I’m building an ark – anyone have some animals that need saving?

Adding to the List of Thing I Don’t Understandâ„¢
– If a print job fails, why do you try it 6 more times? Did you forget you already hit ‘print’?
– How did Terry not win Survivor?

Not much going on since my last post, so here are some random thoughts:

My bike is running beautifully now – I went wandering around last weekend for a little over 100 miles.

Have you seen Napster Links? (free registration req’) — pretty cool stuff.

I’m done with one class, and almost finished with the other two. One is actually going to take until the end of the quarter, the others I worked ahead in. Not sure what I’m going to do with myself after this quarter… vacation maybe.

Speaking of being done with this crap, I’ve been offered a job. On the upside, it’s big money, something new, in a new place, would look great on a resume, and could lead to a really good full-time gig. The bad: It’s a 3 month stint in Iraq. Sigh… yeah, I’ll probably pass on that one. The money isn’t good enough to dodge IEDs while working 7×12.

Who broke the weather? This constant cloudiness is making me grumpier than normal.

I can’t get motivated to study this cisco crap.

I’m thinking of buying one of these to play Gran Turismo 4 with. Does that make me just a little too much of a geek? I’m going to buy a controller that costs 8x what the game did, and almost as much as the system I’m playing it on. If you want, you can buy it for me. Hey, at least I’m not asking for this to go with it!

I’ll put this here for anyone that happens to hit Google looking for why their car won’t start (hopefully it’ll save you some time – the answers are out there, it just takes awhile to find) This specifically applies to Pontiac Grand Am (at least year 2000 through 02) but presumably could hold true for most GM vehicles. If you go to start your car and it does nothing – lights come on but starter doesn’t turn (some report that the starter turns, but the fuel pump isn’t on so it’ll never actually start) it may be because of the stupid passlock system. It’s a security “feature” that keeps people from stealing your car. The computer needs to ‘see’ the key turn. Of course, this only applies if your battery isn’t dead – watching your dome/dash lights for dimming when you try to start it will tell you if the battery is dead or not. With the key in the “on” position, the “Security” light will be flashing. Leave the key on for 11 minutes – the security light should stop flashing. Turn the key back to off, then try to start it. This is how the computer relearns the key. At this point I’m not sure how to keep it from happening again (assuming it does) but it’s probably either something as simple as needing a new key (if there’s a lot of bronze showing on your key, try this first) or something a little worse like the ignition cylinder needing replaced. I guess I’ll find out. I don’t think my next car will be a Grand Am – between this and the 3 replaced wheel hub assemblies, it’s driving me nuts already.

I should probably get some work done…