July 6, 2003: 9 Days to Go!

Today might be my last day at home before we have to move. Not likely, but a slight possibility. That is kind of a weird feeling. It will be SO nice, though, to finally own a house and not have to rent anymore. I have been trying to buy a house longer than anyone I know and John and Michelle, Craig and Emily, Eric and Amanda, Nate and Joe all managed to beat me to it. But it looks like the time has finally come. Cross your fingers for us.

The updates are finally pouring in again. There is also a few more restaurants added to Ithaca Portal, I figured that I needed to get it as up to date as possible before leaving town.

Min and I slept in late today and so did Andy. It is still strange having the house totally to ourselves. We ordered some pizza from Sammy’s for lunch, yummy. They really do have awesome pizza. You can find them listed on Ithaca Portal now too.

In my continuing effort to make SGL show up on every web search ever. Today, we were wondering what was the difference between brass and bronze. I had to know this for my metalurgy and materials classes back at GMI (Kettering University) years ago but by now I have mostly forgotten that information. It just isn’t something that I use everyday. So I looked it up online and here is the scoop…

Brass is an alloy made up of copper and zinc. Bronze is an alloy made from copper and tin. Cupro-nickel is an alloy made up of copper and nickel and is the metal made famous by our coinage. Steel is a mix of iron and carbon (not a true alloy.) Maganese Steel is a mix or iron, maganese and carbon. Stainless Steel is a mix of iron, chromium, nickel and carbon. Duralumin is an alloy of aluminium, copper and magnesium. Now, you can never say that SGL isn’t an educational site.

After I posted yesterday and looked at the site to make sure that it went through ok, I noticed just how incredibly long yesterday’s update was. I have no idea how that happened. I don’t remember spending much time writing it but it is totally out of control. More packing going on today. Min is going crazy in her closet trying to get that taken care of. There is just so much to pack. We emptied all of the plastic Walmart containers at my parent’s house and brought them back with us to pack in again and so we are now filling those back up. The clothes are almost all packed up at this point. I am spending a lot of time today working on trying to get a Linux Terminal Server up and running on the Dell Optiplex that we are going to install at Washington Hospital Center. There will be three stations functioning off of this single PIII-933. It is really a good use of resources. It provides us three complete computers all for the cost of one. And even that one isn’t new. Linux is an amazing thing.

At 8:30, Bob came up to visit. We all went out to get some Red Bull for Andy and Ice Cream in Groton for Min and I.

Andy and I spent most of the evening packing and loading my car for the trip to Rochester in the morning. I have to be up early to make it out to the funeral in time. Kelley’s Heroes is going to be marching from the church to the cemetary in the morning. So I have to get out to Caledonia before driving to DC. It will be a long day of driving tomorrow, about ten hours worth. One last hurrah for me and my little yellow car 🙁 I am really going to miss that car. Andy and I also broke down and packed up the basement theatre system. So no more movies for us. That is very sad. But it will build up the excitement for when we get to set it all up again in the new house. I am taking about twenty movies with me to DC because I learned my lesson last time I was down there and now I know that I really need something to keep myself occupied with when I am in the hotel room. Too often I just need some way to relax after a long day at the office. I am also taking “One for the Money” which is a new book on CD from a new mystery author that neither Min nor I have tried out yet. She is supposed to be really good so I am excited to listen to it.

Min and I wrote our final power and rent checks this evening. That is weird. In theory (knock on wood) this will be the last rent check I ever have to write. Boy won’t that be nice. Well, it is late and I have both an early and a long day tomorrow. So I have to get to bed. We are meeting at Jen’s house at 9:30 in the morning and that is hours from here.

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