What is up with this Rain?

I opened this new blog a couple of days ago but today is the first chance that I have had to put anything into it. I already have a blog on my personal webpage but that is geting a little bit unwieldy with so many entries and with no search function.
I have another ulterior motive for starting this blog here on wordpress.com …. I am trying to start to write alot more in general, hoping that it helps me to increase the number of pages of my dissertation that I can write at one sitting. I have a ways to go on that book and really need in up my output before November rolls around. For those of you that I have talked to, you know why and for the rest of you, you are going to have to give me a call to find out!

As for the title of this entry, What IS up with this rain?!?! I have started cycling once again after having taken quite a number of years off from the sport. But this weather has not been cooperating this winter/spring. I seem to only be able to get in one to two rides a week in. I was planning to commute on my bicycle for the entirety of the winter. However, this CA winter has been especially unreliable and stormy. It is not that I think that I will melt if I ride in the rain. It is just that I will need to clean and dry off my bike if I do ride and that will add an extra 30 minutes to my day that I don’t presently have. Additionally, I don’t have any raingear to wear on the bike, which can make for a very uncomfortable rainy-day commute. I guess that I will just have to continue fitting my rides in when I can.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Today was the last workday of the week for me! Tomorrow is a University holiday in honor of Cesar Chavez, the legendary Californian farm labor organizer. This weekend is a three-dayer for me. WooHoo!

I guess that I will make this long weekend into a good long dissertation writing weekend. That doesn’t mean that I won’t have some fun though. Wendy’s friend was able to get tickets to the luxury box again for LA Kings game at the Staples Center on Saturday evening. The only bummer is that is the same day as the UCLA Final Four game. It is at the exact same time too. I guess that I am going to have to record the UCLA game and watch it when I get home from the hockey game. I just home that noone ruins the suspense for me. I think that is probably too much to ask. The announcers will surely give updates to the game over the course of the evening. The Bruins are, after all, a Los Angeles team and a very popular one. There is no team in college basketball with a more hallowed history than the UCLA Bruins.

I have reduced a few movies that I own over the last few days to put on my phone. If you have a smartphone and would like to play movies or video on it, you should consider installing The Core Pocket Media Player. It comes in Windows Mobile and Palm versions and works really great! If you like the program please consider throwing a few bucks the developers way if you can. They created the program as freeware, but if you end up using it please consider helping the authors out a bit. Another great program that I have found on the web to shrink video and still maintain pretty good video quality is Pocket DivX Encoder. This program, like TCPMedia Player is freeware. If you would like to support the efforts of the programmer you should consider purchasing Lathe, a better version of Pocket DivX Encoder, for a discounted $5.95 at this website. With these tools, you should be able to shrink,put and watch video on your smartphone with relative ease. All the standard copyright legality warnings apply to all the above. Piracy is not good.

Monday, March 27, 2006

The dissertations just keep rolling. Mine just got to be a much longer project by expanding the time period that I will be covering in my examination of identity in Ancient Egypt. It will be alot more work but will ultimately be a much better book.

Claudia and I were able to have dinner last week with Adam, a longtime friend of ours. We had not seen him since our wedding 5 years ago! It was really good to catch up on all the excitement that has gone on in our lives since we were last able to see each other!

A week ago, I had to get a new phone. My Palm Treo 600 decided that the manufacturer’s warranty period was over so it could die on me! It still worked fine as a PDA but the phone portion of it went wonky almost 4 months to the day that the warranty ran out. It would show a full strength signal, I would dial the number, it would ring once, hang up and display a ‘No Signal’ message. Very annoying. I know that planned obsolescence is built into any product, but this was ridiculous, especially since I paid about $400 for the darn thing! Until I got my new phone, I didn’t realize how crappy the reception had been on the old phone. The sound quality is amazing and I now get reception virtually everywhere. At any rate, I ended up buying a Verizon VX 6700. That is right, I have abandoned the Palm operating system for good and bought a Pocket PC phone sporting software from the Evil Empire (ie Microsoft)! And the worst thing about that is that it really is a much better product than my Palm. In all fairness that might be due to my Palm being a first generation smartphone but it wasn’t ever a very good phone. The only drawback is that the phone only takes miniSD cards meaning that I am oing to have to buy a new card for my phone if I want to watch any movies or listen to any MP3s on my phone.

And for my final thought for today….

HOW ABOUT THOSE UCLA BRUINS?!?!?

They are now in the Final Four and right in the thick of the hunt for their first Basketball National Championship since 1995! I have really been at UCLA a long time when I think about the fact that I was here for that last National championship! However, UCLA is really a great place to be and I couldn’t be happier. So I guess I will sign off with a big, heartfelt….

GO BRUINS!!!!!

Monday, March 13, 2006

Having not written for a while, I think that I am going to have to catch everybody up on the events of the last few weeks. Oscar weekend was a big weekend for Claudia. Her organization, Villa Aurora, in cooperation with the German Consulate, the Goethe Institute Los Angeles and the German Film Export Union had a reception on the Saturday of Oscar weekend to honor all of the German Oscar nominees of 2006. This, of course, meant that Claudia had to work a 10 hour day that day. Instead of going to the reception, I went with my friend, Wendy, to the King’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Wendy’s friend was able to get some tickets to a luxury box in the Staples Center and let Wendy and myself come along!! The second time this year that I have been able to see a game from a luxury box and the 5th game that I have been able to see this year! Very cool. The next day we were at the German Films Oscar viewing party in Hollywood. We have to get dressed up for that one since it was a black tie affair. It is fun to get dressed up every once in a while. Although Claudia always dresses nicely, those of you that know me well, know that these dress up days are few and far between for me (cue visual of my red, black and white camoflage cutoff shorts and my bright orange shirt)!

As for other stuff, I am in the process of working my level of fitness back up again. I have been putting in a number of miles every week in 5-10 mile stints. It is good to be back on the bike after an absence of quite a number of years!