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Kopaka's Ice Engineering

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  1. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    197¾ lb., 24.8% body fat
     
     
    Ugh.
     
    This week has been terrible.
     
    Sunday, I come to the office before church, and start the design storm runs for Houma & Cleary, and those finish. I go over graphs with Rob Monday and we went over the graphs for Helios/Galleria (the part of this project that will be its undoing because it's taking so long), and, in the interest of time, we're calling it done. I go to start the design storm runs Monday morning, and in the middle of the night Tuesday morning, they cut out. Crash.
    Okay, panic. I fire off an email to Wallingford Software to get tech support working on something they'd apparently forgotten about for me.
    On a whim, I change one parameter, a statement of the ceiling for number of iterations I'd let the model do. (This is a numerical model, not an empirical one.). Like magic, the model runs in the same manner as all the other ones did. It took 4 hours instead of 4 days!
    Success!
    I get the design storm runs complete Wednesday morning, and I'm off to start the can't-take-long-because-I-don't-have-time process of making improvements to certain areas of the model: the last part of the contract (at which point comes the report writing, something I'm dreading for entirely different reasons).
    Well, the parameter change I made Tuesday only worked on Tuesday. Yesterday morning, and this morning, the model died on the same problem as it did before. Still, no word from Wallingford Software.
     
     
    I promised another component this week, and thus, I give you the Creative Soundblaster Audigy SE sound card:gallery.
    I thought about the X-Fi and Fatal1ty series cards, but I picked this one to go in my lagniappe bundle, which is what I bought at the same time as the replacement power supply.
     
    It's interesting, really. The computer my brother & I had growing up, and even the computer I have now, never had the mainstream sound card: the old 486 had a Pro Audio 16, and my computer now has on-board sound. Man, that Pro Audio had to force us to mess with sound settings to no end.
     
    One might ask why I didn't just go with the riser audio card that came with my motherboard. Well, I tried out the microphone that also came with it. While I recognize the noise cancelling function it's supposed to use from several physics classes on acoustics, the microphone just doesn't work. Just ask Turakii & Lady K, that time I tried to get that mic to work that night a few weeks ago.
     
    Anyway, sound card. Yay.
     
    There's one more element in the lagniappe bundle that warrants its own entry, and that will come some time in June, as I'm not buying anything else computer-related for about 5 weeks.
     
    -KIE
  2. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    199½ lb, 23.3% body fat
     
    Just for starters: tomato paste
     
    I squandered multiple opportunities to make this post over the weekend, but I feel as though I made the better choice. Since it is now Monday, I figure I should let the lot of you know what became of the past few days.
     
    FBC-Kenner is still undefeated, but we didn't beat Williams Boulevard BC. They scored 3 runs in the bottom of the sixth to tie it at 5 when the game was called due to time. Last run was walked home on 5 pitches.
    I knew I should've gone and reminded Neil after the 3-1 pitch that there was no defense for a walk.
     
    Oh well. 3-0-1 isn't as bad as it feels.
     
    Oh, and I went 0-2 with a strikeout. Struck out looking (I can't swing at anything in the inner half of the plate, honest.) in the top of the second, and then grounded out 4-3 in the top of the fifth. I would have led off the seventh inning had the game continued. Batting well below the Mendoza line for baseball (much less softball), I could say that if there were a feeder system, I would have long since been sent back down to the minors.
     
    I should also mention that it took a Texan chef challenging Iron Chef Japanese, in Battle Chile Peppers (Morimoto waaaay out of his element, whereas Love knows chiles like the back of his hand.), to finally see the Iron Chef lose. And then, only by a razor-thin margin. Gosh, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the challengers don't get a fair shake from the Iron Chef America judges.
    Oh, and Dinner: Impossible is one of my new favorite TV shows.
     
    To follow up on the opening shot of "tomato paste," I should mention that I did some cooking Saturday. When Hurricane Rita hit, I wanted to have a meal cooked for my mom & dad who were evacuating to the house Michael (my brother) & I had just rented. I tried to cook a marinara, to serve on bowtie pasta.
    Well, it didn't come out: the sauce was chunky, runny, and the onions weren't cut NEARLY fine enough.
     
    Saturday, I revisited this quest for homemade pasta sauce. A tomato sauce that doesn't need meat to complete it. And, while it's not perfect, it's certainly closer than I was last time.
     
    No ingredient list: you just have to follow along.
     

    I can't write in stream of consciousness, but I can certainly cook in it.  
    It's.... passable. It almost tastes like a real sauce, and I'd take a gander that it has less salt than what you'd get out of a can or a jar at the store. If I can get it to taste good, however, it's at that point that this will become a worthwhile venture. Or, if I develop high blood pressure, and have to limit my sodium intake. Yeah, that too.
     
    Back to work....
     
    -KIE
  3. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Macros are your friends.
    Especially when you're making repetitive changes to Excel worksheets.
     
