2mor is B9

That's the text message I sent out when my dad and I learned his renal tumor wasn't cancerous. Yep, got word yesterday that my dad is in the 30% bracket of people whose renal tumors are benign. His doctor joked that after the follow-up appointment in three months, there shouldn't be a reason for him to see my dad ever again.

That's one dis-invite that I liked hearing.

Blogging At 1995 Speeds

I'm in Salinas taking care of my parents since driving is verboten for my dad until he's fully recovered, and my mom can't drive anymore. They're pretty much on their own out here without someone to taxi them around and after my sister did her week and a half here, it's my turn. My dad had something of a scare this weekend that landed him in the hospital for a night so the need for someone to be around in case there's another trip to the emergency room is imperative.

I don't mind hanging out and parent-sitting. The problem is that there's no broadband access at my parent's house. They have satellite TV and a phone and that's it. And you all know I'm recovering from a TV addiction so television for me is verboten as well. (Hi my name is Fel and I'm a Full House addict.) Thinking that I could get a PC Card broadband modem through Verizon and update all my crap online that way proved to be futile. I walked in to the nearest Verizon store after work, and perusing the modems I saw that they were all on sale. Oh how they teased me with their promise of anywhere access and high speed surfing. The model I chose was marked down 50% and there was a 30-day return policy where all would be taken back, and my precious money refunded. I figured I would use the modem for the few days while I was in Salinas and upon my return, I would go back to the Verizon store and dump the modem and two-year contract. Moments before whipping out my card to complete the deal, I asked the sales rep about broadband coverage in Salinas. A quick check of the service area map confirmed that as far as wireless access is concerned, Salinas is as broadband-free as when Steinbeck was alive and roaming the streets. Dial up and it's glacial download and upload speeds for the next few days, then. It took damn near 3 minutes to upload the picture of the phone. Forget loading a new website until the end of the week, unless I lose my mind and think that watching the upload status bar move one pixel an hour is preferable to hanging out at the local mall.

So this blog is being brought to you through the damn phone line, something that I haven't done since the last millennium.

I've Hacked My iPod

After waiting weeks for the iVue front panel to come out, I finally plunked down my money and bought one.

Anyone who knows me knows that I like being different and that I often modify stuff I own to personalize it. My iPod is no exception. I wanted something so distinct and personal that I went to an extreme of sorts as opposed to getting a skin or case. I actually went to the extreme of nullifying my warranty and opened my iPod to do this. It's more along the lines of major surgery to replace the front panel and click wheel cover of an iPod. It's serious.

The level of seriousness made it imperative to conduct this modification under some special conditions. I was, after all, opening my iPod and the last thing I wanted was to introduce any particulate matter into the delicate works. I certainly didn't want to do this mod in my dog-hair ridden apartment (thanks Hoku) and I can't stand dust on the screen that I can't get rid of because it's on the inside of the panel. Luckily, I have access to a laminar flow hood which is dust and bioburden free.

After some major work and sweat under this laminar flow hood, my iPod now looks like this:There have been some comments from other people on the web about this being an ugly mod, but I like it and the whole point of this is to have my iPod be more personalized than anything else that's out there. I have yet to see someone else with this mod, so it's pretty safe to say that within the circle of people I hang out with and know, I have something very different. Add the firmware hacks I'm doing to change the look onscreen, and the combination will be uniquely mine.

No, I won't do this mod for you.

Clearing Out Mental Logjams, Dealing With Life

So this is the other blog that catches all the other stuff of my life. When I mean "other," it doesn't mean that this blog will be mutually exclusive of my other two (or is it three?) blogs in the ARL NorthAm universe. It would be difficult at best to try to compartmentalize my life into neat little blocks and of course you'll see some bleed-through here from the other aspects of my exponentially complicated life.

What you won't find here are rants complaining about how crappy my life is, because a) I refuse to beat myself up over it thus reinforcing the illusion that my life is crappy and b) my life isn't that crappy.

