Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Trip to Asheville
Last December, Bobbi and I decided that for Christmas we would give each other a long weekend together. In other words, we'd go off somewhere and split the cost. I guess that's the sentiment vs the practical reality of it. Anyway, at the time neither of us really had the time or the money to do it. We both had work, I had school, and money was tight (and it always is, so it seems). We decided that we'd do something after the first of the year, maybe in early March, when I had a break from school for a week or so, and the weather would be warming up some. Those were our plans, anyway.
Well, here we are in the middle of September, and this past weekend, we finally took our trip together. We decided to go to Asheville. I've never really been there. I camped nearby in the Pisgah National Forest once, and Bobbi and I spent a weekend in Waynesville, about 30 miles west, but that's about it for me. Bobbi has a son who goes to UNCA, so she has been there a few times to visit. But we've neither of us has been there to sightsee and just hang out. So that's what we did this trip.
All in all it was a pretty good trip. We stayed at a Day's Inn in downtown. It was a little rundown, but Bobbi says it was clean, so I'll take her word for that. This Day's Inn was apparently owned and operated by an Indian (the country India, not the Native American Indian). Attached to one end of it was an Indian art gallery. But once you went inside the place, there were racks of clothes and other cloth goods hanging in the lobby. All were for sale. They had a continental breakfast buffet too. This was in a room full of shelves with all sorts of Indian art (carvings, small paintings, whatever). All for sale. The actual buffet consisted mostly of pastries, which looked like they might have been bought in bulk at Sam's Club or Costco's, along with cookies, fruit, cereal, totally dried out "homemade" biscuits, bagels, and little packages of doughnuts (powdered sugar or chocolate coated, take your pick).
The room wasn't too bad. It was clean and the bed was big. And best of all, we had "Free Wirless Internet" (at least that's what the marquee called it). I had my trusty Zaurus with it's really old version of Opera, but at least I could surf a little and find out local stuff if necessary (assuming the sites didn't crash the browser; more and more do just that). And since my Zaurus runs Linux, I could easily ssh into my school account. I couldn't really do very much once I got there, but I could easily ssh into it if I wanted.
Downtown Asheville is basically an art district. There are lots of little shops and galleries, and they are all within walking distance of where we stayed. There are also lots of little restaurants, so there's plenty to eat. And the prices are pretty decent (almost always for the food, and sometimes for the art). So we basically walked from gallery to gallery with an occasional stop for food and drink. The weather was nice (although a little warmer than I was hoping for) and it made for a nice time.
We also went to the UNCA campus. There is some type of nature trail on or near the campus, so Bobbi's son Eli showed us around that area. Eli has a dog named Igor, so we took Igor along to romp around in the woods. The nature trail is nice, but I was a little disappointed in the actual UNCA campus. It has a 60's look, and just doesn't have the character my campus has (High Point University). But other than that, I'm sure it's a decent place.
Other than that, the trip was fun and uneventful. Nobody lost anything (not permanently anyway), nobody got hurt, nor any of those other things you worry about when you travel. I found some non-tobacco cigarettes I can smoke when I've had a few beers without my nicotine monkey climbing up on my back, and Bobbi got some beads and books on beading. We both liked our Christmas present to each other, even if it was a bit late.
Well, here we are in the middle of September, and this past weekend, we finally took our trip together. We decided to go to Asheville. I've never really been there. I camped nearby in the Pisgah National Forest once, and Bobbi and I spent a weekend in Waynesville, about 30 miles west, but that's about it for me. Bobbi has a son who goes to UNCA, so she has been there a few times to visit. But we've neither of us has been there to sightsee and just hang out. So that's what we did this trip.
All in all it was a pretty good trip. We stayed at a Day's Inn in downtown. It was a little rundown, but Bobbi says it was clean, so I'll take her word for that. This Day's Inn was apparently owned and operated by an Indian (the country India, not the Native American Indian). Attached to one end of it was an Indian art gallery. But once you went inside the place, there were racks of clothes and other cloth goods hanging in the lobby. All were for sale. They had a continental breakfast buffet too. This was in a room full of shelves with all sorts of Indian art (carvings, small paintings, whatever). All for sale. The actual buffet consisted mostly of pastries, which looked like they might have been bought in bulk at Sam's Club or Costco's, along with cookies, fruit, cereal, totally dried out "homemade" biscuits, bagels, and little packages of doughnuts (powdered sugar or chocolate coated, take your pick).
