Saturday, August 30, 2003

I have been reading a little about social networks in volume 5 of the journal of mathematical sociology and also access control in a database and applications security workshop proceedings book, today. I also read some of Boom, Bust, and Echo 2000. I also browsed Taoist books at Chapters. I also read over the assignments list for LAWS4305.
Well it is getting late and I have to be at work at about noon tomorrow. I am working until about midnight. Aliens, the movie is on when I get home so I might watch that.
Well I wasn't happy with bamboo blinds for the bedroom so we took them back. We both went this time and looked for suitable blinds. They didn't have the size we need to have to fit our window. We thought of draps instead of blinds so we will wait until we can afford those. We got our daughter a stuffed bear and we got a new kitchen clock.

By the end of the day one blind is up in the living room and the other is ready to go up in the computer/office room but I can't get a good position to drill the hole on one end of the window. It will have to wait.

I bought us bamboo blinds from Ikea this month. So now we have some 7th floor privacy for our windows at our apartment. I need to use my friend's concrete drill to attach the blinds to the ceiling.


I also bought some powerbar/ surge protectors and a low energy light bulb for the dinning room. I also bought a box of cable tie downs for my computers.


It was tough doing the first blind. It is hard to drill up. Usually a press drill will have gravity on its side. Holding a drill with one hand and arm is tough. My muscles are not particularly developed in my upper body. Anyways, I got the living room blind up. Now I am thinking of taking back one of the bamboo blinds and buying a light proof blind for the bedroom. This way I could sleep better in the day time.

I did drop the mediation course. I just need to drop the course Crime and the State in History and I am done. I got into a legal research methods course for the Winter term.

Friday, August 29, 2003

My new printer cartridge stopped working and this made me angry. I am more relaxed now. I am starting work on LAWS4305 and LAWS 3305 early this morning. I am also helping with the local paper route.
I need to buy more printer paper. I owe my union about 60 copies of our newsletter which I edit. I have written an article for September issue. I am also editor of the Alt Cyberpunk Chatsubo Anthology #2. We are almost at the printers or publishers with this anthology.
I am not sure what the criminal law reform course will be as there are no books to buy for the course. I will now surf over to the law departments web space and check for course outlines.
I think the history of criminal law course will be good but it is very anglo-centric. It will be lots of reading and a term paper.
I might be in an ecommerce legal issues course in the Winter term. I figured out why I am behind on making web sites. It is because I work these days so don't have as much free time to use constructively.
I am preparing to go to the labour day Parade this year. I have only been one other year. That year I bumped into my foster sister.
We have continued reading French together. We read a silly article about the weather today from the local French paper. There was a fair amount of humour and light swearing and slang in the article.
I got volumes 3-8 of the journal of mathematical sociology that the school was giving away. These are from the years 1974-1981. The volume 5 covering 1977 is about social networking. I am keen to read this old research in this area. This is from what I can tell a journal that is representitive of the American approach to sociology tending to focus on relationships rather than social history as Canadian sociologists do in their studies.
I am no longer confused. I must have a good amount of resilience. They say babies have a lot of this. Our baby is now crawling and trying to walk. About no longer being confused...I talked to my dad who suggested staying with the Law studies. I scored A in my introduction to private law course I found out just yesterday so I think why not stay with law? I got myself registered in a course in criminal law reform, a course in crime and the state in history and a course in mediation, as well as, a course in Comprehending Written French 1 which a fellow worker took this summer. I have to drop two of these. Books will not be expensive at least not like the math books costing 140$ each. Besides my dad has agree to pay for these for my b-day present. He has also helped me buy a new black ink printer cartridge for my new printer. The old printer is still a great back up.

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

I am very confused, I admit it. I can't decide to go to graduate school preparing this year or too complete my law degree. I am tending to think the completion of the law degree would be good now. I am holding places in different courses. I am though late to get spaces in certain law courses. I can't decide on a human rights combined BA with Law, or a criminology BA in law or a combined Law BA with some other subject from either geography, philosophy, or sociology. Right now, I am officially in a plain old honours law BA.
I write a lot on the computer when I come home from work. I wrote two lenghty emails tonight after getting off work an hour early. I guess that means I am ten dollars poorer and people maybe richer for my words. I emailed two mental illness support email lists. I now have some more ideas flying through my mind to write.

