Quickly tilting planet

The weekend flew by in a blink of the eye. I guess Kenshu weekends usually do. Even though they are only two hours each day of training, it’s enough to drain me completely for the rest of the day. But time definitely seems to be moving more quickly now that I’m back in school (EMU in the Geology program, for those not in the know.) I’m actually really enjoying the classes right now, but I think it has a lot to do with only taking 8 credit hours… I have time to study and keep up with the information, instead of panicking to catch up.

Unfortunately, it means that the housework has fallen to a slightly lower priority, which isn’t so bad right now, but is going to quickly become a problem as the nights get cooler. However, I did finally get that flagpole up that Kristin and Rod got for me for my birthday *last* year. I successfully over-engineered the base of the pole, and ended up mixing about four times as much concrete as I really needed, but that sucker’s not gonna move now!

Free World Dialup and Skype

I’ve added a new tag in the menubar for Free World Dialup, a free Internet telephone (Voice over IP) service. Unfortunately, it’s only computer-to-computer right now (though it will call the other services, like Vonage and Packet-8, for free). And it’s really not all that different from voice chat through services like AIM, MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger. But it does assign a static number to each user (mine is 485040), and is more closely tied to the phone system. So I can now, for example, dial toll-free numbers as well as internet-only numbers from the computer. I suppose that’s only really useful when my cell phone battery is dead… like right now.
Update: I’ve now signed up for a Skype account as well. My username is jeffab, of course. Although it’s not tied as closely to the phone system, it seems to be a bit more stable and more widely adopted. Also, both FWD and Skype are free to sign-up and use, and charge by-the-minute for calls to regular phone numbers. (Around $0.01 or $0.02 per minute.)

updates

As Dad said, “You can tell that you’ve been working on your house… there haven’t been any weblog updates in a long time.” Yes… much housework has been done, and much more to do. But currently, I’m sitting in South Lyon wrapping up a packed weekend. Marie and I went to the UofM vs Miami of Ohio football game on saturday… first game that I’ve been to in quite some time, and I have to say that the band looked and sounded great. I did get some pics that I’ll share when I get a chance to upload them.
On sunday, the Cats had our annual show for Dancing in the Streets, which went superbly… pics and video when I get a chance on that as well. And then I went up to visit Kristin and Rod, in Saginaw.
So now I’m collecting holiday pay for sitting in the station playing with the computer and studying… for now.