There was a lot of noise coming from my backyard a bit ago. I don't know what they were, but they came, ate, and left.

Some video of the early winter snowfall that fell on October 15th, 2009. Broke the record for the earliest snowfall by three days.

The town was a disaster afterwards. Thousands without power and trees littering the roads.

Woke up yesterday to find that the shower was luke warm. And the water out of the sink wasn't scalding either, as it normally is. I figured maybe my roommate ran a load of laundry or took a long shower before I got up. But, this morning, there was even less hot water. This isn't the way to go into the winter. A quick call to my landlords and maintenance showed up under five minutes later! This is what they found.

Looks like there was some aging of the heating element. Either the rusting had allowed the water to seep out, soaking the foam insulation, or the heater element just died for whatever reason and had to be replaced. They put in both new elements just to be sure. When I tested the water and got the air out of the system, it was scalding again. I burned my hand on the faucet, not the water! I turned down the thermostat on the upper heater and will test the water tomorrow more thoroughly in the shower tomorrow morning.

Holy moley! Weird Al is 50 years old today! Still going strong, he's releasing another AL-bum next year! I secured his band's autograph waaaay back in the Alapalooza days.

Since I have >100 credits under my belt due to the first six years I attempted to go to school, I can schedule early for the following semesters. For Spring, yesterday was my first day to enroll. And here it is:

Yes, that IS a class Monday night at 730. For some reason, that class is only offered on Wed and Fri during the day, and all the Monday sessions are at night. Don't understand why but maybe it'll become more clear when I get there.

My STAT 318 class is offered only at one time during the day which is a problem. There are no choice of sections. CMPENG 271 is only offered at that exact time too and only one section of it is offered. So it was either take basic statistics or introduction to logic design and digital systems. I chose STAT because there are more classes behind it that I need to stay on track with. But, with my luck, that ENG class will be a prerequisite for something later on and I'll end up stuck.

SPANISH is a web-only course so I don't have to attend class for it apparently. I've never taken a web-only course. Oh how the internet has changed our lives.

Maybe this will mean finding a job with decent hours will be easy. Although, I need to get a job long before spring semester starts....

I hate my dryer. It's old. It's a Kennmore. And it was free. So I guess I don't hate it that much. But I've had to do the same repair more than once on it. The heater element gets so hot that it melts the power wire to the heater element itself. This has happened three times already. In addition, during my fixing it, I in inadvertently pulled the wire off the motor. There are no access panels to get to the motor at all. Not without doing this:

More pictures inside...

Buddy, the Betta fish I had gotten as a Christmas gift, has died at the age of 1. He was insane most of his life, flaring at things that didn't exist, darting around his bowl in circles when he thought no one was watching. As he got older, he developed a fin deterioration problem that could not be identified nor fixed. For the past few weeks, he had been eating less and less, spending most of his time on the surface of the water, just resting. On August 14th, Buddy's body gave up. He is succeeded by Seamus.

Two more additions to the Radical Gaming store. The sign outside the shop lights up. The uniform for the staff members arrived too! The shirts look good! :thumbsup: