Back in my Windows partition for now. I wanted to scan some pictures and can only do that in Windows because of the cheap Visioneer scanner I’ve got. No Linux drivers, no hope of Linux drivers and it won’t work through Wine. Oh well, it’s nice to be able to go back and forth.

I just set my wallpaper in both partitions to be Mystique from X-Men. Mystique is played by Rebecca Romijn-Stamos; she wears little more than body paint, foam rubber bumps and yellow contacts. If you want to view the wallpaper, here it is. Yeah, I know I’m an MCP (male chauvinist pig), but I like X-Men and she really does a nice job as Mystique. She’s more than just eye candy.

Anyway, with the wallpaper for both partitions set to Mystique I have to do a double-take to make sure I am in Linux or Windows. Soon, I’ll post an empty screen shot of both operating systems and you will see what I mean.

The Iowa Hawkeyes lost to the Wisconsin Badgers 54-52 tonight. It was a close game most of the way. Wisconsin had a 12 point lead at one time. Neither team was too flashy on the offensive side. Once again, Iowa’s bane was turnovers. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: they should open a bakery with all the turnovers they have. You just aren’t going to win games against quality opponents when you have 18 turnovers. Still, the Hawks were in it until the end; Jeff Horner’s 3-point attempt to win the game fell just short as time expired.

The Hawkeyes were led in scoring by Pierre Pierce with 20; he was joined in double figures scoring by Greg Brunner (10). Iowa was led in rebounding by Brunner with 13 and in assists by Pierce with 4. The Badgers were led in scoring by Devin Harris with 16; he was joined in double figures scoring by Clayton Hanson (12) and Mike Wilkinson (12). Wisconsin was led in rebounding by Wilkinson with 9 and in assists by Freddie Owens with 4.

The Hawks looked tired. Not too surprising since out of the 200 team minutes to play, the bench accounted for 32. Glen Worley and Horner seemed especially “out of sync” tonight. They combined for only 4-20 from the field. Worley passed the 1000 point mark in his career (congratulations, Glen) but that monkey seemed to be riding his back most of the night – he never really shot like he usually does. The killer was free throws: there were only 10 free throws in the game…… by BOTH teams. Iowa was 3-4 and Wisconsin was 3-6 from the line. The game, while physical, was not a foul-fest – there were only 23 fouls called the entire game. But it all came down to “valuing the basketball” – Iowa’s 18 turnovers to Wisconsin’s 11. Pierce had 8 by himself, many of them unforced; he just seems to want to put his head down and go into the lane. That is a recipe for a turnover (apple or cherry?). While they played OK, they need to put this game behind them and get ready to host Michigan Saturday. It is a winnable game if the Hawks can play as they did tonight.

Got busy last night and completely forgot the Tune for Tuesday! For all 3 of my dedicated fans!?! I will get the Tune for Tuesday up next week, skipping this week. I’ve got enough to do IRL that I don’t need to spend too much time at the computer.

Today is the second (and final) day of training at Productivity Point in Cedar Rapids. Lets hope that I learn more today than yesterday. HEY! I need to stay awake at this class somehow!!

Well, we are at Productivity Point in Cedar Rapids learning about Windows XP (yawn). My opinion right now is that my upgrade path from Windows 2000 will be to Linux. I haven’t settled on a distro yet, but Mandrake looks pretty good. Everything I see in XP is a sort of “cartoonified” (is that a word?) 2000. The icons look more like cartoons, the Start Menu looks more like cartoons; jeez, you’d think that maybe they’d keep the look and feel the same and just fix the problems. NOOO! They added more stuff (some of which may be OK, but most is just decoration) and didn’t fix what was there too much. MS needs to fix the holes and the security loopholes before they go on and try to add more stuff, at least that is my opinion. Well, it’s back to class.

Well, on Thursday I installed Mandrake Linux 9.2 on my Linux partition and I have to say that I was underwhelmed (is that a word?) The third party programs that are installed with the 9.2 distribution were not as many as with the 9.1 distribution. I do like a number of the games and I REALLY like the multimedia stuff that 9.1 has; for some reason these were left out of the 9.2 distro. That doesn’t mean it was altogether bad. I just found that 9.1 had more in the “out of box” experience. Both were infitely better than Windows 98SE and Windows 2000, which I have installed many times before.

