscratched DVD-R's. So I did what a good consumer would do, bring it back for an exchange for a Sony DVPN550P/S. For only $30 more, the quality of the player is apparent, better even than my old Panasonic. Yes, this was a great choice for a DVD Player and was quite happy. Since I do not have cable, watching DVD's is going to be a critical part of my "down time". When I get a regular attenae, I may at least have local access, but for now, I'll have to make do.

-Trevor

I posted a few pictures, click the title for the link. I'll try to get more useful information later when I'm all unpacked. Sorry for those who have tried calling, but I've been busy, but I thought this would be an ok substitute. Hopefully everyone is doing great and surviving those severe storms.

Thursday:

It was the last day @ work and so I was pretty excited to get out of there. I was surprised when Fr. Roger gave me a nice card and was very pleased when it came nicely equipped with cash. Took a few pictures around the monastery before I left for possibly the last time (but Br. Xavier always says I look so good in black, sigh?) Got a picture of Saint Peregrine (sp?) Looks pretty ghastly, but I guess that happens when you?re dead. NaLeah stopped over with the kids. It was pretty hard to see them go. Hopefully I won?t get too homesick because December might be a long time. We had a great hug when she left and I noticed that we both had a strange moisture coming out of our eyes.

Friday:

It was crazy busy all day working on homework and a couple of other things such as trying to get paid from the Prep School for taping the commencement (but I blame St. John?s lack of communication mostly). Jenny text messaged me to me her at Davannis in St. Cloud @ 7:15. She surprised me because I had no idea that Mike, Jessica, Ashley, and Lindsay would all show up. That was absolutely awesome. I did not expect it, but was completely glad they made it. Got back and finished packing. We realized we couldn?t fit one recliner and a bookshelf so had to leave them. Got to bed about 1:30 am.

Saturday:

Got about at 4 am. Pretty awake, but decided would be a good idea to take a shower. Packed up computer and decided that it would be good to take a couple of pictures. I talked to Becky for a bit. I didn?t think it would be this hard to go, but I?m definitely excited. To make a long story short, I almost hit a deer just North of Wilmar, MN and somewhere along the line got another chip in the windshield (it must be bad luck). Otherwise the trip went as smooth as a whistle.

Stopped over at the Best Western in Oklahoma in a city I can?t remember now. No internet, but at least I had my laptop for a little comfort. We averaged about 57 mph on the trip with me getting about 28 mpg so I consider it an efficient little trip. Well I should get to bed since it?ll be another long day.

Sunday:

We got up about 5 am Central time in Oklahoma. After a fun filled drive through a rather smelly and flat Texas, we went through the rather plain New Mexico. There were definitely a few sites to see, but overall it was pretty boring. However, I should mention that the White Sands National Monument looked to be pretty cool and it may be good to do a little siteseeing there someday. Overall, I rate this state above a rather boring Kansas, but it has nothing on Minnesota or the Southeast.

We made it into Arizona around 3:00 or so. We hit some monsoon storms on the mountains. They were pretty heavy and there was some pretty intense lightning. We saw a bit of a wildfire about 70 miles to the West of Tucson. It was likely due to the storms but appeared to be in the process of containment. We also were able to witness the INS searching an abandoned car along the road and a car that must have rolled in the ditch.

Once we got into Tucson, it got pretty anticlimactic quickly. There is only so much excitement in moving stuff in. Well I should get going again. Hopefully everyone is doing great.

Monday:

Worked on unpacking and getting all the fun stuff done. Got a mattress and my CAT card. Definitely warm out, but it sounds like Minnesota has some strong storms. The high for Tuesday should only be 98 degrees, but from I've heard (and witnessed today), it hasn't been raining much in the evening so it is staying pretty warm at night, currently 87 degrees as of 10:00 AZ time (AZ since no daylight savings like the rest of the US with exception of part of Indiana.) Met my neighbor in the other part of the duplex/house. He seems like he's a great quiet guy. Well I should get going. Hopefully will get a chance to talk to everyone soon.

-Trevor

I just thought I would quickly post and let you know that I survived the trip down to Arizona. It was a long and hectic 1600 mile trip. I'll post a longer segment later but I am currently hijacking someone's unsecured wireless network (poor fools).

-Trevor

I just wanted to say goodbye and I'll hopefully see everyone soon. Taking off at 5 tomorrow morning.

-Trevor

While I have had posting privileges for some time, I have refrained from posting because I was seeking a topic worthy and in the spirit of the preeminent Hemeac. I believe I have found such a topic. I know that the traditional first post/program/etc is suppose to be ?Hello World? as so wonderfully demonstrated by binkyfinder (or a welcome with no relevant info as so wonderfully demonstrated by the facetious Hemeac so long ago on an eventful Tuesday evening in January). So?HELLO WORLD.