Monday, August 25, 2003

I got some feedback from Jenny. I redesigned the cover and she likes it now.
I polished my shoes and packed my lunch. My wife made my lunch again. She is doing the shopping today. I am taking the bus in less than an hour.
I am going to work in a couple of hours. I am looking forward to working today. I have two days off after today.
I got a space in the 4th year legal issues in e-commerce course. This completes my minor in law. I am still waiting for my final grades for the private law course I took this summer. The law department has been helpful with registration. I am in two statistics courses and one math course as well as the law course.
To make the book cover I used Photoshop LE 4.0 not GIMP.

Sunday, August 24, 2003

I have a cover now done. Of course I must redo it after feedback from Lee and Jenny.
I am going to use GIMP to make a cover for my wife's book of poems. We planned the cover's colour and her pseudonym. My book has a cover now we need to decide with my book how much we( the collective of authors) will pay for our cover.
My wife and I planned our grocery shopping for tomorrow. I bought a watch this morning and returned it tonight.
I typed more on the left side of the keyboard. I finally articulate what I have been noticing.

Saturday, August 23, 2003

I changed my registration again today. I guess I consider learning to be a dynamic changing space. I chose probability again and also numerical analysis. I also chose abstract algebra next term in the winter. I also registered to work as a teaching assistant. I might apply again to work in the TA union office this year. They have an 11 hour week available. Last year they didn't hire me but I didn't mind.
My friend didn't show up. I went to our local farmers market and got veggies and fruits. I also got coins for our laundry room. I am working tomorrow early in the morning and need to wake up at 4 am. I hope to sleep early tonight to compensate.
I installed Corel linux on the pentium 133 tower but need to run xconfig still.
My unwanted friend is coming over. We are hanging out together. What is hanging out together when one of you is unemployed? Anyway's he has a car. A volkswagen new beetle in fact. I am thinking asking him to drive to the grocery store. He said he wanted to go to Ikea or Chapters at a local mall. I might take him up on that offer. I need to sleep early tonight as my plan to go around the clock for work early Sunday morning did not work I fell asleep at 5 am this morning.
I dropped the GIS course and went back to the probability course. I am preparing for this course before it starts. This is often the case with prepapring for a course I begin to have doubts and then the professor reassures me and I do quite well with the course in the end. I hope this is the case this time. Now I am not sure if I will study another University course this fall or a college course or just the one course at the U.

Friday, August 22, 2003

Another fellow worker is also a Carleton student I found out this week. He can't get registered in his required courses. Seems a step removed from my approach to registration.
I did secretarial duties for the Green Party CA today. Now I need to eat vegetarian shepards pie.
I got a spot in the Geoanalysis course. This will fit a Geography minor, the B.Sc. or a combined Law/Geography degree.
Matt didn't learn about blogspot from me but from Marc.
Matt did some html coding on his blogspot space. I link to him now in my side bar. I still think he needs more privacy. He should shut his mouth more. Just kidding can you tell I am the paranoid type? I am also the analytical type and promoter type. Now for Carl Jung and his personality types. I have know about his types since 1981. I read them again on Tuesday in a book for student teachers. I don't think I will apply to TA this year. Enough math give me GIS an computers, computer, computers and a little French work.
I don't have Sunday off but I do have today and Saturday off work. I have one appointment Friday. I have some books due at the library and I have our role playing game on later tonight. Saturday is free time.
I discussed possible days I could work with my boss given my present fall school schedule plans. I took 42 hours of work in the next 10 days. But that work is all before school begins. I don't know work more? Study more? College? University?
I also would like to do some more course adjustments this morning. My mom recommends completing the college certificate this year. I just want to write school work and am ready to study math and stats. But these science courses are hard courses and not as fun as others might be.
I am back from work. I am planning on doing some probability studies using BASIC on the Thinkpad this morning.
The tower doesn't boot anymore something corrupted on the hard drive. May try to install win95 on it. It probably has a bad hard drive.

Thursday, August 21, 2003

I could study information system security, managing volunteers, networking, alarm systems, police work, corrections work, or suicide intervention at the college this term or next.
I got a return call from Professor Barry Wright today. He suggests professor Michael MacNeil for a supervisor for the reading course if the topic is computer crime or Internet law issues.
I installed two network cards in the Tower and instead of giving it away for ten dollars may use it as a proxy server.
I may have Friday to Sunday off. I will study computer programming and hardware with the time off and also the book Cultural Influences of IT Use. This time off means less pay two or three weeks from now.
I am working nine hours later today. But our staff meeting this week was canceled.
I tried to install Win95 on the Thinkpad 360. I needed the upgrade version of Win95 not what I have.
I got back from my role playing game. We play on Wednesday nights. One guy at our game, who is a tech support worker in the government, is going to take the Pentium 133 Tower for 10$.
Our union web site sysadmin is setting up the new email list, as of last night.

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

We had our monthly union meeting tonight. It was relaxing for a change. I took minutes on the Toshiba laptop. I paid dues. I need to set up am annoucement email list for the union branch here now. The secretary is helping me with this.

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

I got a return call from Ann Woodside at the Math department today. She returned my call about a supervisor for the Fourth year project in the B.Sc.. I am thinking of an ethics project in databases and she suggested something in security of databases. I also mentioned courtrooms and statistics. She also suggests I contact Dr. Shirley Mills and I have been trying to contact her as well. But Mrs. Woodside said she would be happy to supervise. This is like graduate school where I will also need a supervisor, so this is practice at finding one.
The Pentium 133 Tower is working fine as a KDE workstation. I got it a three button mouse just as the power failed. I have now configured it. I like the advanced editor in KDE for its code highlighting function. I should try some Integrated Development Environments (IDE's) out. I was looking at Xedit on this desktop.

Monday, August 18, 2003

I was accepted into the four year B.Sc. with about three courses to complete. Now I can prepare to apply for graduate school next year. I need to apply this early to get some of the funding requests in by their deadlines this fall. So I am registered to take Math and Statistics this fall term.... I will be programming with MatLab this term in one course. In the other, I have some BASIC programs to explore the sylubus before classes start.
Jenny and I plodded through an article in L'actualité. The article is a book review of the Black List something written by some big loser American journalists. We had our French English dictionary available. We used the dictionary to help us read the article by Jacque Godbout. We had a good time doing this.
I will study a sociology course in population studies next term.
I decided on courses I am interested in in mathematics and statistics rather than more law or sociology courses.
I am back on-line doing school registration and course choices. I am also visiting as many of the web sites I belong too to stay more focused. I am not taking my electrical power for granted.

Friday, August 15, 2003

I am turning off the computer now to save power. See you all Monday.
I registered for 8 courses for the year but depending on my B.Sc. application I will drop four of them. I will drop four if I am in my law degree still too. So I am studying ethier law or science this year and almost for sure French. Maybe some beginners' course in demography with the science.
The power was out and we listened to the FM radio. I helped out in the night. My green friend John was seen directing traffic. I am heading out to my cousin's wedding now. Should be a fun time. We have power again.
I told my fellow workers about this blogspot web space and Mat started his own blog now. It is at www.lovable-atheist.blogspot.com . Have a look.

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

The exam has been written. I answered every question. I could still score A+ for the course.
I helped some protestors with some donated clothes and gave away an old battered 12 string. Then I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper in favour of the protestors. Volunteer community action done for the week. We have just had two murders this week. I have started to help with one case as the whole city is looking for the suspect. I passed the photo of the suspect on to my radical unions friends and also phoned in one tip to the police. I have also called a Peace Court house in Russia yesterday to protest their jailing of some protestors. Russia still does not have quite the law and order it should but then neither does my country. As a student of the legal system this all keeps me on my toes.
I might read some sci-fi or fantasy to relax or trying reading the Spycraft Rules. Someone in my family is now playing Magic. We are thinking of changing our Friday night game from a Cyberpunk game to a Star trek game or Spycraft game. Last week we didn't play we watched Reign of Fire. Tonight is our new AD&D night. It is going to be a long day.
I have spent a few hours tonight planning fall courses at two schools. I was emailing my family about the courses. In my pre-exam study, I reviewed all my notes and continued to re-view the 'contracts' lectures on video tape. There was a personal crisis here today with a friend and that upset me but I am ok for the exam today if I get a little nap soon.

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

I was reading about C++ and SQL tonight along with final studies and writing notes for my private law course. I also exchanged some emails about safety with a friend of my mom's
I have done some volunteer web mastering on this site in Ottawa the Ottawa Community Garden Network.
We should be recording at the college radio station near the end of the month in the last two weeks. We will also be interviewed at the station.
My eMac is working fine. My laptop is working fine. My WinNT box is working fine. The Thinkpad 360 is working fine.
I need to get some AA bateries that recharge and a recharger for AAA batteries. I did use ebay today but only browsed. I need to stop buying computer stuff soon.
Studying hard for my exam. I am sending ten emails a day at least.

Sunday, August 10, 2003

I also don't want to sell off the Win98 desktop even though various Linux installs on it have failed. The money that I could get for it is minimal. It serves some use around here.
I don't know that backing things up so obssesively is needed. I have not needed my back ups from Win98 in a long time. I do need a win desktop around but maybe my server is fine for that running WinNT. The only thing keeping the desktop now is the CD burner in it for making Linux distros.

Saturday, August 09, 2003

I think I may have found another volunteer to help with the FAQ I maintain. He might help me update some parts of it. I have been caring for it for five years now. Visited that newsgroup again today new old regular was back after a year or so good to know she is alive still. I cut back my use of usenet the past few months. Now I am back to posting in a few newsgroups about social science.
I invited a few people by email to visit this blog. Just my dad and a few people from my volunteer network.
I am up about 22 hours now. I want to stay up about 30 hours today.
I am working tomorrow from 11 in the morning to 11 at night. I will have to get bread and milk today and some money for my partner to buy zucinne tomorrow.
I am cooking a chicken. I cleaned the dishes. I went through a few pots of coffee. I cleaned up after all our friends last night. I reduced the number of ash trays in the living room.
I got my HP 320LX working again by resetting it. The HP is good for typing notes on the go. I am glad it is working again. I started an August journal file on it and reviewed my sociology papers that are stored on it.
I printed out more of my lecture notes right after my friends left. I watched some of the lecture on property theories and made more detailed notes. Yes, I am getting ready to write a private law exam. My essay for the course scored A minus. Now I must Ace the exam.
I used sociopranos from 5 am to 6 am. I posted three replies to articles there.
I took to reading newsgroups tonight as I study for my exam. Earlier we had 10 ex-psychiatric patients in our apartment. We watched a film.
Reading newsgroups and today's newspaper.
My friend said I could sell the tower and that he does not want it. I put it for sale for 25$. I also put my old 68K centris 650 for sale.
I got a request for my paper from a law worker/academic. I emailed her my paper at her York University email address although she is now at Dalhousie in Halifax in disability planning and the law.

Friday, August 08, 2003

I am going to put the case back on the Tall Tower and put as much of the fittings on as I can.
My Law course is over now. I just have to study for and write the exam.
I did get Red Hat 6.2 installed and created an account for my friend. I will now give him back his compter working with Linux.

Thursday, August 07, 2003

I am not able to get past the video card issues on the RH 6.2 install. I did get the CD rom working. I might alternatively try a win95 install from floppies.
I picked up my friends tall tower and installed Debian 2.1. It would not boot from hard drive. So I installed a hex speed CDrom drive and am going to install Red Hat 6.2.
I am off to school for some help studying for the exam. I will buy ink if the RIO sale goes through.
I am selling the RIO player for 35$.
I sold my old Aptiva case this morning for 10$.

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

I put three cases, some hard drives and diamond RIO up for sale on a local computer for sale newsgroup.

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

I decided today not to shop on ebay further this week. I also decided that I should do less hardware work and less software buying and selling. I decided to sell off three computer cases and three CD drives. I will put the Linux installs on the back burner for the month. I will have to leave the Win98 hard drive in the Toshiba for another week as school ends in a week. Then I am free to use the Red Hat Drive. I may need to buy another black ink cartridge this Thursday or Friday when I am on campus to seek help for the exam study.
I got home and my wife was with her friend so I gave them some privacy to talk and I went to the peace of my office and started reading and emailing. I searched google.ca using a search term that was a sentence or two from one of my papers. I found some interesting links that way. Yahoo was good too for this searching. One yahoo link was to an article in an Indian news source about the democractic potential of the Internet. I sent the link to too many people I am sure.

I contacted two student major project team members from last years Sociology of Science and Technology course too.

Now I am getting ready for my Law lecture on TV. I am cueing my video tape as I write this. My office is not peaceful now.

I cooked supper and spoke some French. I attempted to explain the workings of computer screen programming in French to my wife and her friend.