    Now, to convince Excel to let me use the macros I recorded myself, in that they're NOT damaging to my computer.
     
     
    Gosh, I just love how Microsoft Office XP has taken upon itself to think for me.
     
    In other news, the model is officially behind, but, if it's correct when it wraps up the run tomorrow, I'm back on schedule. Probably won't be, but I can dream that I'm that good.
     
    Now, to validate my choice of category, I shall offer a new component.
     
    See, I ordered next day delivery on that power supply, which I will not chronicle here. My computer is back up & running, but, to justify the high shipping cost, I bought a lot of lagniappe to fill the boxes, as it were.
     
    One such thing was the Sony 16× DVD....drive. gallery
    (Note that I linked to the Newegg.com product page: Sony is too good to list its own <$50 products now, it seems.)
     
    Yes, I know they make a Blu-ray burner drive now, but come on: $650 for a drive? Do I look like I'm made of money?!
    I mean, if I had $650 for a DVD drive, I'd just go ahead and buy a PS3.
     
    There was some nifty egg-carton things on the drive, though.
     
     
    -KIE
  4. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Don't mind me, just taking a cue from Turakii.
    *drumroll for the huge weekend recap*
     
     
    Philosophical question: What would you do if you had more money than you, your brothers & sisters, parents, aunts & uncles, your kids (regardless of whether you have any now) and your grandkids could ever hope to spend, combined?
     
    One answer: build a ridiculously tall skyscraper.
     
    The lunchtime speaker at the Tulane Engineering Forum on Friday was the lead designer of the Burj Dubai (برج دبي , meaning "Tower of Dubai"), what, upon completion next year, should be the tallest manmade structure in the world. At least 155 stories tall, plus a spire on top, suffice it to say the horizon of the capital of the United Arab Emirates will be notably changed. There's even ads in Vanity Fair, billing it as "the place to be."
    Rob & I guesstimated the project cost to be around $1 trillion. Maybe $1.2 trillion.
     
    Yeah....anyway.
     
    Softball game Friday night. Don't have the line score with me, but we jumped out to an early lead and won 10-3. Myself, went 0-2 with a walk & a strikeout.
     
    Leading off the bottom of the second, I struck out swinging at a pitch that was going to be called "Ball 3".
    Coming up in the bottom of the fourth, I reached on an errant throw from the third baseman, and then proceeded to get doubled off when I overstepped first base on a pop up. I SWEAR my toe was back down on the bag before I got tagged.
    In the bottom of the sixth, I drew a four-pitch walk, and was stranded on first when the umpire called the game before the inning had concluded: there were 2 on & 2 out.
     
    This coming Friday, we're playing Williams Boulevard Baptist Church, in what is friendly known as the "Battle for Williams Boulevard", as both FBC-K and WBBC are on LA highway 49. Found out that they took last year off to play in the Lasalle Park league, and they embarrassed New Life Tabernacle before our game. Translation: we're going to be 3-1 going into Memorial Day.
     
     
    Got up Saturday morning and drove home for Mother's Day. It was fine, except where my dad had inadvertently plunked my mom with a golfball when they played Tuesday. She still has a computer mouse-sized bruise on her right bicep. My dad wanted that to be a 13-stroke penalty, since she had won that round by a score of 100-112. We called my brother and, if it was unintentional, the ruling is as though she was a member of the gallery: play it as it lies, with no penalties assessed to either player.
     
     
    Sunday, we went out to eat at Olive Garden. Got there for 11:30, and there was a *line* to get a pager. We persevered, however, and got to eat. I had the shrimp & asparagus risotto, which was...interesting. Not nearly as interesting as how the power went out ¾ of the way through the meal. I'd guess they had to close up shop on one of the busiest days of the year, because they never did get the power back on. Fortunately, my dad had cash.
     
    Got back to my apartment at around 5:20, in time to watch "Deconstructing Sean O'Hair." Man, you've got to feel bad for the guy, being the only one to put two in the drink on the same day.
     
     
    The worst thing to have happened over the weekend had to be what happened later that evening: my computer spontaneously powered down twice. I'm 90% sure it's the power supply that gave out, as that was hottest and seemed to be the highest concentration of the tell-tale acrid scent of electronics burning out. I've borrowed an old PSU from a computer here at the office as a 3-month stop-gap. If it doesn't work at lunch, well, I'm going to have to buy a new one this afternoon from Newegg and see about getting it rushed here. I don't know what I'll do at night without my computer!
     
    Heh. Couldn't get through the whole weekend without at least one smiley.
     
     
    Oh, and I got a haircut: first one since before BrickFest.
     
     
    -KIE
  5. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    I have seen the future of bandages.
    Last night, I scratched my left pinky on an exposed, unfiled screw hole leftover from a chair in the choir room at church. It bled, but I let one of the photocopy-of-the-hymnal sheets of music soak up the blood.
    Wasn't much.
     
