Last day in Blacksburg

Farewell Blacksburg. I will miss you and your people.

It is kind of sad to finally log out of my computer in the lab. The wind is cold outside. There are very few people in the campus. My advisor and I went for lunch at Pks. Later, Liqing treated us with coffee at Bollos.

Bing and Mel are driving me to the airport. I feel kind of sad and happy. Sad because it will be a long time before I meet my friends here again. It is hard to keep those tears from flowing. I am also happy and excited since I will finally be with my family again this Christmas. I love Suzette and Eking. They will pick me up when I arrive in the Philippines.

Roy and Ricky flew yesterday. I was left in the apartment cleaning my room (which will be occupied by Ricky next year) and the kitchen. I might see them before they go back here in Blacksburg next year.

Getting back my laptop

One day after I distributed the draft of dissertation to my committee, my laptop's hard drive broke down. I cannot write anything on the disk. Doing so leads to the dreaded blue screen of Windows. Fortunately, using a bootable Linux CD, I managed to back-up my data. It turned out that I cannot write on the hard drive but I can still read from it. The next day, Nov 20 (Sun), I brought my laptop to Bestbuy (ROA) to have it fixed. I was promised that it will be fixed on Nov 28 (Mon) and if they cannot fix it on that day, they told me they will call. I didn't get any call on Nov 28. Thinking that my laptop was fixed, I decided to get the laptop on Dec 4 (Sun) since that was the time I was free.

With a very indifferent face, the 'geek squad' guy told me that my laptop will be delivered the next day (Dec 5). It turned out that another department in another place took care of the laptop and it was just delivered by USPS. Of course I am disappointed. They promised me again that it will be ready by tuesday, Dec 6.

I called yesterday, Dec 10 (Sat), to verify if my laptop was ready to go (I am just making sure this time as Roy and I might just go to Bestbuy for nothing). The "geek squad" guy on the other end of the line said that my laptop is not yet ready for pick-up. This pissed me off! I told him that I need my laptop and I need it that day! The laptop just needs a hard drive replacement and I know that it would not even take half an hour to do that -- they are the "geek squad" after all -- isn't it? The guy on the other end of the line took was silent for a while and then told me I can pick my laptop in the afternoon.

No Email?

Something unexpected happened today. There is not a single new message in my inbox this morning. It turned out that the University mail system is broken and currently being fixed.

Checking email early in the morning is a routine for me. Most of the emails are work-related (aside from those spams filtered out by my trusty Thunderbird email client). Knowing what's ahead keeps me on top of things most of the day.

Without email -- what should you do? Well, I had to go to the lab earlier than usual. :)

Bowling at Jacksonville

The Gator bowl officials are impressed enough of the late-rally of the hokies during the 4th quarter last night. On January 2, the hokies will go back to Jacksonville to face Big East #2 Louisville Cardinals. Miami hurricanes end up in Peach bowl to face LSU tigers.

Night Blindness

Robert has a theory: Marcus Vick cannot see clearly at night time. His passes tonight are either under or over thrown. At half time, clearly the defense of FSU and VT held their ground. The teams are tied 3-3 at half-time. Early in the 3rd quarter, the seminoles scored 17 unanswered points. We were watching the game at Jess' place. Around the middle of 3rd quarter, we went home -- thinking that the hokies are in their worst mood again.

Unless the offense steps up, it seems that the hokies are not even going to Gator bowl.

Day's best

I celebrated this day with friends. Robert brought a cake. Joanne and Mel brought fried bangus. Roy cooked tinola. What more can I ask for? Of course, a long distance call from my wife and kid. -- Suzette and Eking called and greeted me a happy birthday. Now, my day is complete. :)