Chris's Life

Today's big even was getting my car inspected. It took about 4 hours and $430, but by 1pm I had succeeded. All it needed was a new breakpad for the front right tire, re-finishing of the rotors, and two new tires for the front wheels.

The flat tire (which I got last weekend) couldn't be fixed, so it was replaced with one of the old tires which was a hair above the wear line (i.e. still legal but not terribly safe on snow, and not legal for many more miles.) It's not, perhaps, an ideal solution, but if a spare tire will only last for 300-600 miles, that's still far better than your typical donut.

Incidentally, it was an interesting experience changing a tire. It was easier than I had expected it to be, though tires are also heavier than I expected them to be. After all, they're mostly just air. :-)

I finally got the software that I wrote to talk to a message board and display what I wanted it to display. There is still a lot to fix, and a whole lot more to actually implement, but things are on their way. I've finally got something tangible (or at least visible, since it's only a pattern of light emitted by the sign) to show for what I've been doing all these months. Well, aside from the Arabic solution -- but that's not yet finished either. Still, we did sell some message boards based on it, so that's still an achievement, I think.

I found the oggs that I ripped from my Joan Baez CD today (I can't find the CD any more). I had forgotten how much I like Joan Baez. I really like folk music. It's not as good as Christmas carols — no music really is — but folk can come close.

I would guess that it's the greek part of me. Folk music is frequently wistful and a little sad. Mournful, almost. The greeks have always been good at that: it's why they have the fates, after all.

Beth and I are getting married! We haven't set a date yet, but we're looking at some time in June or July of 2005.

Ok, that's old news at this point which I just forgot to blog. Here's the new news: I gave her a ring! It's not much, but after a year of being unemployed and only a few months of employment, I couldn't afford better. But it is pretty, at least.