    Today at lunch, I stopped in at Walgreens and bought a box of ActivFlex bandages by Band-Aid. With a foil box and clearly stated 10 bandages for $5, I figured this was not cost effective. However, I rarely break my epidermis, so I figure I could afford to splurge on this.
     
    I'm telling you guys, this is the future of bandages. It looks, feels, moves [almost], even cuts like real skin. My only regret is that it doesn't adhere perfectly to real skin, as in the process of using my finger joints, the bandage started to come off. (This is how I know it cuts like real skin.) There's a scab forming underneath already, and I've already washed my hands twice since.
    If it survives a shower tomorrow morning, I may never go back to normal bandages.
     
     
    What does that have to do with a trio of Australian birds? Absolutely nothing.
    But I did get a new computer component. An instant upgrade, at that.
     
    I got my monitor only two weeks after getting the power supply: the ViewSonic VX922 LCD display. $260.55 at NewEgg.com
    Gallery
     
    Why so soon? Because, there's a $20 rebate that expires at the end of next week, and I need to determine if this monitor is a keeper before the rebate time runs out.
     
    I remember the first time I saw a ViewSonic monitor: it was this 21" CRT at D.W. Jessen & Associates in the year 2000. Wasn't for years later did I realize those birds were the company's logo.
     
     
    What irks me, though, is that not 2 hours after I place the order Monday morning, I get an email from Newegg about a 22" widescreen monitor that's on for $230, after rebate.
    Eh, whatever. 19" is a more natural size.
     
    And it's an immediate upgrade in that I can plug it in to my current computer: it came with a VGA cable AND a DVI cable (which is good, because the graphics card I'm getting has no VGA port).
     
    Off to change monitors. I'm offline for much of the day tomorrow, attending seminars I don't need, to end a week that could've gone a lot, lot better.
     
    If I don't get the chance to give a softball recap over the weekend, happy Mother's Day.
     
    -KIE
  7. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    La la laaaaaa
     
    Storms that ruined the weekend on the southern Atlantic coast [of the US] blew throuh the Gulf coast during the week. Three things to take from this, in addition to how Yale Street turned into a makeshift canal. Flash floods are fun!
    Lightning is dangerous: A thunderstorm early Friday morning caused a power hiccup on the server, thus voiding the previous two days of computer run. Another setback...blah. Also blew out a network hub. It was an old hub, but it's now going to need to be replaced. Oh, and an electrician is going to check the wiring over the next couple of weeks, just to make sure. Gonna be fun scheduling runs around that. Also, my computer shut down without warning again. I say again, because it's the second time this has happened since I moved to Metairie (This is my personal computer, the 5 year old model.), the first time being in June before Katrina. Power supply overheated, again. So, I took out some parts and manually cleaned the dust (I had JUST gotten a USB vacuum that also came in that brown box from NewEgg with the PSU.). A couple of hours to chill, and it's fine now. Just 3 more months is all I ask....
    Flash floods are fun: Not only did Yale Street (which runs in front of my apartment, ZOMG I'm giving out my address on the internet! ) turn into Yale creek, but the softball field became inundated by the storm: Friday's games were rained out, and Saturday's games (including FBC-K @ St. Charles UMC) were called on account of field conditions. The games will not be made up unless they have playoff implications, and only then would they be made up, after the Fourth of July. That was supposed to be the first real barometer for our team. Instead, between first-game-back Grace Presbyterian, first-game-ever Metairie #2, and perennial creampuff FBCNO, we're going to be the softest 3-0 since before the storm, easily.
    I apparently make a good pump: With nothing to do Saturday, I drove up to Baton Rouge, and found myself helping take down a fence to install a gate. Well, that's what was going on: I ended up on "water duty": Michael & Brandy (my brother & his wife) had finished taking up a garden in their backyard to install a patio by putting down pavers. In effect, they'd made a hole and we were going to start filling it this past weekend. God had other ideas, as the rains that came through literally filled up the hole. I moved 120 someodd gallons (roughly 500 L) of rainwater through their house, only to dump it down the driveway, 4 gallons (15½ liters) at a time. Suffice it to say, I was tired.
    This concludes your weekend recap from the outskirts of Chocolate City. 
     
    -KIE
  8. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    I think I rolled my ankle at some point this morning. Or it might have been when I landed as I jumped backwards down three steps after a meeting upstairs. Either way, I don't feel like I can put any weight on my left ankle unless it (my leg) is absolutely vertical.
     
    The meeting, by the way, was about my troubles at work: the prime firm now knows how far behind I am, and how it's impossible to catch up. And, how it's not my fault. While the EPA will have to wait on my computer to do its thing, I do feel better about the situation. In some sense, I'm off the hook.
    Or at least, the barb isn't biting in as deep now.
     
    Meanwhile, Traku & Turakii should have instantly recognized the title of this blog entry. I had a lot of Tesla Trooper soundbites to choose from, but my apparent ankle injury made this most appropriate.
     