Now, to move on, I would like to offer an ode to Trevor. In my humility, I realize that any ode I may offer is incomplete, slight, and unworthy of serious consideration. However, I offer it anyway?

Oh Trevor, you were always there for us with an odd tidbit of news so obscure we would have never heard about it without you. Luckily, you can easily post these to Hemeac.com and we all can stay well informed. Oh Trevor, you were always there with a rant or a tirade or just a mumble under you breathe about some moronic aspect of society or an advertisement or a person. Thankfully, you post your feelings on Hemeac.com (under both the ?Rants? and ?Absolutely Pathetic? categories). Although it is difficult to distinguish between the tirades and the under-the-breathe mumbles over in a blog, we can imagine. Oh Trevor, you were always there at 4 a.m. burning the late night oil with homework or computer games or even just a movie, even though you had an early class the next morning. It is reassuring to know that when I wake up each morning there is a good chance you will have posted on Hemeac.com since I last checked at midnight (just out of curiosity, what percentage of you posts are posted between 11 pm and 6 am?). Oh Trevor, you were always there to fix our computer or technology needs, to help us download software (legally of course) or kill viruses or install new hardware. And while I do not believe you will regularly post this sort of thing on Hemeac.com, fear not. We WILL call you with all our technological needs, complaints, desires, fears and hopes. We will call you up, ask how Arizona is and how you are doing, and then dive into the real reason for the call, ?Why is my computer dancing and flirting with my girlfriend and how can I stop it?? Oh Trevor, you were there many other times as well, and we will all miss you greatly. The state of Minnesota sends one of her finest out into the great big world.

On a side note, I do not know how much or what level of math you will encounter in grad school, but if you need any help, give me a call. I will most likely have a computer question for you too.

I happened across a rebate for a Canon IP 4000. It states that if you buy either a new Canon camera or any laptop you can get a $70 for a Canon printer. I decided it was about time I got a new photo printer to complement my Samsung ML-1710 laser. So I found a great printer in the IP4000 which will only by $30 after rebate. While I won't open it until I get down to Tucson, my Dad had just picked up the 5000 and the print quality is fantastic. Only a couple days now until the big day. Tomorrow is the last day for work, ever! Not quite ever, but at least for a little while. I'll try to post on Saturday night (depending on whether we get a room with internet) and keep everybody who reads this site up to date on how our first 16 hour leg of the journey goes and where we ultimately made it.

-Trevor

Here's a link to an article that mentions a new website which offers the chance to send blog messages into outerspace. I wonder how venture capitalists ever fund these shenangigans. I don't know about you, but I really don't know how exciting this blog would be to some random alien civilization that happens to pick up this message years after I am likely dead.

-Trevor

Hello World! This is Binkyfinder showing off my mad posting skillz.

I got the wedding pictures up for Jenny and Greg. Check them out at the link above. I'll write a little synopsis of the night later on but I should get some work done since I've spent too much time working on the pictures. I included the full size images as well. Leave a comment if you have any problems getting them.

-Trevor

Well here is the current style for now. I'll have to fiddle around with it some more, but I think it is good for now. I was wrong originally about when Firefox 1.1 should be released, supposedly should be released around late summer. If so, I think I will return to my "1.0" version of the theme. Let me know if it all the information is displayed from what you remember. Thanks.

-Trevor

My parents finished recovering my kitchen chairs. The old vinyl was cracking so I bought new vinyl to match my kitchen floor and walls. They look pretty awesome in their Red-Violet hue (Can't remember exact name at the moment). I also got a 6 x 9 rug to go in my living room from my mom. That rug will really fucking tie the room together, as long as no one pees on it, but I think I am ok since I do not refer to myself as the Dude. I leave in a little over a week, which is certainly coming up quick. When I get down there, I'll take some pictures with my house all setup pretty in salmon.

Writing this post reminded me of a stupid little joke that was posted on a reupholsterer that was a friend of my dads: Upholsterers never die, they always recover.

Now thinking about quotes, I'm reminded of one of those stupid lines that should never made it into movies. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching X-men and near the final battle scene, Storm asked Toad, "Do you know what happens to toads when struck by lightning...? The same thing that happens to everything else." I had to listen to it again to realize that was the punchline to the question. I think if this was a post on it's own, it would fall under the absolutely pathetic category, but since it is not the opening topic, I will refrain for now. Who knows, but I have a feeling that line gave Halle Berry the role of catwoman.

Got to get to bed now, it is getting pretty late and if I don't, I will dread going to the ever exciting housekeeping tomorrow.

-Trevor

I'm just about ready to unveil my updated theme on this site, Space 1.5.0. I want to pretend that I can actually code and this was a major overhaul of my CSS and _main.php files, however, I tried to change as little of the design as possible for the moment. Therefore, I thought Space 1.5.0 was the appropiate version number for the updated theme. Also I thought I would incorporate a version into the bottom of the page in order to show when I make small updates to the layout and whatnot.