The room wasn't too bad. It was clean and the bed was big. And best of all, we had "Free Wirless Internet" (at least that's what the marquee called it). I had my trusty Zaurus with it's really old version of Opera, but at least I could surf a little and find out local stuff if necessary (assuming the sites didn't crash the browser; more and more do just that). And since my Zaurus runs Linux, I could easily ssh into my school account. I couldn't really do very much once I got there, but I could easily ssh into it if I wanted.
Downtown Asheville is basically an art district. There are lots of little shops and galleries, and they are all within walking distance of where we stayed. There are also lots of little restaurants, so there's plenty to eat. And the prices are pretty decent (almost always for the food, and sometimes for the art). So we basically walked from gallery to gallery with an occasional stop for food and drink. The weather was nice (although a little warmer than I was hoping for) and it made for a nice time.
We also went to the UNCA campus. There is some type of nature trail on or near the campus, so Bobbi's son Eli showed us around that area. Eli has a dog named Igor, so we took Igor along to romp around in the woods. The nature trail is nice, but I was a little disappointed in the actual UNCA campus. It has a 60's look, and just doesn't have the character my campus has (High Point University). But other than that, I'm sure it's a decent place.
Other than that, the trip was fun and uneventful. Nobody lost anything (not permanently anyway), nobody got hurt, nor any of those other things you worry about when you travel. I found some non-tobacco cigarettes I can smoke when I've had a few beers without my nicotine monkey climbing up on my back, and Bobbi got some beads and books on beading. We both liked our Christmas present to each other, even if it was a bit late.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Star Trek
Since I've been out of school for the summer, I've been getting back into something I used to really enjoy: watching tv. I'll admit, I'm a bit of a tv junkie. Now that I'm home at night, instead of in class, I'm falling back into my tv habit (that's not necessarily a good thing). There's lots of interesting stuff out there, and I'm trying to watch all of it that I can.
One of my favorite shows of all time is Star Trek. As a kid, I remember watching it every chance I could. Our local NBC affiliate (channel 6) was always showing something else in the Star Trek time slot, and I would screw with out tv and antenna, trying to pick up channel 7, the NBC affiliate for some towns about an hour away. Lots of time, I got nothing but static, but sometimes, I could get a pretty decent signal, depending on the weather and other atmospheric influences. For some reason, my parents would actually tolerate this behaviour.
Later in life, I kept up with Star Trek via reruns and syndication. When I moved into the area I'm currently living (roughly 20 years ago), one of the local UHF affiliates carried Star Trek. I was living in hotels at the time, trying to save money to get an apartment. As time went on, I had to go from relatively decent places to cheaper and cheaper places. The last place I stayed was pretty bad. I later found out it's where the local hookers took their johns, which explained the constant coming and going all night long. I had a chair proped under the door. I had no idea if it would keep anybody out, but it worked in the movies, so why not try it.
Anyway, you could different rates based on whether or not your room had a tv. I knew that Channel 45 was going to do a Star Trek marathon that weekend, and I sprang for the extra money to get not just a tv, but a COLOR tv (yeah, you could actually get a room with a B&W tv, or no TV). When I got in my room, I was in for a huge disappointment. The "hotel" had no cable, just antennas on the tv's. And my tv apparently had no UHF tuner! I was totally pissed. But I couldn't afford to leave, so I had to tough it out. Fortunately I had a cheap pocketknife, and realized I could pry the cover off where the UHF tuner should have been. Underneath, there actually was a tuner. I have no idea why the manufacturer put a UHF tuner in the damn tv and then covered the hole instead of simply putting a tuner knob on it. Anyway, I pried the cover off, then yanked the knob off the VHF tuner and put it on the UHF tuner, and tuned into channel 45. Next, I tore up a cheap wire coathanger to make a UHF antenna. I was actually able to get it all done before the marathon started. And so it went. I would watch Star Trek whenever I could, and when the movies came out, I always went. Even though the first one completely sucked, I still loved it. My heros were back!