    Why a Tesla Trooper?
    Because tonight, I check my connections.
     
    The power supply unit arrived today.
     
     
    BEHOLD, the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad: gallery
    750 Watts at 40 °C, peaking at 825W.
    SLI certified if I ever decide to build and SLI bridge down the road.
    Enough power to last me until 2015, at the rate I go through computers.
    [Tim Taylor voice]Harh harh harrh[/Tim Taylor voice]
     
    Believe you me, I thought about the full kilowatt. I did, but then I figured I didn't want to trip the breaker every 20 minutes.
     
     
     
    Next purchase within 2 weeks. Why so soon? Well, you'll find out then. That is, if you care about my computer. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't at this rate. :wakeup2:
     
    -KIE
  9. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Only 7 of them were mine.
     
    In an attempt to appeal to, and ease the transition of, players of Runescape, Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn has shifted its new player experience away from the themed quest system (usually involved some simple crafting, monster killing, skill practice, decision making, all pertinent to the character class) and towards a directed quest for individual skills of most of the 50 or so skills available to players.
     
    This system was implemented with Publish 44, which, after about 8 hours of downtime, went live last night.
     
    In the terms of story arc, the young-player town of Haven (In other words, Haven was newbie-ville.) had discovered a potent vein of blackrock, a magical yet very unstable mineral, that was promptly closed off from public inspection/prospecting. Despite this, traders who had been amassing the insanely valuable blackrock mined elsewhere, after a month (2 weeks rl, give or take), their stores interacted with this vein, causing a violent and catastrophic explosion, levelling a 35 year-old (in game: 1 rl year = 5 UO years) town. What remains are parts of buildings and new [relatively weak] undead tenants.
     
    What's more, many of the landmarks outside of Haven, the little things that showed developer's care and interest in the wonder that could be inspired, were taken down to build a new settlement dubbed "New Haven."
     
    It makes me sad, and my primary character (whom I patterned off my own rl persona back in 2002) is all but depressed.
     
     
    I still encourage anyone to come play Ultima Online. Let me know, and I'll get you hooked up on the Napa Valley shard.
    It's just that there's a lot less to show you now.
     
     
    -KIE
    a.k.a. The Illustrious Lord Cephas, Lord of Knights [V]
    Grandmaster Armsman and Knight of Compassion, Valor & Sacrifice, Follower of Honor
    ...and former long-time patron of the Bountiful Harvest Inn of Haven.
  10. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    ...it's the breathing that's taking all this work.
     
     

     
    The model is unravelling. That's the only word for it.
     
    I was supposed to finish improvement runs Monday. Instead, I might have calibration finished Monday.
    In other words, I have 6 weeks of work and 2½ weeks in which to do it.
     
    I'm out of time. It's all over.
     
    Nothing short of a contract extension or divine intervention will save my hide.
     
    -KIE
  11. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    And wouldn't you know it, those are the two things that happened this weekend that I'm not going to go in depth over tonight.
     
    Friday, I finally got some time to run by the post office. Tarakava II, ChocolateFrogs, and Toaraga, your MOCs are on their ways back to you via Priority Mail: they should arrive no later than Wednesday. To recompense my tardiness in their return, I've included something for you: make sure you fully empty the box.
    Oh, and PDX is the three letter airport code for Portland International Airport, like IAD is for Dulles, and MSY is for New Orleans.
     
    I know, I'm terrible. Just cut me some slack, please? Work has been busy, and my situation is getting grim.
     
    Before I gloss over my work troubles (I said I wasn't getting into that.) there was a softball game Saturday against the second Metairie Baptist team.
    This is a second team, comprised of several NOBTS students, and filled out by a college department. Metairie 1 is the same old MBC team the rest of the league loves to hate.
     
    These guys have the potential to be good, but they need practice first.
    The line score:

    Metairie #2  1 0 0 0 0 2 0   3 FBC Kenner   0 0 0 1 7 3 X  11 F
     
    And in the Kenner box score, once again batting 10th (out of 11: 10 fielders + a DH)
    No.  Name       Pos.   H-AB  R BI .... 47   Foret       C      0-2  0 0
     
    I came up with the bases loaded with 2 out in the bottom of the second, and grounded out 5-3.
    I came up again with the bases loaded, but with one out, in the bottom of the fourth, and popped out to the pitcher.
    I came up one last time in the bottom of the fifth, two on and one out, and drew a walk. Got stranded at second.
     
    Their pitcher couldn't throw a strike to save an inning: once we quit swinging at balls at started drawing the walks we were given, it started to unravel. Still, it was the fourth inning before we logged our first base hit.
     
    Metairie 2 will be good next time we play them at the end of June.
     
    We've got next weekend off, but Neil's right: we haven't been tested yet. In any case, we end April at 2-0.
     