That being said, tonight I removed the 9.2 and reinstalled 9.1. I am blogging from the MT website using Mozilla from the Mandrake partition. I still need to try to install BloGTK – I want to use that, but have had issues trying to install it in the past. Maybe I can get all the dependency libraries installed this time.

Onward and upward by going back one version!

The Iowa Hawkeyes beat the Indiana Hoosiers 84-82 in double overtime. Man, what a game. Close all the way; as KC said, after two OTs it is too bad someone has to lose the game. I’m glad it was the Hoosiers who lost it. From what I saw, the teams were very evenly matched. No one had a big lead the entire game.

The Hawkeyes were led in scoring by Greg Brunner with 23; he was joined in double-figures scoring by Glen Worley (20), Jeff Horner (17), Brody Boyd (13) and Pierre Pierce (11). Iowa was led in rebounding by Brunner with 14 and in assists by Horner who had 6. The Hoosiers were led in scoring by Bracey Wright with 25; he was joined in doube-figures scoring by AJ Moye with 20 and Marshall Strickland with 14. Indana was led in rebounding by Wright with 9 and in assists by Strickland with 6.

Fatigue reared it’s head during the second overtime. Neither team scored until 1:17 left in that period. Every shot taken up until then was falling short. Overall the Hawks shot 48% – definitely good on the road in the Big 10; Pierce was only 5-17 from the field, but each member of the rest of the team shot at least 50%. Also, they shot 13-15 from the line. I remember a few posts ago that they couldn’t hardly buy free throws and now they are shooting at an 87% clip? Indiana only shot 41% from the field and only 56% from the line – the implication is that if they had made more free throws they would have won easily. One bad thing – the Hawks had 18 turnovers. Yuck. That is why they had to struggle so to win this game. The Hawks now look forward to #11 Wisconsin on Wednesday; at least the game is in Iowa City! Let’s hope this OT win propels them for the home stretch of the season.

Yesterday was a busy one.

I had put together a bunch of computer parts that I had here for KC’s brother. You see, he had a REAL “up-to-date” model: an Intel 486sx with 7Mb RAM running Windows for Workgroups! Well, with the parts I had I put together an AMD K6-300 with 64Mb RAM running Windows 98SE. Much faster, internet ready and loaded so he can work on his doctoral thesis. He seemed quite pleased with it.

First we met Breezomatic and her roommate and friend at the Coral Ridge Mall in Iowa City. Had some lunch and visited with them. Kind of nice; she had some studying and such to do up there and couldn’t come home as she does about half the time. Ate at Panera – man I like the food there (of course, I like the food about anywhere!)

When we left there, we did not head east for the homestead; no, we went to Des Moines and eventually Waukee where her brother lives. I set up the “new” computer, we met his friend. Then ZDog and J came out and we all visited for a while during the last 9:30 of regulation of the Iowa/Indiana game (more on the game later). Then we went to a place in Waukee called “Los Tres Amigos” where we met another of KC’s brothers and his family for supper. Pretty good food, although a little bland. I think the salsa should have more spices in it than ketchup, and I don’t think their salsa did.

After all that KC and I drove home last night. Got in about 11:30. We both were exhausted and decided to let everything wait until today. But, it was a good day, seeing lots of folks.

I’m breaking new ground here; the Friday Five is on time two weeks in a row!

1. What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done?
Jeez, ya want a list? Back in the day (yeah, I’m old) I went streaking and I drove over 120 mph. They are both pretty high on the daring part. (Does skinny dipping count?) Heck I had one summer job that was working on split-ring truck tires; you know: changing them, repairing the tubes, and such. These were so dangerous that “60 Minutes” did a piece on them explaining the dangers.

2. What one thing would you like to try that your mother/friend/significant other would never approve of?
I want to go parasailing; although KC won’t participate with me, I don’t think she approves.

3. On a scale of 1-10, what’s your risk factor? (1=never take risks, 10=it’s a lifestyle)
At this point in my life, I’d say it is around 3 or 4. I don’t take many risks any more. Like I said in answer to #1, I’m old!

