Oh bother...

So I've been drinking my tea for a few years out of a 20oz acrylic beer mug, which I've quite enjoyed. The downside, of course, is that acrylic doesn't tolerate heat well, and it's been slowly cracking ever since I started using it. This hasn't generally been a problem as the cracks started on the inside and have only slowly been working their way deeper through the plastic as the years have gone by.

Today, though, one of the cracks made it all the way through. It's not leaking, but I can feel the crack with my nail on the outside of the mug, so it's clearly time to look for a replacement.

I had been eyeing up this set of glass beer mugs on Amazon as a suitable replacement; I'd planned to get them once I moved south, but things being as they are I decided to try to order them up today instead.

They don't ship them to Canada. Arg. Seeing as it's not really worth going down to Pembina to pick them up, I'll need to find some other solution.

The final final grade

Finally got around to checking and I officially scored an A- on Art and History. Huzzah.

C's get Degrees

But sadly I did not get a single C grade in my entire university career. I wonder if I still qualify for graduation? ;)

What I did get was one final B grade for Probability Theory. I'd say that's pretty good, all things considered, and was about the best I was hoping for after my poor showing on the midterm exam.

I don't technically have the grade yet for Art and History, but I'm expecting an A in that course.

I'm just glad it's done.

More Marks

Got an A in Human-Env. I don't have the full mark back from Art and History yet, but on the final test I scored 94% so I'm not too worried about it. Should get an A there at least.

That just leaves Probability Theory. Ugh.

Oh right, those exams

Forgot to blog about my last two exams last week. They went well enough, plenty well enough to pass at least, and at this point that's all I really care about.

I also got my course mark back from Intro Japanese, and scored myself a nice healthy A (pending approval of grades by the senate and blah blah blah).

Half-way mark

Art and History final is done, and done splendidly.

One exam down, three to go.

大成功ですよ！

A minor scare

So yesterday, when I was out in the Polo Park area after writing my exam, I had left my backpack with my laptop in the car (I know, I know). It was still there when I returned a few hours later, but unfortunately the cold temperature had taken its toll.

When I woke up my laptop when I got home, to my horror I saw a series of teal streaks on the display. Needless to say, I was not pleased.

The streaks were on the order of a pixel or two wide, and up to an inch long. They seemed to react to pressure, so I surmised that whatever was happening wasn't just outright pixel death. I played a bit of minecraft to see if exercising the pixels with a changing picture would help things along, and after a little while of playing it seemed that the streaks were starting to get better.

Then the inspiration hit me: condensation inside the panel! The cold temperatures and high relative humidity inside my car had clearly caused some water or frost to infiltrate the panel and condense, messing with the function of the display.

To test this theory, I got out my hair dryer and, starting on low, heated up some problem areas. To my delight, they reacted by shrinking and lightening. After 10-15 minutes of heating, the areas I was concentrating on had vanished into perfect, flawless pixels, and I continued my way around the monitor cooking off the streaks. In the bottom corner, the last and worst trouble spot, I had to switch the hair dryer onto high, but those pixels too were soon brought back to life.

All in all, I'm annoyed but happy, and find myself with yet another reason to hate winter.

Winter only hits me because it loves me

So I come home this afternoon after writing an exam and getting a consultation about my wisdom teeth, and I park my car, and go to plug it in.

Now, I had set the extension cord on top of the fence to keep it out of the way, and so to retrieve it I felt it would be a good idea to give it a quick tug to give it some momentum such that it won't get tangled in the chain link at the top of the fence. Turns out I gave it a bit too much of a quick tug, and the end of the cord came whipping around and smacked me in the face just below my left eye.

Thus, I now look like the victim of domestic violence. I think it's about time I left winter, for good this time. It says it can still change, and that it still loves me, but I know better now.

Day 2,3: Twin Falls to Glendive to Winnipeg

(Backdating this post so it lines up to when I originally intended to post it)

The drive from Twin Falls to Glendive was annoying but tolerable. It rained a lot, though there were periods of sun. Sadly it was cloudy when I went through Butte, so I couldn't see the giant Butte'er Jesus on the hill (the internets tell me it's actually a statue of Mary, but it's not easy to tell from the interstate).

The drive from Glendive to Winnipeg was a lot rainier. I think I passed a tornado or two after Grand Forks, and had lightning strike objects within 200ft of the car at least 3 times. I also just barely made it through Morris, as the road through town had started flooding, and was at least 8 inches deep by the time I waded my car through it.

And, to cap it all off, the rain was bad enough that it even stripped some of the paint off my hubcaps.

Huffing Fumes

On Monday I took my car in for its usual spring service, and one of the tasks that the techs performed was to rotate my tires. Usually this is a good thing, but in my case it rotated the wobbly tire back to the front where I'd be able to feel it in the steering again.