I've also been a fan of all the other "spin-offs." The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, even Enterprise. Even though Enterprise wasn't all that great, it still satisified my Star Trek jones, and I watched it whenever I could, until school started to interfer. Since Enterprise has been cancelled, this is the first time in 25 years or so that there haven't been any Star Trek based shows on tv. So I was really amazed when I ran across this wikipedia article entitled Star Trek: New Voyages. Which led to me finding this site, Star Trek New Voyages.
I immediately downloaded the two episodes that I could find (I think that two episodes are all that are available just yet), and the trailer for the third episode (due out in September). I got the small versions because I wanted to watch them before I wasted bandwidth downloading the DVD versions. I've watched both episodes, and I'm pretty impressed, overall. The premise is that this is season four. The show is taking up where things would have gone had the original series not been cancelled. The show actually starts up with an intro from the NBC color peacock. Everything looks like the original series. The intro, the ending, everything. They use the theme song and all of the sound effects. And incidental music comes from the original episodes. My biggest complaint is with the casting. Bobbi (my girlfriend) actually liked what little she has seen and she has the same complaint. The new Kirk almost has a pompadore and looks more like Elvis than Kirk. Uhuru is a very light-skinned black girl. Janice Rand is a red-head, not a blond, Scottie has the worst Scotch accent you've ever heard... Well, the list goes on and on. But that's my biggest complaint. Otherwise, the scripts aren't bad, the sets look nearly the same, and the acting isn't any worse than the original (unfortunately [or not depending on your point of view], the new Kirk doesn't talk in quite the stilted, choppy way that the original Kirk did).
The second episode is better than the first, and the trailers for the third episode are as good as any trailer/teaser I've seen. I'm already looking forward to episode three (which features Walter Koenig as an aged Chekov, as I recall). After watching all this, I downloaded the DVD version of episode one. That went great, until I got down to about 500 Meg or so. Then my machine apparently hung. I had to reboot, and even after that, the download would occasionally hang, and the best way out would be to shutdown and restart Ktorrent (my torrent client when I'm using Linux, which is my OS of choice). Eventually I got the entire file, and burned it to DVD, using K3B. Unfortunately, the resulting DVD would not play in my DVD player (the one at my television). The worst thing is that it will play on my WinXP Dell laptop (using InterVideo WinDVD). I haven't tried playing it on a Linux box (I'm having various problems with my Linux box, as well as my Windoze laptop since I got broadband). I'm thinking about buying a new DVD player so I can watch it on tv. And I'd definitely like to take it to Bobbi's to see if it will play on her Playstation.
Once I find something that this DVD will play on (which will probably involve me buying a new DVD player), I'm going to download the second episode (in which Willian Windom reprises his role as Commodore Matt Decker. I've really got to hand it to someone, they've really come up with something new and original. And they've really got my attention. I intend to keep up these guys.
One of my favorite shows of all time is Star Trek. As a kid, I remember watching it every chance I could. Our local NBC affiliate (channel 6) was always showing something else in the Star Trek time slot, and I would screw with out tv and antenna, trying to pick up channel 7, the NBC affiliate for some towns about an hour away. Lots of time, I got nothing but static, but sometimes, I could get a pretty decent signal, depending on the weather and other atmospheric influences. For some reason, my parents would actually tolerate this behaviour.
Later in life, I kept up with Star Trek via reruns and syndication. When I moved into the area I'm currently living (roughly 20 years ago), one of the local UHF affiliates carried Star Trek. I was living in hotels at the time, trying to save money to get an apartment. As time went on, I had to go from relatively decent places to cheaper and cheaper places. The last place I stayed was pretty bad. I later found out it's where the local hookers took their johns, which explained the constant coming and going all night long. I had a chair proped under the door. I had no idea if it would keep anybody out, but it worked in the movies, so why not try it.