For those who are wondering and care, I am using Crimson Editor as my text editor to modify my page. It's a great text editor that was designed for modifying php, css, and html files. Check it out since it's free.

-Trevor

I added a couple of new pictures. Check them out in the July 2005 folder.

-Trevor

Genre: Fiction
Author: Umberto Eco
Notable Works: The Name of the Rose
Released: 2005

Read more!

Worked on fixing the firefox bug, but it's not quite ready for the primetime yet. I introduced a couple of new formatting problems and still haven't got towards fixing the columns yet. I'll try to get the fixes in this week, but I think tomorrow I'm pretty booked.

-Trevor

After poring through some information on the internet, I found that Firefox 1.1 is scheduled for a release in the future (somewhere around early 2006). After testing out a candidate for Firefox 1.0.5, I found that my problem of my tables formatting horribly have not gone away with this release, so it is forcing my hand to do something about this. I'll try to work on it as much as possible, but even starting today, I do not expect to see immediate changes for the next week or three (getting ready to move and all that fun stuff). I hope everyone can put up with it for now, and if absolutely necessary, view it with IE for now. I know that IE may be viewed as devilish, but I guess it is better in this case. Oh the humanity!

-Trevor

I decided it was about time that I learned a little about wine since I have made a deliberate choice to try and drink more wine (it is all about the sophistication, sure.) Anyways, I found this site (it looks old, but wine is older so the information should be timeless...) that gave a good start that you may want to check out. It is definitely a long read, but it is probably worth it. While I wish it had a bit more information about the different wines, I learned a bit about how wine comes into existence which is probably half the battle. Take a look and if I find other worthy sites, I'll post them as well.

-Trevor

Jenny sent me this picture from a pool at Beijing University. Enjoy.

-Trevor

Just wanted to let everyone know who doesn't, such as SpaceMonkey, I leave for Arizona in approximately 14 Days 4 Hours from this post. In other responses to comments, I don't know how well any of the artifical sweetners are to snort, but high school principals are known to give you evil looks if you make nice little rows out of sugar.

-Trevor

My dell laptop made it to St. Cloud today! I found out that Dell requires a signature to leave the package and my mom had just left, however, I stopped over at the DC and picked up the laptop this evening. It works great, and I am pleased to announce that this is the first post written by the laptop. It is a bit bigger than I had imagined, but I guess it is hard to visualize a laptop with a 15.4" screen. I can't imagine someone trying to lug around a 17" laptop around, just impossible. Well I'll take a couple of pictures to show you, but I'm really happy with it. It formatted the papers on my side job just as well as my AMD64 3000, so I should have no problems working on the papers at school.

-Trevor

Well it was July 3rd and we were having a little party for a very good friend, piglet, no, I believe it was for a future bride and groom that I've known for the last four years, Jenny and Greg. We began the day going to the Twins games near the left field line and watched the Twins beat the Devil Rays due to some decent pitching and well timed hits on the offense. After that we went to go chill at the Holiday Inn. After watching a "great" movie, Greg finally got back from work and we went out to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory. That was certainly some good food. After that, we went back to the Holiday Inn and drank and played a Categories. After becoming completely blitzed we finally headed to bed about 1:00.

It may sound that a whole day condensed into a paragraph doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but there was a lot going on between the lines. At least I enjoyed the evening and was certainly glad to see Greg and Jenny and others before I head down to Tucson. Of course I'll see them at the wedding since I'm the best man, but it is always difficult to just chat with someone when there are much more important things going on.

Among other things though, it was sad to admit that some of the things I did this weekend may be the last time I do them in Minnesota for a long while, such as watching fireworks in St. Cloud with the family and going to a Twins game in the Metrodome. Hopefully I'll be able to make it back to Minnesota during the summer at least once since there's a lot of stuff to do in the summer that one cannot do during the winter. I'm rambling, so I'll just stop now.

-Trevor

Genre: Action
Starring: Ben Affleck, Uma Thurman, Paul Giamatti
Released: 2003

Read more!

While at a fine eating establishment over the weekend, I noticed in the sugar container, packets of Splenda. This brought back recent memories of noticing that Pepsi One now contains Splenda. I thought to myself, what good is artifical sweetners? To consume? Of course not. Everyone knows that the whole point of having artifical sweetners at restaurants is so those who are bored can use the sweetners to create artifical snowshowers in their unused glass of water. Unfortunately for me, I had partially consumed my glass of water due to not wanting to guzzle my excellent glass of Bolla Pinot Grigio that had a scent of kiwi and a hint of cheddar cheese.

Well, so I used what I could and found the most amazing thing, the snow showers created by Spleda were much more splendid than those of Nutrasweet and Sweet and Low. Of course, these were initial results and have to be confirmed by additional research. However, I decided that my results and the subesequent taste test of the sweetened water was enough for a bit of a review.

Overall, I highly recommend using Splenda to pass the time due to the unique fall pattern of the grains. I would reconsider any thoughts of drinking the concoction however due to the very sweet nature of Splenda. If one has to drink sweetened water, one can never go wrong with the real deal, Sugar. I find the claims that it tastes like Sugar deceiving. This is compounded by the possibility that this is a carcinogen.

If you would like more information on Splenda, check out the link I provided which gives a nice little background.

-Trevor

Had a good fourth of July weekend. Getting ready for bed so I'll give a complete update later. However, during the fireworks this evening, my family and I met the most interesting character. I don't quite recall his name but he was most certainly a drunk. If my family had only listened to me that we should sit on the grass behind us, but of course there would be too many mosquitoes so we settled in for standing next to our cars. Well I have to save the good part for later.

-Trevor

As I was never a huge fan at the perceived rush at moving the Expos to Washington, I found this article from Clem's Baseball particularly intriguing. It mentions that approximately 7000 people a day purchase tickets for the game who ultimately do not show. The problem with this is that these people are not paying for consessions and parking and so do not do any of the high profit sales that help drive a team. So that is particularly bad when the phantom attendance numbers are being used to drive a publicly funded stadium. Well who knows, but I have a feeling there wouldn't be this problem if they moved the team down in Durham or Las Vegas. I mean these areas are screaming a need for baseball and sometimes AAA affiliates just won't cut it. However, I don't have an inside track for baseball and don't live in the areas so maybe I shouldn't poke my nose where I don't belong. I'll just leave you with that, but make sure if you like baseball to check out his stadium section. Absolutely fantastic and a lot of fun.

-Trevor

Has the world collapsed in a ironic twist of fate? I almost thought it would when I decided that a Dell would be my best bet for a new laptop. Ultimately I couldn't turn down 35% off. This appears to have the best balance between battery life, portability, perfomance, and design. Here's the specs for the new laptop. I thought I would wait to get a larger batter for now due to Dell wanting $100 for the upgrade (the going price for the new battery on Ebay is $80 shipped, so I can get it if needed).

Specs:
Pentium M 730 (1.6 Ghz w/ 533 Mhz bus)
15.4" Screen (Widescreen, oooh!)
512 MB Ram
128MB ATI Mobility Radeon X300 Graphics Card
60 GB HD 5400 RPM
8x DVD Burner w/ Dual Layer support

I also got 1 year of complete care accidental service as a just in case since my renters insuance does not cover accidents.

I'm hoping for the best with this laptop. It will ship around the 11th so I will get on the 14th or so and I'll let the world know if it is good as everyone claims.

-Trevor

Hey everyone,

I survived my trip up to Tettegouche and Cascade River State Park. I took off about 5:30 Friday morning and got back about 10:30 last night. The trip was absolutely great. The only thing I would have changed (if God) was to minimize the amount of mud on the trails, but it was still a lot of fun.

I got up to Tettegouche around 9:00 and hiked up for around four hours. It was fantastic because there was barely anyone else there. I met a couple of people who were serious hikers and they showed me a couple of things I would have missed completely (a couple of moose tracks). It was great for the casual hiker to get a little training in by them. It was just sad though to think they had the whole week to go hiking on the Lake Superior hiking trail and I had to make this a day hike.

I had originally planned to make it up to Nipisiquit Lake due to what I had originally supposed should have been a challenging but passable pass, however, I came to a very muddy trail which I ultimately decided was more than what I was prepared to tackle for the day so I turned around and decided I would hit up the Cascade River State park (I staple of my travels up there the last couple years and always a relaxing walk).

I made the hour drive to the Cascade River state park and got a couple of great pictures. I took a couple of new routes this time than I had in the last couple of years and was rewarded with a nice secluded area to have a little picnic and reading time. I also discovered that I can read maps if needed and my sense of direction isn't too bad when I put my mind to it. So after 3 1/2 hours at the Cascade River state park I thought it was a good time to start heading back home. It was really a shame that I couldn't stay longer, but as I would soon realize on my way back, what was fairly deserted on Friday would have been very crowded on Saturday. The traffic heading North on my way back was packed and I feel bad for the serious campers and hikers that will have to put up with all the amateurs (like me) who are vacationing up there for the weekend.

Overall if you have a chance to head up to either of the parks and want to do some hiking for a day or two, you really have to check these out. Tettegouche is definitely the more challenging of the two parks, but seems like it may get less tourists than Cascade River. Either way both of these are much more popular than the overly commercialized Gooseberry Falls (but Gooseberry is still fun nonetheless).

Be sure to check out a couple of the pictures I took. I'll get around the labeling them soon.

-Trevor