September 2006 Archives

Greetings from a hotel room in New Jersey! It's raining, there are tornado watches in effect, and I might take a wrong turn and wind up in Camden accidentally tomorrow. How's that for a set up?

On a completely different note, remember about a year ago when I mentioned that I somehow became part of a class action suit against Apple for selling defective batteries in their first few generations of iPod? And how I wasn't expecting anything to really happen from it, but I sent them my information anyway, just in case? No? Well, I wrote about it, so boom! Even though I've given up my iPod as a commuting buddy for the time being so I can use the precious Metro time to read for class, I still lament the short battery life.

Well, I recently got a reply from Apple saying that I qualified for a battery replacement. I sent in my new address, and they sent me a little box here recently with instructions for shipping my poor, lamented, short-term memory iPod. It's not as glamorous as the new 80GB models, but it's been my friend for a while, and I still haven't filled up its hard drive, if you can believe that. So, after debating whether I could live without it for a week or so, I decided to go ahead with the shipment. When I return to Coors Park, I'll tape everything up, find the nearest DHL center, and wonder if the one I'm getting back is going to be the exact same one I send out. Or will they put some sort of spying device in there? Will my iPod be endowed with super powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider? Only time will tell.

All I know is, it'll be good to have it back, and maybe then I'll be able to half a day without recharging it!

Holy moly! Who the heck put all those pictures on my Flickr account?

Oh wait, that was me. I spent a little time this weekend getting caught up on the pic-posting front, so enjoy the fruits of my labors. Inside, you'll find the recent trip to Mount Vernon, some cute pictures from the trip back home for my family reunion, pictorial evidence of Tom's mad skills at Bunco, Sarah's birthday celebration, the Buffett concert, and everything else I already had from the summer. And if that doesn't wet your whistle, then for Pete's sake get some water.

Today, I took my first outside running venture since moving into Coors Park. I traversed down Fairview Park to the 495 interchange, a distance of about 0.7 miles, then took a detour on my way back into the neighborhood across from us that borders a lake and is named, appropriately, Lakeford. I wound around the paved path that encircles the lake and twists through the neighborhood, passing through some groves, around some tennis courts, and over a couple of bridges. I don't know exactly how far I went before doubling back and finishing up back at the house, but I ran into several joggers along the way, so this will probably become part of my new route as long as the weather holds up. Even though running outside is harder to me than running inside on a treadmill, the reward is much greater when I've finished. I've had energy to spare the rest of the evening, but now I must try to dampen it down so I can get some shuteye.

I first came across the story while perusing the Early Bird at work: a US Marine who lost her arm in a motorcycle accident has been outfitted with a new version of a bionic arm, one that allows her to perform simple movement functions by just thinking about it. That's right, kids, this thing is powered by the mind! It simply amazes me how far prosthetics have come. When I think of prosthetic arms, I think more along the lines of the gag detachable hand my brother tried to scare me with one year at Halloween. This thing, though, is 21st-century level. It's modern technology being used to help real-life people restore their lives to some semblance of normalcy and functionality. Sure, you could make jokes about this being one step closer to cyborgs and robots taking over the world, but to a sci-fi geek like me, this news is fascinating. Hopefully this technology will improve and lead to even more breakthroughs.

The thought control works by rerouting and attaching nerve endings to nodes on the arm itself. So, it's not likely that medical technology will find a way to telepathy anytime soon, but imagine the possibilities if it did. I mean, having your toaster powered by a thought? Brililant!

In other news, you can check this off the list of age-old questions answered. Except that it was with light bulbs, not bolts, NASA. Geez.

I don't really mean to turn Ramble On into a once-a-week kind of blog. I also don't mean to make boring posts when I do get a chance to write. Not that I'm saying this one will be or that my posts have been boring as of late, but I've always had grander ideas and visions for what I could do with this... and I haven't really been doing that. Instead, I've always focused on writing my own view on what's been going on in my life as well as the things around me that interest me. Well, now my life is a whirlwind of class notes and keeping up with all the other things that matter, and free time is even more scarce than before. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but I hope those of you who read aren't bored with the same old random update posts. If you are, I apologize, and when events calm down I promise to write things that are relevant, thought-provoking, or funny. Or about turtles.

In rapid-fire motion, I give you the things on my mind:

Gina experienced her very first West Virginia family reunion this past Labor Day weekend. The verdict is in, and everyone came out happy! It really was a fantastic weekend, filled with reminiscing, introducing family members, walking through my old middle school, catching up with old friends, and hanging out with newlyweds Joe and Tiff. Despite every attempt by my family to tease Gina into thinking the reunion would be terrible, it was actually pretty calm. Three cheers to Gina for surviving it all!

I was saddened to hear about Steve Irwin's death. Say what you will about the man, but his shows were lots of fun, and he was truly passionate about his work, enough that he died doing what he loved. Can you say that?

I've said it before, and I'll paraphrase it again: if you commute long enough around here, you see a little bit of everything. This evening's commute back home was the most eventful in a long time, though Steve, Matthew, and I managed to avoid most of it. Between suspicous activity at the Pentagon, a demonstration on the Mall, and Steve's car battery dying, it's a boondoggle that we made it home roughly around the same time that I would have had I Metroed under normal circumstances. No small part of that was due to me running around the parking deck at work looking for someone we knew who could give us a jump and randomly finding someone as she was going down the ramp a few floors down. Huzzah!