Now I've had trouble trying to get this fixed before. I, and my mother before me, have taken the rims in to get straightened countless times, and each time they come back claiming they're straight as an arrow but wobbling just the same. I decided to get to the bottom of it myself, so with some minor assistance from Father I jacked up the car and spun the wheel to see what was up.

It was no surprise whatsoever to see the outside of the tire wobbling back and forth quite visibly. What was a surprise was seeing the rim itself spinning straight as an arrow. Apparently the tire itself is mis-shapen. So, new tires are clearly on the menu.

But that's a blog post for another day. You see, while I had the car up, father commented on the shoddy shape my hubcaps were in, with their peeling silver paint not even hiding half of the gray plastic underneath. I'd been intending to repaint them, but since the hubcaps are secured to the wheels by the lug nuts, it's quite inconvenient to remove them. (Though I am happy they're securely retained at all other times)

Today I decided that enough was enough, and I headed over to Canadian Tire and picked up some supplies: a fine grit scuff pad to clean/sand the hubcaps, some latex gloves to keep my manicure clean, and a can of Krylon Fusion Nickel Shimmer to do the deed.

As with any paint job, prep is everything, and I spent a good half hour or so wet sanding the grime and loose paint off the hubcaps with the scuff pad. In hindsight, a medium grit scuff pad probably would have been more effective.

The paint itself went on quite easily, in about 4 or 5 quick light coats on each hubcap. After painting the first hubcap I took a before and after shot, for your ogling pleasure.

The paint dries to the touch after 15 minutes, and "dries" after 1 hour, but only actually fully cures after 7 days. I'll probably leave the hubcaps hanging in the back yard until tomorrow before putting them back on. (Partly to let the paint cure, partly because I feel like having a little lunch and then a nap)

Christmas Loot

Oh yeah, I have a blog. Almost forgot.

Hilights of this season's haul: Got a tablet from Mom and Bob, got a nifty screwdriver from Sister, and a hand-me-down TV from Father.

Good times were had by all.

Well hello there, Google

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Birds!

So this afternoon as I'm heading off to class, I notice that a wayward bird has managed to find himself stuck in the front porch. No doubt he snuck in under the porch door the previous night looking for some place safe and warm to nap.

Now seeing as the front porch isn't a terribly good place for a bird to live, what with all the glass windows and complete lack of anything edible, I decided to help the bird back out into the wild blue. I opened the porch door, and set about chasing the little bugger out.

It didn't go quite as planned though, and the bird ended up parking himself on top of a wood pile in a corner of the porch. I used a stick to chase him out of there, at which point he hopped over to just behind the wood fridge (long story).

Seeing as his tail was sticking out, I came up with the bright idea that I would grab his tail, pluck him out, and toss him out the door. Well, as it turned out, his tail feathers were the only part I managed to pluck out. Oops.

Undeterred, I used the aforementioned stick to prod and poke the bird, eventually dragging him out from behind the wood fridge, at which point I just picked him up and tossed him out the door, and watched him safely fly away.

And that was my fun for the day.

Also, BIRDS!

Oops

So I was chipping ice of my windshield this morning, and I accidentally put the ice scraper through the cowl, which I discovered is made of a plastic that's apparently quite brittle in this weather.

Oops. It's not a very important piece, but all the same I would have preferred not breaking it.

Oh well.

Damnit, Jim!

I'm a mathematician, not a mechanic!

Well ok, I'm a perfectly decent mechanic too, just not when it's -30c outside. My car was also sharing my distaste for the cold weather, so I took it in for a service to discover that the battery was only putting out 228 of its rated 575 CCA. $178 later ($110 for the battery, plus misc labour) and it's all good as new again.

I also changed the end on the extension cord for my car, and installed the interior car warmer. The former task was made more interesting by the fact that the outlet tester I had grabbed to double-check the wiring was actually broken, and the latter task was made more interesting by the fact that the cord inside my car was an absolute bitch to plug the warmer into. Took a good 5 minutes of wrestling before I managed to cram it in.

I probably should have done all this in October. Oh well.

Home sw... well, home.

I'm home. I've actually been home since Monday evening, but I've been too busy to blog. The final day of driving was boring, windy, and mercifully short. The border crossing was equally quick and uneventful.

Rather than bore you with a final travelogue, I present to you Alice tripping balls:

Well that was close

It was windy yesterday, very windy indeed: Gusts up to 70kph.

As it turns out, that's slightly above the rated wind speed of one of the neighbour's trees. I'm just glad it didn't fall on my car.

Pictures here.

I can see clearly now

My lovely jellybean now has a new windshield, and all is right with the world... except it's supposed to snow on Friday: I'm not terribly thrilled about that.

Stupid Smarch Weather

-32c this morning, -21c this afternoon, and that's not even counting the windchill. Where the hell is spring?

I can't wait until I'm soaking up the sun in California.