Ashley’s Weblog

There’s not much going on here, but I wanted to advertise Firefox’s Download Day 2008 premiering Firefox 3. Coming soon to a webpage near you!

On the cat front:

The other day after sitting around a bit we realized that we hadn’t seen our female cat, Gaia, in a bit and went looking for her.

So we looked in all of the usual places: in/on the red play house, under the covers, in the living room window, in the shoe box… nothing. So then we checked some of the more unusual places: in the yellow play house, in the bathroom, in the closet… nothing. Then we looked in Telemachus’, our male cat’s, favorite places: in the cabinets above the fridge, in the tub, in the fridge…nothing. I decided to check back at the window in case she had moved, because normally by now with all of the movement she would have come out of hiding to see if we had food. I get to the window…nothing. So, I get as close as possible and look in the carrier [it holds the window open, the cats like it because they can feel safe and enjoy the window]. Since she’s dark sometimes I miss her when she’s in the carrier, but she wasn’t. However, I noticed that the screen had a hole in it that wasn’t there before… >_> I look out onto the porch [unusable and blocked off]. “Meow”. Yep she chewed or clawed her way through the screen to outside, an was too afraid to make the venture back inside.

So for the next couple of days we kept that window closed, but I figure with it getting warmer we’re going to need that window open. So I fixed it so that the carrier was in front of the hole and kept double checking to make sure Gaia hadn’t made another hole. This morning I called University Health Service about my ear an they insisted that I come in. So blah blah I go in, we come back home. Normally both cats come to greet us at the door to see what we have or to try to bolt out of the door and down the steps to see what that awful smell is coming from our neighbor’s apartment. Telemachus came. Gaia usually takes a few extra moments to wake up. …No Gaia. So, we go on our hunt for her. The first place I looked was the window, but there wasn’t another hole. So we looked all over the apartment including inside the fridge and in the over. No Gaia. I go back to the window with the same idea as before: that maybe she’s in the carrier and I just missed her. Nope… she’s outside! No new hole. She had to have made her fat little belly really small to get into the space behind the carrier and out the old hole, but it’s the only way we can think of that she got out. So now the window is just closed.

Oh, we switched the cats’ litter to that recycled stuff. Yesterday’s News I believe it’s called. It looks interesting and they’re using it well. Plus it’s green

On the school front:

I have 3 finals this week. One tomorrow and one Thursday and my take home final is also due tomorrow. Then it’s all over. Yay! I don’t have class until the middle of June since I’m taking the immersion classes. And I’m only working Mondays and Tuesdays. It’ll be a nice month ^_^

On the other front:

As I mention I have an ear infection that just won’t go way. Yay for not hearing.

May 11 - Mother’s Day

May 15 - Mom’s Birthday

May 18 - I work Mondays & Tuesdays starting now 4-10p

June 3 - My birthday *hint hint*. I’m looking forward to it

June 6 & 7 - We’ll be in Erie

June 16 - My summer classes start 8a-12:25p M-F

I’m typing this instead of my Religious Studies paper… Sorry Professor Ng

So, a couple of weeks ago i was sitting around wishing that Vista had a dock like Mac OS. I decided to see if it existed as a hack or something, and apparently it does. There are two programs that I know of. One is called RocketDock and the other is ObjectDock. I decided to try both. Immediately I knew that RocketDock wasn’t for me. There’s nothing wrong with it an I suggest you try it. It just wasn’t for me. ObjectDock, however, caught my eye right away.

ObjectDock has allowed me to clean off my desktop. Which has always been an issue with me. Where do I keep stuff I need to remember currently? How do I have easy access without too many shortcuts to my school files? Sadly, the non-plus version of ObjectDock doesn’t allow you to have tabs or multiple docks, but it almost completely succeeded at what I wanted it for. Then, I shelled out for the plus version and was just giddy ^_^ Here’s my desk top:

*Sorry couldn’t get the shot without using the on screen keyboard. The Macbook Pro supposed print screen sequence of keys don’t work for me. I’ll figure it out eventually. As you can see there’s a normal dock on the bottom of the screen. Then on the left and on the top I have two hidden docks with tabs. The one on top has a tab for each of my classes and one for school miscellaneous. The one on the left has things I would normally have cluttering up my desktop. While the one on the bottom has items that I use all of the time.

A great feature I found was the ability to make fly out menus. So for Open Office, Microsoft Office, my music players, chat programs, and The Sims [1, 2 and Castaway Stories] I made fly out menus. It allows you to have them all in one place without them being all over the place.

This week in the life of Ashley:

I applied for the new job at PSU. It’s called TLA [Technology Learning Assistant]. It’s a program where the students tutor the faculty on how to use various forms of technology. I was surprised to get an email asking for a meeting, but I did. I met with Jeff this past Friday, nice guy, about it. I thought it was an interview, but I apparently already had the job. I suppose if I had come off really bad he would have kicked me out. He told me about the position, which for the first semester you do it is worth one credit. Then subsequent semesters are for wage. I can’t, however, start until the fall, because since the first time around it’s for credit you have to theoretically take the “class” which is only offered fall and spring.

I have two papers and a final this week, but it’s the last week of class yay! The one paper is on the book Hojoki: Visions of a Torn World for Religious Studies [the one I'm not doing right now] and the second is on physician assisted suicide for my ethics class. My final is in Sociology. I decided to take it this week instead of waiting until finals week. I hope that was a good idea. Tomorrow I go see the plastic surgeon again about my back. Hopefully, he’ll agree that the breast reduction is the best idea as opposed to telling me to lose 50lbs and come back later like last time or at least give me some ideas on how to lose 50lbs without starving myself *crosses fingers*.

I’ve finally decided on the tattoo that I want. It took me about 5 years to actually decide that I want a tattoo, and an additional 4 to decide what I want. So at this rate I should have it by the year 2011. Edit: I had figured out what I wanted then found out that it was design based off of someone else’s tattoo which they made into a design for one of their band’s CDs. Well I still have 3 years to find a parlor

…and the weeks from the Fifth Circle of Hell are about to begin. Happy fun time.

I am, of course, referring to school. I had multiple tests, a group presentation [which was a Circle of Hell in and of itself], three papers [one was the longest I've ever written], and I still had to go to classes. I did, however, skip work for almost three weeks to make sure I got everything done. Thankfully, I have the kind of job in which I can do that.

The wonderful thing was that I had a presentation and exam in the same week in the same class. This is the class I just finished my longest paper in as well. She has the nerve to chastise us for not doing the reading for the class. The reading tends to be three 20-30 page scientific articles. >_> Sure, let me get right on that…

In case anyone cared I’m currently taking HDFS 229, 301, and 416. As well as Soc 030 and RLST 181. For you non-PSU folks that’s Human Development and Family Studies [HDFS] - Infant/Child Development, Ethics, and Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity. Soc is, of course, Sociology. In this case it’s Sociology of Marriage and Families and all that good stuff. And last, but certainly not least, Religious Studies [RLST]. In which we’re studying Chinese and Japanese religions.

Upcoming for the rest of the semester are two exams, two finals, one take home final, two papers, some random homework, and to read a book one of those papers is on. A piece of pie [I don't like cake] in comparison to the last three weeks.

I was so burned out on presenting about, writing papers about, and listening to lectures about fatherhood that I could care less about it now than I did at the beginning of the semester. I have a lot of question about how essentials fathers really are or does the family just need a second parent to “properly” function. I did not have time with everything else going on to really get into it. Maybe I’ll resurrect the topic when I’m less burned out from it for a future paper.

I am going to attempt, should I ever find decent instructions or the courage, to triple boot my computer. So, I will be using [I hope] Leopard, Ubuntu, and Vista [no comments]. There’s a lack of good instructions online. There are some that give a good idea [like this and this] as to what to do if you’re a little more technical minded than I am or have had a decent night’s sleep [unlike me].

Off to enjoy what’s left of my weekend - toodles!

So, after months of thinking about starting a blog about who knows what I’ve finally done it. I will be posting about everything from my adventures with linux and mac os to green design to my crazy cats to school.

Welcome to my world