I use the word illusion when it comes to the perception of how crappy one's life is because it's excatly that: an illusion. Was Paris Hilton's time in jail tough? Probably not to us, but to her the perception of being in jail led to her having a nervous breakdown. Whatever. But enough already about this life coaching drivel, I have more important things to blog about. Like my upcoming iPod modifications.

Now some if not most of you have one or more of these devices from Apple and if you’re like me, you’ll want to make it more personal. It’s not enough that they come in different colors, or two if you own the full-sized versions. You have to make it more your own and personalize it so that you feel like it’s a part of you. For some people I know, their iPod is a part of them since I rarely see them without it on some part of their body.

I myself own four versions of the iPod: a 1st generation Shuffle given to me as a gift, an 80 gigabyte video iPod, a 2nd generation Shuffle, and an 8 gigabyte video Nano. Sure, I’m a little crazy when it comes to these devices.

What I plan to mod this time around is the 80 gigabyte video iPod. Right now it’s just basic black and encased inside an Otterbox waterproof case. When I bought the iPod I never bothered to take the plastic film that covers the front off, so it’s never been scratched and is essentially as pristine as it was in the box. The mirror finish back is preserved through the use of some protective film I bought when I bought the iPod.

So just what kind of mod will I be doing to this iPod? Well, as long as I can remember, I’ve had a fascination with things that are see-through and love to be able to see the inner machinations of things like radios and cell phones. In fact if there's an option for getting something with a clear case, I'll probably get that one. I've replaced cell phone cases with clear versions just so I could see their inner works. When I found out that RapidRepair came out with a clear front panel for the 5G iPod, I was right there to order it the moment it was available for shipping. I had the option of sending my iPod in for installation or I could do it myslef. I opted to do it myself. I wanted to opportunity to explore the guts of my iPod before I installed the panel. I also wanted to make sure that no dust gets inside during the disasembly and reassembly process. You might be wondering how I plan to do this. Here at my work we have laminar flow hoods that are are basically clean environments that are the size of a tabletop. Imagine a clean room shrunk down to bench size and you get the idea. Just in cse yu were wondering what one looks like, here's a photo:
It has a HEPA filter that will screen out all the dust, lint, and even microorganisms that might contaminate the surface. I'll avoid any problems with dust inside the facplate.

It's on it's way in the mail and I should be getting it sometime this week.I'll have a seperate blog for the installation when it comes in.

Other things I'm working on: getting the ARL NorthAm offices into order. However, I've been wondering about whether I want to keep living on the snoozy little island of Alameda or pick up and move to Berkeley. I really miss living there despite the obvious hippie-freak factor and Alameda just seems so bland. Actually what I really miss is having neighbors that interact with me. My current living situation would be great if there were neighbors that said more than three words to me a week. Being the highly social person I am, I get antsy at the thought of going home to four walls. Hoku is a great conversationalist, but her range of subjects is limited and she really doesn't care much for talk about iPods and driving around the world. I pretty much control the conversations we have and it would be nice to have a human being take over the selection of subject matter once in a while. Her main topics deal mainly with going outside, chasing fast moving objects, barking at those who might be viewed as invaders, and whatever I happen to be eating at the time. Ah, youth. Dog youth.

So I'm scanning the craigslist options and thinking that it may be time to get a place in Berkeley with roommates. As long as I have my own bathroom and enough space for my stuff, which was pared down substantially since the last move, I think I'll be fine. I'm not the stuff accumulator I was a few years back, and my collection of big bulky items has been relegated to the warehouse for a time when I can store it in a warehouse of my own.

Back on task. I did manage to clean up the ARL NorthAM office, currently located in my second bedroom. Gone were the styrofoam food trays from the take out places, miscellaneous paper trash and accumulated dog hair. Up went the ARL NorthAm banner and some photos and viola! ARL NorthAm headquarters.

Now if I could only get some work done in there.

I Can't Believe That Someone Didn't Take "DNAgent" to Title Their Blog

So Bonus for me since I own dnagent.net. Why hadn't anyone claimed this name? It's such a cool name that I was sure that someone had taken it.

Oh well, sucks to be whoever wanted this blog name because it's mine now, sucker.