Poll Results

The ridiculously unscientific poll on cnn.com shows 84% think Kerry won, versus 12% for Bush and 4% a tie. Cnn's polls usually seem skewed toward the left, but not nearly that much.

Closing Statements

Bush is making his closing statement now. Bush seemed to do slightly better during the second half of the debate, though he was still on the defensive.

Debate

The first Bush-Kerry debate is going on right now, and the rest of the world is blogging it, so I thought I'd do it too.

So far, after about an hour, Bush seems really defensive. His responses to Kerry's criticism are whiney and in some cases strange non-sequiters. He's doing a really terrible job.

More Rain

Jeanne, now a tropical storm, is dumping yet another ton of rain on us. It's been raining since this afternoon, and is fairly heavy and steady. The last estimate I heard was that we'll get six inches, which is less than half of what Ivan or Francis dumped on us. We also don't seem to be getting the heavy winds that we got with Ivan (but not Francis), so maybe the power will stay on. The forecast on weather.com says heavy rain through noon tomorrow, and then showers lasting until 6:00.

Yet Another Hurricane

The fourth hurricane of the year is about to hit Florida, a record. First it was Charlie, which hit near Ft Myers as a cat. 4. Then Frances, a large cat 2 that hit the east coast and caused a lot of flooding and resulted in water outages here in Asheville due to massive rain washing out major lines. Then Ivan came along, hitting the panhandle as a cat 3, traveling up here to dump about another foot of water on us and hit us with high winds. Now Jeanne is going to hit as a cat 3 between West Palm and Melbourne at midnight tonight. This is a very recent shot.


So far this year there have been six major (cat 3+) hurricanes in the Atlantic. The all-time record is eight. There are still two months left in hurricane season.

Since I moved from a house into this little apartment, I've been storing some stuff in my parents' storage shed/workshop. I went over there this evening to pick up a few things and found that things had gotten pretty damp. Three of the drawers on my tall dresser were swollen shut, in fact. So we moved the small dresser to their basement, and tomorrow we're going to move the long dresser into my walk-in closet. (For some reason, this is the smallest place I've ever lived, but it has the largest closet).

UNCA sucks

I got my thermo test back, on which I got 100. I guess the professor won't be complaining any more about my taking it asynchronously, viewing the tape archive.

I faired a little less well on the abstract algebra exam -- 82, though 85 was an A due to the curve. Just about every point I lost was due to being too terse and not explaining myself completely. Very picky grading, if you ask me.

I seem to be catching my breath a litte -- just a little -- this week on homework and studying. I took the mathematics subject GRE sample test they sent me when I registered, and got in the low 600's. I guess that's not bad for not having reviewed yet, but I really want to bump that up into the low 700's. Key things I need to review: linear algebra, limits, sequence and series, calculus in general.

UNCA, by the way, has been trying to screw me out of a 25% surcharge on my tuition because I supposedly have too many credits. They even want to charge me retroactively for last spring. However, this is based on an absurd interpretation for second-degree students, so I've been fighting it. Today I met with the vice chancellor and she has agreed to speak to the school's attorney about it.

Almost Back to Normal

The storm hit really hard Thursday night. It rained most of the day Thursday but the winds really arrived in the evening. I lost power in the evening while I was working on an abstract algebra take-home exam, so I went to Dennys (the only place I could think that would be open late) to work on it. When I came home after midnight there were some really scary moments. It was my own fault for going out, and also for driving around looking for a convenience store that might have batteries.

Friday half the city, including me, was without power, but they got it turned back on Friday afternoon. Today, however, the power has been cutting on and off. Mostly on, but off often enough (like probably 50 times today) that working on the computer or watching TV just aren't worth trying.

I did get a new little digital camera -- a Canon Powershot S70, which so far I really love. Now the 35mm EOS stuff goes up on eBay. And I can start "photo blogging."

In world news, more than 1000 US troops have now died in Iraq. There are horrific new bombings and attacks every day; today's bombing killed 19 Iraqis. Several cities are now completely under the control of rebel factions, and it's been clear for months that the situation is spiraling out of control. Recently there's been news of a July CIA analysis that projected the possibility of all-out civil war. And George Bush today said he's "pleased with the progress in Iraq."