Anyway, you could different rates based on whether or not your room had a tv. I knew that Channel 45 was going to do a Star Trek marathon that weekend, and I sprang for the extra money to get not just a tv, but a COLOR tv (yeah, you could actually get a room with a B&W tv, or no TV). When I got in my room, I was in for a huge disappointment. The "hotel" had no cable, just antennas on the tv's. And my tv apparently had no UHF tuner! I was totally pissed. But I couldn't afford to leave, so I had to tough it out. Fortunately I had a cheap pocketknife, and realized I could pry the cover off where the UHF tuner should have been. Underneath, there actually was a tuner. I have no idea why the manufacturer put a UHF tuner in the damn tv and then covered the hole instead of simply putting a tuner knob on it. Anyway, I pried the cover off, then yanked the knob off the VHF tuner and put it on the UHF tuner, and tuned into channel 45. Next, I tore up a cheap wire coathanger to make a UHF antenna. I was actually able to get it all done before the marathon started. And so it went. I would watch Star Trek whenever I could, and when the movies came out, I always went. Even though the first one completely sucked, I still loved it. My heros were back!
I've also been a fan of all the other "spin-offs." The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, even Enterprise. Even though Enterprise wasn't all that great, it still satisified my Star Trek jones, and I watched it whenever I could, until school started to interfer. Since Enterprise has been cancelled, this is the first time in 25 years or so that there haven't been any Star Trek based shows on tv. So I was really amazed when I ran across this wikipedia article entitled Star Trek: New Voyages. Which led to me finding this site, Star Trek New Voyages.
I immediately downloaded the two episodes that I could find (I think that two episodes are all that are available just yet), and the trailer for the third episode (due out in September). I got the small versions because I wanted to watch them before I wasted bandwidth downloading the DVD versions. I've watched both episodes, and I'm pretty impressed, overall. The premise is that this is season four. The show is taking up where things would have gone had the original series not been cancelled. The show actually starts up with an intro from the NBC color peacock. Everything looks like the original series. The intro, the ending, everything. They use the theme song and all of the sound effects. And incidental music comes from the original episodes. My biggest complaint is with the casting. Bobbi (my girlfriend) actually liked what little she has seen and she has the same complaint. The new Kirk almost has a pompadore and looks more like Elvis than Kirk. Uhuru is a very light-skinned black girl. Janice Rand is a red-head, not a blond, Scottie has the worst Scotch accent you've ever heard... Well, the list goes on and on. But that's my biggest complaint. Otherwise, the scripts aren't bad, the sets look nearly the same, and the acting isn't any worse than the original (unfortunately [or not depending on your point of view], the new Kirk doesn't talk in quite the stilted, choppy way that the original Kirk did).
The second episode is better than the first, and the trailers for the third episode are as good as any trailer/teaser I've seen. I'm already looking forward to episode three (which features Walter Koenig as an aged Chekov, as I recall). After watching all this, I downloaded the DVD version of episode one. That went great, until I got down to about 500 Meg or so. Then my machine apparently hung. I had to reboot, and even after that, the download would occasionally hang, and the best way out would be to shutdown and restart Ktorrent (my torrent client when I'm using Linux, which is my OS of choice). Eventually I got the entire file, and burned it to DVD, using K3B. Unfortunately, the resulting DVD would not play in my DVD player (the one at my television). The worst thing is that it will play on my WinXP Dell laptop (using InterVideo WinDVD). I haven't tried playing it on a Linux box (I'm having various problems with my Linux box, as well as my Windoze laptop since I got broadband). I'm thinking about buying a new DVD player so I can watch it on tv. And I'd definitely like to take it to Bobbi's to see if it will play on her Playstation.
Once I find something that this DVD will play on (which will probably involve me buying a new DVD player), I'm going to download the second episode (in which Willian Windom reprises his role as Commodore Matt Decker. I've really got to hand it to someone, they've really come up with something new and original. And they've really got my attention. I intend to keep up these guys.
Subscribe to Comments [Atom]