    Then came issues with the server, and a lost weekend at work. Bad timing. Really.
    Then came my extended bothering of Swoop, in which I found a new place to sell feathers, and eventually cut my fourth lifetime million gold check. 5 years to earn 4 mil: not a good rate. Then again, I'm not a power gamer. Ultima Online is a fun game if you don't force yourself to "win" it.
    Then came a dinner date with my mom and brother, who came in to watch the third round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans (the PGA tour event at the TPC of Louisiana this weekend).
     
    What I neglect to mention is that, over the course of Friday afternoon, I was playing with the computer case, and to my delight, the I/O panel that came with the case simply popped out. And, since the new I/O panel (I'd get pictures if I could, but....) installed so easily, I got the urge to get techy.
     
    I installed the motherboard, and hooked up as many chassis connections as I could (soft power button, HD LED, Power LED, system speaker, reset button, front panel IEEE 1394 (Firewire), front panel USB, and an extra pair of USB ports where a spare PCI x16 graphics card would go. (I'm not going to build an SLI bridge: I'm just going to get the muscle (7950GT, 512MB) in one card.)
     
    That makes for 8 USB and 2 firewire ports, with room on the board for 2 more USB ports.
     
    Too bad I had to make a run to CompUSA and spend $44 on a "computer repair kit" just to get a screwdriver that'd screw in the board mounting screws.
     
    I'm tellin' ya, it's intoxicating. I can almost taste the power this machine will exude.
     
    I'm buying the PSU (610 W, I don't want to have to move because the wiring can't take my computer), a DVD+R recording drive, and a new keyboard on the first of May, and then making an order every 3 weeks thereafter. I want to ramp up the timetable.
     
    Oh yeah, and vote Craig Biggio for NL All-Star 2B.
     
    -KIE
  12. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    21 Major League seasons, all with one team.
    2,722 career appearances
    2,944 career base hits
    282 career home runs
    282 career hit-by-pitches
    410 career stolen bases
    4,586 career total bases
    1,782 career runs scored
    1,129 career runs batted in
    0 combined career clean post-game jerseys and post-season clean batting helmets
     
    Craig Biggio has been one of the great gentlemen of the game. He will likely log 3,000 hits this season, and then retire at the age of 41.
     
    Please, send him to San Francisco one last time in mid July. Once more, before a date in Cooperstown next decade.
     
     

    Vote Craig Biggio for the 2007 All-Star game.
     
    (C'mon, Torhu. I voted for Mauer & Punto. The least you can do is vote for Biggio on your NL ballot.)
     
    -KIE
  13. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    ...I'd say it'd be well worth your time to pick up Rebecca St. James' latest CD, entitled the same as this blog entry. I could say more, but she's already articulated most of it.
     
    As I told Lady K last night (I got to talk to Lady K on YIM! I feel so important! *squeee* ), "God Help Me," the first track on said album, is my newest favorite song. It talks of a early-life crisis in the singer's own life. And I can identify with her, as I'm about 4, maybe 5 months younger than she: as I'm careening towards 30, I have to wonder what has become of the front end of "the summer of my lifetime": what, if any, impact I have made, and why I am still nagged with the thought that I've just spun my wheels thus far.
     
    27½ years old gives you a great sense of mortality, especially in the face of the deaths of 30 someodd college students.
     
    I don't know anyone that goes to school in Blacksburg. I'm 5 years removed from my own undergraduate studies. Just like Columbine in 1999, my sophomore year of college, it's weird and nothing more. Getting older makes you jaded and walls you up, too.
     
     
     
    I dunno, this entry was as much for my own reflection as it is for any of your benefit. Take it as you will.
     
    -KIE
  14. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    196 lb., 23.4% body fat
     
    "Opening night? But the Mets went at it in St. Louis 2 weeks ago!"
     
    Ah, not MLB opening night, my friend, but the opening night of the Greater New Orleans Church League softball.
    A twin-billing at Delta #4, Williams Boulevard Baptist at Riverside Baptist, and First Baptist Kenner at Grace Presbyterian. The two Metairie Baptist teams, FBC New Orleans, and St. Charles UMC play tomorrow morning.
     
    I'd been working towards tonight since before BrickFest '06. And I dare say it paid off.
     
    The line score:

    FBC Kenner   7 4 2 2 5  18 Grace Presb. 0 0 3 4 0   7 F/5
     
    And in the Kenner box score, batting 10th (out of 11: 10 fielders + a DH)
    No.  Name       Pos.   H-AB  R BI .... 47   Foret       C      1-3  1 0
     
    Grounded into a fielder's choice (6-5 out at third) to end the top of the first.
    In the third, I laced a liner between shortstop and third. They tried to pick me off, but instead they hit my cleat. (You're not out unless you're tagged, or hit by a batted ball.) I scored from first on a double on the next pitch.
    I popped out to shortstop to end the top of the fourth inning, and would've been due up second in the top of the sixth had the game not been called for time.
     
