Here...

Short story:
- Got here just fine.
- No problems
- Was awake 26 hrs. yesterday.
- No internet in the dorm rooms yet.

Long story:
I have posts and pictures ready on my laptop for whenever I get a connection.

San Francisco

It's 10:37 PST and I am in San Fran right now; first flight seemed alright, but I just need to have this over and done with.

I'm going to be done traveling for nearly a day and the clock'll only have advanced 6 hours...

Site update

I'm changing around some of the setups on the website to a simpler system for updating.

- The site actually will have a homepage, and not just a redirect to the blog.

- The banner'll be changed pretty quickly; I wanted a large area to put pictures and other random things once I get going in Japan, but right now it's just the template I have for it.

- The blog's layout is now fully customized to what I want. In other words, I finally started looking at how Blogger actually does site layouts, and spliced the previous layout into my current design for the site.

- Pictures will eventually either have something on it, or redirect to my Picasa setup.

- Etc. is for everything else. I'll probably put my little utility programs on there, and just random other things.

Random Update, the deux

- My wisdom teeth removal (part 1) is at the "just being annoyed that more stuff gets stuck back there than normal" stage.

- I'm working on building a redesign to actually have a main page around; I'm working on setting it up with the idea of many images being on there all the time. (i.e. easy background swapping) Biggest bonus of the new design so far: JST + CDT clocks. Check them before you try to contact me when it's 4:30 in the morning over there.

- I'm only really wearing my knee brace when I'm out of the house at this point; I'm back on the bike full-time, and just taking it easier than I was before.

- My magic collection is about 25% done being converted from binders + deck boxes to sleeve (those ~1000-count) boxes for Japan. In my mind, I have 4 parts of my collection: binder 0 (promos), binder 1 (main binder), binder 2 (crap binder), and the decks; 2/3 of binder 2 and the decks are set.

- I got my excess packs and that TSP box I've been carrying around sold off from a friend at Gencon; $250 wasn't what I _really_ wanted for a price on it all, but it beat my minimum by $20. That went into a DS, New Super Mario Bros. (80% of the way to 100%-ing it) and Super Mario 64DS (~45 stars) for the trip; I plan to find some Final Fantasys before I go, so I should have plenty to do.

A thought occurs...

- Brett Favre is now a member of the Jets.

- Madden '09 has him on the cover in Packers colors.

- Interesting? Nah.

Random Update

I have a brace on my right knee from a dislocated patella last Tuesday, my mouth is almost back to normal from getting my top wisdom teeth out last Friday, and I had a persistent kink in my back Monday and Tuesday this week. So, I'm just ready for the next day to begin 2 days before it comes...

Japan's getting almost there; 2 small things left on the things-to-do list, then it's just clothes shopping.

Reformatted my laptop to set it up for Japan. Those that know my computer know I don't normally run any antivirus or spyblock software, as they just slow down the computer beyond any desire I have to use them. I tried putting Symantec Endpoint on, and it pretty much began a cascade of problems, including disabling automatic updates and preventing me from installing some of my more ... grey ... applications. So, I had to start from scratch again and I'm just leaving the antivirus off for now, at least until I get _everything_ on it. I know I'll lose some of my crackers, (Symantec doesn't like AnyDVD, ophcrack, and netpass, if you know what those are) but I'll live.

Biggest complaint of this reformatting: towards the end of last semester, I started looking around for "stock images" for image work later, as I was getting tired of searching google images every time I wanted something. I eventually became a regular surfer of 4chan, because despite any criticism I've heard of it, it's one hell of a topical image repository. Many of my current wallpapers came from there, as well as now-about 60% of the total library of images I use. I was changing desktop themes and moved to a great artwork wallpaper I found over there, and just thought to myself that I wish we had faster internet at home, just so I could surf 4chan like I could at school.