The jackass himself, in NC on Friday

Deja Vu All Over Again

Hurricane Ivan, aiming for the gulf coast at 7:15 this evening


OK, no sooner had the mess from Frances cleared up than Ivan hits. Today they announced that classes have been cancelled starting tomorrow at noon, and all day Friday. And it hasn't even started raining yet.

Going all the way back to kindergarten, I don't recall school ever being rained out. Now it's happened twice within a week, and the second time without a drop of water falling.

At any rate, I had my first exam of the semester today, in thermodynamics. It was easy, and I'm sure I made an A unless I made some really stupid mistake. I also picked up a take-home exam for abstract algebra, which is due in Friday, come hell or high water. The latter being somewhat more likely.

In classical mechanics I have a homework set due Friday (well, maybe) that I've just started on. There's also a Maple-based project due Monday that I haven't started. All this sounds like I've been slacking, but I haven't been. At least, not as badly as it sounds. I spend several hours a day doing homework or studying, but the workload is really high with all these courses. Already this week I've had to turn in a gigantic abstract algebra set and a thermo set, in addition to studying for the thermo exam.

For months now I've been in the process of selling off some of my more expensive and less-used camera equipment. Lately I've been toying with the idea of selling all the rest of my 35mm SLR (Canon EOS) gear. I haven't really been using it, and can probably use the money for other things. Instead, I'd get a little digicam that I could carry around all over the place. I think it would be fun. I'd probably keep my Pentax 67 medium format system because I couldn't get very much for it anyway, and when you really want quality you can't beat those giant negatives or slides.

I've just about decided to do it.

Slowly Running Out of Water

For the past two days I seem to have been one of the lucky ones, but I think my luck is running out. Water pressure is getting less and less as whatever tank or reservoir serves this area is being drawn down. Apparently it's not being replenished due to some washed-out main lines someplace that they're still trying to repair. The mayor says some time tomorrow.

I went downtown today, and there are port-a-johns set up all over the place. Some places were closed and some still operating, without their facilities. On the news tonight it said the health department is starting to close down restaurants that don't have enough water to flush, which is more and more of them as what water there is runs out.

Food Lion Sucks.

I went down to the grocery store and, as expected, lines were a mile long with people buying bottled water and so forth. So I went down the road to everyone's grocery store of last resort, Food Lion, which was, predictably, practically deserted.

I loaded up my cart, but the moron at the register wouldn't sell me six-pack of beer, on the basis that Asheville is currently under a "state of emergency" and beer sales are prohibited by A.L.E. -- the state Alchohol Law Enforcement. So on the way home I bought a six at a convenience store no problem. Then I went to the A.L.E. site on the Internet, and the guy was wrong. Alchohol sales CAN be prohibited during an emergency (which would be a pretty damn stupid thing to do when the emergency is that THERE'S NO DRINKING WATER), but they don't have to be.

One more reason never to shop at Food Lion (as if CBS's story about them selling rotten meat a few years ago weren't enough).

Water, Water Everywhere...

The remains of hurricane Frances have been dumping rain here for the last two days. Parts of town are completely flooded. The city water system had some sort of problem (contamination?) and parts of town are out of water. UNC Asheville closed early today, and will remain closed Thursday and Friday as well. Water trucks and port-a-johns are being brought in for students remaining on campus. Isn't it ironic that one of the first things you have to do during a flood is to truck in water?

Somehow I've Screwed Up My Monitor

Since moving into my weencie studio apartment at the beginning of the month, I've been using my computer monitor as a television with this ViewSonic "video processor" external adaptor/switcher box that goes between my cable box and the monitor. That worked fine for a while, but then the box started giving me trouble (switching off randomly, remote control wouldn't work) so I returned it to Best Buys.

Instead I got this combination video card/TV tuner that required an AGP slot. I have an AGP slot, but for some reason lacked AGP drivers. So I went to the web site for the motherboard manufacturer and downloaded new drivers. They wouldn't install, but they have screwed up my existing video pretty good for some reason. When I use the monitor for PC work the characters are soft and almos double-image.

So after that I aborted the new card installation and took it back. Got a new ViewSonic box to replace the defective one. But I'm still stuck with this shitty video performance.

Moral: never, ever install something in your PC unless you absolutely have to.