    It was very important to get the bats going tonight, as we were hard pressed to score runs all last year. If we keep this up (okay, 18 might be a little difficult to score weekend-in, weekend-out), we could be in a good position come playoff time in July.
     
     
    You all will have to bear with me: I didn't get to play baseball growing up, and the BSU/BCM intramural softball team was usually lucky to win 2 games over the course of a season. This is my rec league, and even in my third year in the league, I still feel like a little kid.
     
    Okay, it's well after 12. (Curse you, board statistics!) Time to get some sleep.
    If possible.
     
    -KIE
  15. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Found out who it was that viewed from Longville.
    It was one of my mates from college. His DSL IP says he's in Longville, even though the computer is in Moss Bluff (15 minutes south).
     
    Anyway, that's not what this entry is about.
     
    Today, I got to shake the hand of someone famous.
    "Who?", you ask? Why, none other than Aaron Broussard, Jefferson Parish president.
     
    Politics break: Your social studies teacher may have gone over this in class: Louisiana is one of two states with no counties. (Alaska being the other.) Instead, Louisiana has parishes. While similar in name to a unit of the Diocese of a catholic church, Louisiana's parishes (the 65 civil ones) serve the same function as counties do in the rest of the nation. There are minor differences, like the "borrowed" use of Napoleonic Code, but they're effectively counties.
    Some parishes are governed solely by a parish council or police jury. A few parishes (Orleans in particular) are co-boundaries with a city (e.g. New Orleans), and just have a mayor and city council to do the work of the parish police jury. There are also some parishes that mix the two: while not just one city, there is still a single executive-branch office elected, called a parish president.
     
    That said, Aaron Broussard formally announced his campaign for re-election as parish president of Jefferson Parish.
    And I was there, clapping.
     
    The same Aaron Broussard that evacuated the pump station operators in front of Katrina, which caused neighborhoods to flood and ruined houses.
     
    *sigh*
    The way some people want to crucify him in the public arena, you'd think he personally took a fire hose to each of their homes. That he summoned the hurricane himself.
     
    When the election comes, I'm going to vote for Aaron Broussard. I have three reasons why:
    He's not as responsible for flooding homes as people make him out to be. Put yourself in his shoes: An apocalyptic storm is bearing down on your electorate, and you know full well that the infrastructure you inherited 2 years ago won't withstand the beating that storm will deliver. What is more important? The lives of 80 of the employees you hired or the property of 130,000 of the voters who elected you? He's not just a talking head. Unlike some people on the other side of the parish line, I've seen stuff get done in Jefferson. That may not be a fair comparison, but I'm calling it as I see it. My job may depend on it. When Phil Capitano was not re-elected as mayor of the city of Kenner last year, my office lost a good chunk of work during the change of administration. If we lose our JP contracts, "dire straits" just scratches the surface of my situation. One way to ensure the perpetuation of contracts is to perpetuate the administration that approved those contracts. (And do good work under those contracts, of course. It's not like we'd get paid for just showing up, y'know. That'd be akin to kickbacks.) Am I biased? Probably. But this is the world I live in. And this is the way stuff gets done out here. Like Scott, one of the inspectors, says, "There's a saying at the highway department: 'Sometimes, you just have to build a road.'" (Meaning: excessive altruism accomplishes very little, if anything, in the real world.)
     
    -KIE
  16. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    New component!
     
    Some of you may remember my posting of a dual socket ASUS AMD-compatible motherboard before BrickFest. It was the ASUS L1N64-SLI WS Dual Socket......board. It really, really intrigued me to perhaps be running dual 3.0 GHz over 8 GB of RAM, a beast of a machine if ever there was one.
    And then I came to my senses. I shouldn't get that, for multiple reasons:
    Cost: $2100 for just a board, RAM, & processors. That's a lot of pretty pennies. Excessivity: If you have to think about your answer to the question if you need that much power, the answer is no. Operating System: There's a difference between a Vista-ready machine, and a machine built for Vista. I want the former, because I don't have the money for the latter. Timing: AMD is going to release a Quad-core processor by the end of the summer, relegating the second socket to "dust trap" status: not even Vista Ultimate can utilize more than 4 CPU cores. All that said, no "god"-board for KIE. 
     
    Instead, I present to you: the ASUS Crosshair. Plenty of muscle for my means.
     
    $243.31 including shipping, from NewEgg.
    Photo gallery here, when public.
     
    It's not coming out of its box until I build the computer, which will be several months. One, I don't want it collecting unnecessary dust, and two, I don't want to static-kill it before I install it. Sorry, no pics of the actual board until then.
     
    I'm so excited, part of me wants to buy the rest of the stuff right now. But I'll wait, as I've spent my computer budget for the month.
    Thoughts welcome.
     
    -KIE
  17. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Yes he did and no one had better let him out of it!
     