4. What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you as a result of being bold/risky?
I got the job I have now. 10 years ago I was teaching and not particularly happy with it. I quit teaching and went back to school for a piece of paper that said I could do what I had been doing for the previous 10 years in education: work with computers. At the time we had two kids in elementary school. Quite risky to bet your family’s financial state on your desire to move on.

5. … and what’s the worst?
What, aside from getting some tickets for speeding? Jeez, I haven’t had any catastrophic problems in my life. No, it hasn’t all been fun and games, but I can’t say I’ve ever been at rock bottom because of something I chose.

Everywhere a tweak, tweak! Old BillH he had a blog. Big-B, L, O, G! Got rid of the WeatherPixie; it seemed to be down as much as it was up. Also, added countdowns for my birthday and my anniversary (the next one with be 26). Then I decided to go with a blue theme. Nothing major. I may make the font a bit smaller, too. I have viewed the site from Firebird on my Linux partition and it just doesn’t cut it. It is almost like the font size is half of what the CSS says it is. Doesn’t do that on the Windows partition in Mozilla or Firebird. HMMMMMMM. Back to the drawing board, I guess.

Found on Busy Mom Blog:

Create your own by going to ACME Heart Maker!

The Iowa Hawkeyes lost to the Michigan State Spartans 89-72. The biggest problem is that they gave up 89 points and Spartan Coach Tom Izzo basically had emptied his bench and then had the team take a lot of time before scoring. The Hawks just aren’t playing defense. They need to get it together at the defensive end. The last four road games they have given up 88, 84, 90, and 89. That is simply too many points to give up and expect to have a chance to win. It is showing that the Hawks are missing the four players out: Nick DeWitz (grades), Mike Henderson (grades), Jared Reiner (foot surgery for a fractured bone) and Sean Sonderleiter (personal reasons). Especially Reiner, who led the Big 10 in rebounding last year, and Sonderleiter; the two were the starting and backup centers.

The Hawks were led in scoring by Jeff Horner and Pierre Pierce with 21 each; they were joined in double figures scoring by Greg Brunner (10). Iowa was led in rebounds by Greg Brunner with 13, and in assists by Pierce with 4. The Spartans were led in scoring by Paul Davis with 19; he was joined in double figures scoring by Kelvin Torbert (18), Chris Hill (15) and Alan Anderson (14). Michigan State was led in rebounds by Davis with 7, and in assists by Anderson with 5.

As a team Iowa shot only 43% to MSU’s 52%. Pierce and Horner combined for 14-24 shooting (58%), which means the rest of the Hawks shot 9-30, only 30% – absolutely atrocious! Both teams were over 80% in free throws. One thing I will say is that the Hawks kept playing hard even though the game was pretty much over. I thought the game was poorly officiated and they let a lot go that simply shouldn’t happen. One specific example was on a breakaway layup for Pierce, Michigan State’s Delco Rowley grabbed Pierce by the hips and shoved him. Yes, a foul was called, but Rowley made no play for the ball. By the book that foul is intentional and Pierce should shoot two free throws and Iowa should get the ball back. Worley spent a lot of time on the bench in foul trouble and eventually fouled out playing only 28 minutes, going 2-8 from the field and committing 6 turnovers; for all his scoring, Pierce spent time on the bench in foul trouble, playing only 30 minutes and committing 5 turnovers. These two alone had more turnovers than the entire Michigan State team. Erek Hansen played one of his better games; he led the team with 3 blocked shots. Well, time to buck up and get it together. The Hawks travel to Indiana, which is always a tough place to play, for a game on Saturday.

I kind of like the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip; you know, the one where the young boy (Calvin) has a pet tiger (Hobbes) and is always at odds with his parents over quite grown-up topics. I have a special post thanks to Old Don, who sent these to me. These go very well with the weather here in Iowa being the snowy stuff that it is now. Just click on each Calvin item and see a cool comic strip! Calvin #1, Calvin #2, Calvin #3, Calvin #4, Calvin #5, Calvin #6, Calvin #7, Calvin #8, Calvin #9, Calvin #10 and Calvin #11.

Thanks for the email, Old Don!