It Made My Day!

So, totally geeking out here.  I've been using Ubuntu, which is a Linix OS, for about 3 months now.  And yesterday I got to prove to myself, yet again, that it totally rocks.  I needed to strip the audio track off some DVDs that I'm transcribing.  Now, I totally did not know how to do that at the beginning of the day.  But I have friends in high places!  In this case, J, who works at Google.  Yeah.  Google.  Score!  Actually, I started off talking to his wife, Coi, who is no slouch in the tech department.  She got me going, but we ran into a problem, so J came on to sort it out proper.  So, J walked me through the process of stripping the audio file, and it worked!  And I managed to then go back and do the whole thing on my own 7 more times!  Yeay!  That's not the bit that made my day, though.  After walking me through the process, J changed his GChat status to 'omg.  surrounded by hot linux hacker grrls!'  IMMD!

Jetlagging

I really really really like walking through my front door at the end of a trip. Especially if I can fall straight into bed. That's what I did yesterday afternoon. It was bliss! I had dinner with some friends, here at my house, then went BACK to bed for the rest of the night around . . . 7? 8? Something like that. And it was torture to get up this morning at 10! Pathetic, I know. But I had to get up so I could take the rental car back. I worked out it was cheaper (and so much faster, not to mention less painful!) to rent a car and drive home, rather than taking the train. So, no more dragging bags through the Underground for me! But, it did force me out of my cosy nest to deal with the return this morning. Never mind. I'm currently sitting on my sofa, talking to my Sister on the phone (as if I hadn't just spent the past 10 days at her house!) trying to get up the energy to open the suitcases.

On The Road, Again

So, I'm off back home. I fly from Salt Lake to Huston, then on to London (Heathrow) from there. Now, there should be no problem for getting to Huston, but England (all of England) is under a blanket of snow. So is Utah, but Utah knows how to handle it. England freaked! The whole country has been shut down. I don't know if they'll have the runways sufficiently cleared for us to land! Once landed, I'm also not sure the trains will be running, so I can get home! Watch this space.....

Sieging the Castle!

Remember that Gingerbread Castle I made at my parent's house over Christmas? Well, I'm sure you're wondering what happened to it.

On Wednesday, 30 December 2009, my parents and I went back to the Hospital to collect the Castle. Then, Dad and I came home and set it up in the yard, and laid siege to it with the 2 foot catapult. So fun. Now, this thing isn't the most accurate engine in the world, so it took a while to get dialled in. Once we did, though, we got pretty good at hitting it. It helped when we switched ammunition, too. We'd been using wooden blocks, but then we found a lovely block of ice, exactly the right shape and size. Flew much better.

So, here are the photos of the projectile demolition.After a while, though, it got so dark, we were having a hard time finding our ammunition. So, we switched to firecrackers. Since I was due to fly out the next day, we decided it wasn't so prudent for me to touch the explosives, so I just stood off to the side and took photos. *sigh* So many restrictions, any more! Never mind. It was still fun to explode :D

Here're the photos from the explosions!

New Years RAK

For anyone who's interested, there's an RAK going on over on my ScrapBlog.

Happy New Year!

Now, I don't now about the rest of you, but I'm not ready for 2010. I need about 6 extra months in my year! Never mind, I'll make due.

Hope you all had a lovely New Year's Eve. I went out dancing. It was fantastic :)