Long way across town

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Hoosier

I hope that my packets aren’t going to Los Angeles and Texas to get from my house in Champaign back to campus, but if the router labels below are accurate…

C:>tracert www.uiuc.edu

Tracing route to swan28.admin.uiuc.edu [128.174.254.28]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  gateway.private.betka.net [192.168.1.1]
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3   113 ms    10 ms    12 ms  ge-1-4-ur01.champaign.il.chicago.comcast.net [68.85.178.81]
  4    19 ms    19 ms    20 ms  pos-0-11-0-0-ar01.indianapolis.in.indiana.comcast.net [68.86.90.170]
  5    42 ms    53 ms    45 ms  pos-0-1-0-0-cr01.nashville.tn.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.169]
  6    57 ms    45 ms    56 ms  pos-1-8-0-0-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.85.17]
  7   176 ms   101 ms   102 ms  pos-0-15-0-0-cr01.losangeles.ca.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.85.137]
  8    95 ms   130 ms   101 ms  68.86.89.158
  9   175 ms   100 ms   102 ms  vl3493.mpd01.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.6.229]
 10   130 ms   102 ms   102 ms  te4-2.ccr01.sna02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.3.37]
 11   117 ms   101 ms   102 ms  te4-2.ccr01.san01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.25.126]
 12   120 ms   101 ms   102 ms  te4-2.ccr01.phx02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.7.85]
 13   123 ms   204 ms   111 ms  te4-2.ccr01.aus01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.1.165]
 14   135 ms   103 ms   203 ms  te8-2.mpd01.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.1.66]
 15   123 ms   175 ms   130 ms  te3-4.mpd01.dfw01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.25.93]
 16   152 ms   203 ms   124 ms  te4-3.mpd01.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.5.158]
 17   155 ms   123 ms   146 ms  te9-3.mpd01.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.25.82]
 18   166 ms   123 ms   183 ms  vl3605.na31.b002329-4.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com [38.20.36.178]
 19    92 ms   128 ms   177 ms  university-of-illinios-urbana.demarc.cogentco.com [38.104.99.42]
 20    99 ms    98 ms   102 ms  t-ur2rtr.ix.ui-iccn.org [72.36.126.101]
 21    91 ms    98 ms   112 ms  iccn-ur2rtr-uiuc2.gw.uiuc.edu [72.36.127.6]
 22   132 ms   102 ms   101 ms  t-exiteb.gw.uiuc.edu [130.126.0.73]

Black Snake Moan

Posted on June 24, 2008 by Hoosier

Blake Snake Moan is worth seeing, though not appropriate for a younger audience. Samuel L. and Cristina Ricci both do an excellent job with their characters, and Justin Timberlake did surprisingly well also. And it was good to see S. Epatha Merkerson in a role outside the Law & Order universe.

Roses

Posted on June 4, 2008 by Hoosier

Roses

The new house came with several rose bushes, I managed to snap some photos between rainstorms while some of the blooms actually looked good.

No Country for Old Men

Posted on May 17, 2008 by Hoosier

Saw it at the Virginia Thursday night, not a bad movie, as long as you set your expectation accordingly for a Coen brothers film.

WordPress 2.5.1

Posted on April 29, 2008 by Hoosier

I’ve upgraded to the latest and greatest, WordPress 2.5.1, supposedly there are some nasty security issues with earlier versions.

That is all.

Lightbulb Moments

Posted on April 17, 2008 by Hoosier

It’s always refreshing to have a “lightbulb moment” every once in a while. You know the feeling, you’ve been working with some system or on some problem for hours (or weeks or months) and you suddenly find that one piece of information that makes the whole thing fall together and make sense. It’s usually a satisfying feeling.

It’s less satisfying when the lightbulb that comes on is shining very brightly on a bad assumption you made at the outset.

New House

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Hoosier

House

More pictures of the (soon to be our) new house are up over at the gallery.

Scary snail mail

Posted on March 31, 2008 by Hoosier

I got this in campus mail today:

Chancellor Richard Herman and Provost Linda Katehi cordially invite you as an academic employee celebrating an employment milestone to a luncheon honoring 2007-2008 academic retirees and academic employees completing 10, 20, 30 or 40 years of service.

I’ll be celebrating 10 years of service as of June. Wow.

Slew of movies

Posted on March 30, 2008 by Hoosier

The grandparents have Robin this weekend, so we’ve been catching up on the DVR by watching some movies.

Blades of Glory: The DVR failed to record it, but claimed it was there. This may have been a secret blessing, but I’ll try recording it again this week.
Crank: Not a bad movie, especially if you looked at the cast (Jason Statham) and adjusted your expectations accordingly.
Children of Men: A decent movie, but depressing and bleak. And, for some reason, Clive Owen‘s character kept reminding me of Alan Rickman‘s Metatron from Dogma.
The Departed: Star studded cast, excellent cinematography, well-crafted script and plot. Great movie in general. My only complaints would be: there are a couple loose ends left hanging at the end of the movie and Jack Nicholson was ad libbing too much, though I’m sure the ad libbed material improved the film.
Man of the Year: Robin Williams, Christopher Walken and Lewis Black walk into a movie….And 2 hours later you are just glad it’s over. Not a terrible movie, but not worth paying to see either.