    Wow, BrickFest was a blast. It's all mish-mashing in my head right now, so I'll make with the quick-hits before I forget everything.
    50° F (10° C) is an overnight low, not a daytime high, for March. Geez, Oregon. It's spring. Get with the program. The scent of a Randazzo even before the bag is opened is as hypnotic as ever. TLG has to open a LEGO store at some point along the Gulf coast. I'll drive to Gulf Shores if necessary; I just can't go to Orlando for one store. Roa McToa is well on her way to being the next Cajun. Not for awesomness of MOCcing per se, but for being the standard-bearer for the legitimacy of BIONICLE among AFOL-dom. SQUIDDIES! Photographs do not fully explain how tall Makaru is. EAURUGYUNUGH! Chris doesn't have my childhood LEGO collection, which means they truly are lost for the ages. Dalek the Dark Hunter Destroyer would be good at a photo scavenger hunt: I think the last couple were in my pocket. Turakii, Roa has the squiddies. Bug her. Aisle seat, heavy-set men in front and behind, colicky baby & kid who apparently had never been on an airplane before: 1 Any hope of KIE getting some sleep on Continental 208 Sunday night: 0
    Light rails are fun. If Jefferson, Orleans, St. Bernard & Plaquemines parishes ever got it together and built a system, it'd be pretty cool. Wouldn't have to be a subway or anything. (The water table in Louisiana is generally 8 feet (2.5 m) below the ground surface, making it pretty difficult to build anything of size underground.) I'd so totally ride it. Fred Meyer: meh. Give me Walmart, blue state socio-economics be darned. Thank you, UCLA, for letting me and my bracket down, right there at the end. Good times. We must do it again. 
    -KIE, enjoying his 80° F (27° C) weather.
  18. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    I should be sleeping, and yet I am not. A shame, really, but I must discourse on the events of this weekend.
     
    Friday I took off before I was finished with work, but after hours still, to go eat with my brother, his wife, and our parents, while they (my parents) were in Baton Rouge to play golf on Saturday. I'll be frank: I'm sufficiently tired of working on this model. Burned out, as it were. I'm looking forward to something else, even if it's just no-brain maps in ArcMap.
    But enough about my work (that I did finish up yesterday, I think). We ate at Copeland's Cheesecake Bistro, not necessarily a treat for myself, but for my parents since the Copeland's in Lake Charles closed after Rita. They're still upset about it.
    Michael & Brandy had some pretty big news. Michael went to the golf expo at the River Center (in Baton Rouge) last month, and got a surprise in the mail: he won two passes to the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in its return to the TPC of Louisiana in two weeks.
     
    But the real news came shortly thereafter:
    THEY'RE PREGNANT!
    Brandy is 7 weeks pregnant (far too early to know if it's a boy or girl), and the due date is November 20. What's more, they've asked me to be the child's parrain, or godfather: A task I gladly and blindly accepted.
    KIE's gonna be an uncle. Look out.
    Better believe I'm going to get 'em started on LEGO out of the gate. How much do Quatro sets run?
     
    Saturday was a bunch of afterglow, and then came Sunday.
     
    Sunday, I got a phone call on my way out of church: Bro. T-Jack Tillery, one of the staff at FBC-Moss Bluff (the church I attended before moving here) is in Ochsner's in Jefferson, so I went to go visit.
    Wouldn't you know it, but they forgot I was over here. *sigh* Everyone does.
     
    In any case, Bro. T-Jack's long-term prognosis isn't very good: he had a massive heart attack in 1997 which damaged both lower ventricles. His upper ventricles have since compensated, but over the course of 10 years, they've worn down. The short of it is that he'll eventually need a heart transplant: a procedure his insurance won't cover. But for the time being, his improvement over the course of the week (He checked in last Monday, but I wasn't notified until this afternoon.) means he'll get to head back to Moss Bluff sometime this week, with a return checkup scheduled in a couple of weeks. Still, they've started the transplant-candidate battery of tests.
     
     
    Oh, and since everyone else is doing it... *click*
    Create your own visitor map!
     
    -KIE, who needs to do his taxes this week
  19. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    199½ lb, 22.8% body fat (Hey, I guess being sick'll do that for ya.)
     
    Okay, now I'm curious.
     
    Sunday night, I posted a map, in hopes of seeing a bunch of New Orleans pins, or perhaps a pin in Greece or a few in Canadia (BrickFest joke). Instead, I find pins in the Côte d'Azure (French Riviera) and Italy.
     
    But the one pin that intrigues me the most is the one pushed at 9 seconds after 11 AM yesterday: Longville, LA.
     
    Folks, I know where Longville is.
     
    ATTENTION WHOEVER VISITED MY BLOG IN LONGVILLE: Please register and tell me who you are. I'm very, very curious.
     
     
    I hope it's Big Country (a trumpet-playing electrical engineer with whom I went to college; his name escapes me). I haven't seen him since I was laid off from ReCon in 2004.
     
     
    -KIE, whose sinuses refuse to drain.
  20. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Posted a week ago, but I still wanted to call attention to it here, as the BBC tends to swallow the mediocre quickly.
     