Monday, August 04, 2003

I did some word processing of meeting minutes for the green party. I have a meeting tonight. I will bring my Toshiba 420CDT running Win98 and keep meeting minutes in Word97. Although I could be doing this task with the Red Hat 6.2 install I have for this laptop. I am making a minutes binder. I will request some money for monthly dividers for this binder. I got the binder free from our client at work. The meeting should be only an hour and half long. I am working tomorrow so I might leave early. We are not approving last months minutes because we have too many guests tonight. This Friday is the Green Parties' 20th anniverary in Canada. I plan to step down from my volunteer chair positions and take up secretarial duties for both the provincial and federal wings in Ottawa Centre.
I installed Microsoft Fortran 5.1 on the Thinkpad 360CS. I still need to configure the Fortran and set some variables. I might be getting Turbo C++ for this computer too. I continue to work through some probability exercises on this computer using QBasic from a library book written in 1979, call letters QA273 G76.
My friend is giving me the tall tower and the Win95 floppies for helping him out. The tower is 2' 4" high not sure it will fit under a desk. I also need to size it for motherboards as that will need to be replaced. There are two early model CD drives for it too one that goes off the sound blaster card one that is IDE.
I installed the modem on my friend's Pentium II IBM PL 300. He also had me check out what he thought was a Pentium 4 I doubt it is more than a Pentium 1 in fact. It would not even boot up. He also had a tall tower case we looked at. The hard drive was connected to the wrong position on the cable but even with it connected to the right position it had no OS. A Win95 install by floppy failed. The tower case had a pentium 133 Mhz in it but we could not access the bios due to a password. As such the case is nice but it needs a new motherboard and perhaps a new hard drive. It looked like it had a 3.5 GB hard drive a Quantum.

Sunday, August 03, 2003

I gave away two 386 computers and some old video boards and an old hard drive. The person who got them she is a Network + and A+ techy. She lives near by and got them computers for her kids. More junk out.
I turned off my powerhog IBM PC 325 server after spending an hour formatting the footnotes of my term paper for html. Picky program Netscape Composer is but Word97 couldn't do a good job with the footnotes. It still isn't posted on my personal site. Be patient.
I just send out a few IM's on yahoo and ICQ with this blog address. I also posted the address on Usenet atalt.support.schizophrenia.
I am booting up the power hog WinNT box to do some web mastering. I need to post my Law essay from my summer course. I should know my mark by the end of next week. This paper maybe read by a member of the house of Lords.
I think I will ignore these hard drives for sale. This Thinkpad is not a main project.
I am browsing Win3.1 software on ebay. I am also browsing hard drives for an extra hard drive for the Thinkpad to do a Linux install. One seller in Vancouver has two decent sized hard drives and a battery but the shipping is pricey. I think the 360CS can hold two hard drives when you take out the battery otherwise I would simply put the hard drive in that I want to use that day. But I haven't used ebay in a month and I am not so sure I want to start again.
I should be installing the PCI modem on the friends computer tonight. He also wants me too have a look at his P4 desktop.

Saturday, August 02, 2003

The Rio software won't install on the Mac. This Rio is becoming a problem.
I found my Zip drive software. So I can install the zip drive and thus the install file for the modem on that friends computer.
I read about variance and expectation in the book Probability and Information by David Applebaum on the bus home from work.
I know the exact courses I am going to choose for the fall and winter terms at school. I will studying Reading French, Elements of Probability, Intellectual Property Law and Mathematical Statistics.
I read chapter 16 and other articles today. I caught right out to next weeks lectures with the readings.
The Rio has software for the Mac. I will install it tonight. I doubt it will work the RIO has some power problems.

Friday, August 01, 2003

I might try my Diamond Rio on my eMac sometime soon.
I think of getting my photo's off my IDE 20 GB drive onto my Win98 desktop and emailing them to my Mac. Maybe I should download easy CD creator and burn a back up of these photos to CD. Either way I should have all my photo's in iPhoto soon enough.
I read a review of the new G5 machines in something called the Computer Paper an add filled rag.
I am working Saturday. I am maybe checking out a friend's P4 computer on Sunday. I need to find my Zip drive CD so I can temporarily install my parallel zip drive and then use the Install File for the modem for his model IBM the 300 PL that is on one zip disk.
There is my Thinkpad 360CS that I could install Debian 2.1 Linux on but I have no backup and not sure how to defrag in Win 3.1. The computer is presently running Win 3.1. It has a 810 MB hard drive though. I may extract revenge on the software industry by buying older Win 3.1 software for it.
I explained some computer history to my neighbour's son. The computer I gave them runs Windows 3.1. He wants to do music with computers. So I explained plugs to him. I did not get into MIDI plugs because I don't know MIDI plugs.