    Argaius and his topic.
     
    I'm not going to ask for glowing reviews if they're not warranted. In fact, I can't really promise I'll do much MOCing, regardless of feedback. I'd just like to get a feel as to how this is. And if it's "mediocre", I can handle hearing that.
     
    Ms. Hedge-Morrell issued an apology in the paper today. She said she wanted to set a good example for the students at the high school she used to principal. Tom, my boss who spent much of this week at Augusta National Golf Course made an astute observation: "More than likely, she's just sorry she was caught. Three times." That said, I'm going to let it drop.
     
    -KIE, who is still waiting for his first home run of the fantasy season.
  21. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Word to the wise: no matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter who your father, mother, brother, or uncle is, no matter where in society you are, NO ONE likes to hear the words "Do you know who I am?", ESPECIALLY A COP.
     
    Read it all:
    If it really were a serious offense, she should've been ticketed, if you ask me. No one should be above the law. 
    I think I might actually finish this model today. Scary.
     
     
    -KIE
  22. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Now presenting YOUR Moss Bluff Cruisers:
    Catcher: Kenji Johjima, SEA
    Iván Rodríguez, DET (also doubles as a first baseman)
    First Base: Lance Berkman, HOU (also doubles as an outfielder)
    Carlos Delgado, NYM
    Second Base: Chase Utley, PHI
    Short Stop: Michael Young, TEX
    Third Base: Scott Rolen, STL
    Garrett Atkins, COL
    Outfield: Jermaine Dye, CWS
    Juan Pierre, LAD
    Johnny Damon, NYY
    Torii Hunter, MIN
    Designated Hitter: Travis "Pronk" Hafner, CLE
    Pitchers: Roy Oswalt, HOU
    Aaron Harang, CIN
    Jeremy Bonderman, DET
    Cole Hamels, PHI
    Rich Harden, OAK
    Akinori Otsuka, TEX
    B.J. Ryan, TOR
    Billy Wagner, NYM
    Currently fourth in a five-team rotisserie league. Comments more indepth than "nice team" or "garbage" are welcome. 
    -KIE
  23. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Well, remote relative to New Orleans. I was the only person I saw today with any kind of New Orleans Saints shirt/jersey/something on. Could it have anything to do with being 2 timezones away?
    Nah. Black & Gold nation all the way.
     
    Why didn't I post about BrickFest, CF?
    Well, for starters, I don't have my own computer up here: I either have to borrow Omi's laptop or use something in the hotel lobby, the latter being the current mode of typing.
     
     
    It's 1 AM here in Portland. I just got back from a 3-hour shopping excursion at the Portland LEGO store. Madhouse, let me tell you. It was as though the throng of BrickFesters pillaged the place, but amazingly, there was stuff left on the shelves. I shared a pick-a-brick canister with a kid from Kansas: most of what I got were 1×4 Metru green Technic bricks, and many more of those than I'll need. I also keep the PAB cup, which will find a home in my pantry, complete with oversized lego stud lid.
     
    Earlier in the day, I got to build a story in a corner café set. I forget the set number, but the goal was to build 18 [mini-fig]stories, four sets around. Makaru, Roa McToa, & I each built one, and with our help we reached 12 stories. Still pretty tall for a LEGO structure.
     
    Makaru & I are going to register in the Mosaic speed build tomorrow. Just because we're into BIONICLE doesn't mean we don't know our way around SYSTEM.
     
    Like I said, it's 1 AM and my brain is fried. I need some sleep.
  25. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Taking time out from BrickFest PDX to post this pre-typed blog entry.
     
    My car turns 1 year old today.
     
    Well, not exactly today. I don't know when it was manufactured, but a year ago today, I bought the dark blue metallic 2006 Chevrolet Malibu LT parked inside the gates at the apartment complex. Although the paper I signed said it had 5 or fewer miles on it, it actually had 10. I didn't complain, however.
    This entry's title is the current mileage.
     
    Thirteen thousand, two hundred and eighty-six of those miles were logged before June 26, 2006, so I figure the mileage rate will taper off in the next few years.
     
    I'd gotten a 72 month financing plan that required $217 per month to pay it off: I was able to eke out a deal $500 above invoice (what the dealer pays for the car, check the NADA website for more details), and put down about $4,300 down payment. I initially was offered a 60 month financing plan at $255 per month, but I didn't think I could budget $255 immediately, so I went for the 6-year plan. I've still been able to pay $250 a month, and $850 in January, on the heels of my Christmas bonus.
     
    I'll deviate from the subject to say how wonderful it is to have a blog, that you can catalogue an entire year. and have it handy to link like that.
     
    Anyway, back to the festivities. With any luck, there'll be time today or tomorrow to go throw the discs I brought at Pier Park. Roa McToa and Omi are supposed to come with.
     
     
    -KIE
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