I’m back in Terre Haute now, after a blissful respite from the toils of Rose. Throughout break, we never got any significant snow in Minnesota. On Saturday, I arrived back at school amidst a snowstorm with a few inches accumulated on the ground. Doesn’t make sense…

I noticed a few people clicking the link to my December 29 post, in an apparent attempt to discover the title’s meaning. The title is in Entish, and was made so in homage to Lord of the Rings.

Adding to the list from before: I want to go skiing and/or snowboarding in the Rockies. In eight weeks, I’ll be at Steamboat. Fun fun fun!

Early this morning, the power failed at the Pike House, where the server hosting this web site is located. Unfortunately, the UPS held out for only ten minutes before the strain of two power-hungry computers spinning a total of eight drives proved too much. If I had the box set up correctly, it would have automatically restarted when the power came back. Needless to say, I did not have it configured properly. Fortunately, Kiefer was at the house. He was able to gain access to the server and push the ‘on’ button, for which I am grateful. Had he not been around, Keacher.com would have been down until at least Saturday. Disaster averted. (whew!)

Several of my Minnesota friends suggested some additions to my list from yesterday. One suggested learning to fly airplanes. Yup, that should be on there. The other suggested cow tipping. I’m not sure about that one. It’s right up there with hypnotizing chickens (a pastime I first learned about at Philmont). While I sort out this moral dilemma, amuse yourselves with virtual cow tipping.

I was reading the Star Tribune today when I came across the Back Fence. Aside from a rant about the merits of disinfectant wipes, the column mentioned the correct pronunciation of “err.” Apparently, “err” is pronounced like the ‘ur’ in ‘murder,’ not like ‘air.’ But that raises the question: does anybody say ‘err’ like ‘urr?’ Does anybody really care? As long as society begins pronouncing Porsche with two syllables (say ‘PORSH-ah’), I’ll be happy.

There are only a few hours to go before 2003 is here. I look back at New Years 2000 and laugh at how naïve we all were. On December 31, 1999, I gathered with about twenty of my friends around a campfire, playing with fireworks and singing along to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We all were fairly certain that the change would progress smoothly, but I think every one of us had a bit of fear that some long-forgotten critical component would go haywire and bring about a technological apocalypse. The clock struck midnight, at which time we whipped out our cell phones to check on the outside world. After contacting numerous friends at various telecommunications hotspots, we decided that life would indeed go on much as it had the previous day. To be honest, there was a part of me that was a bit disappointed by the anticlimax. After all of the buildup and all of the hype, absolutely nothing happened. Nothing at all. Zip, zero, zilch. Nada. I quickly got over it when I realized that the Simpsons would be a likely casualty to any computer mayhem.

In yet another completely unrelated topic, fairly reliable sources indicate that the complete third season of the Simpsons will be released in May, 2003. Woohoo!

Now I’m off to ring in the new year with old friends. To 2002, I bid thee adieu!

Last night I finally saw Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I think that one word says it all: Wow. Sure, the movie wasn’t strictly adherent to the book, but all of the critical elements were included. I especially liked the rendering of my favorite Tolkien species, the Ents. I mean, what could be cooler than walking, talking, intelligent trees? That’s right, nothing. Overall, this was one of the best movies that I’ve seen in a while, definitely worth a second (and perhaps third) viewing in the theater.

Last year, I started thinking about what I would like to do while I was still young. Since I seem to have some spare time right now (second post of the day!) and seeing as how this is my website so I can say whatever I want (muwahaha), here’s a status update. The list is of things I would like to do within the next few years.

• Learn to skate. I got a pair of inline skates last year and have been skating off and on since then. I’m reasonably proficient going forwards, turning, and stoping, but backwards is still a bit shaky. I still have yet to see if my skill translates to ice skating.
• Get a motorcycle. Although I have known how to ride for many years, I want to get a street bike to explore the twisties. Last June, I got my motorcycle endorsement. However, I am still without cycle.
• Go to more hockey games. I like to watch hockey, especially the Gophers and the Wild, so I would like to go to more of their games. Unfortunately, going to school in Indiana makes attendance a bit difficult, but I try to make it to at least one game every time I’m home for a holiday.
• Learn to play hockey. It looks like fun and I like watching hockey games, so I want to learn to play hockey. Not much progress has been made in this area, although learning to inline skate will probably make things easier.
• Learn to snowboard. I’ve skied for many years but have never tried snowboarding. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I decided to change that. In the past week, I’ve been out to Afton Alps twice and will be heading to Trollhaugen tomorrow, each time for a day of snowboarding. I’m having a blast!
• Learn to juggle. Hey, it looks like a neat thing to be able to do. Unfortunately, there is no progress to report on this endeavor.
• Tour Europe. Rather, backpack through Europe. Particularly Germany. There have been some rumblings about doing this in 2004.
• Learn to race. And by race, I mean race on road courses, under the auspices of the SCCA or something similar. This one will probably need to wait until my fiscal situation doesn’t have a huge drain on it (ahem)

There are others, these give you a general idea. What will pique my interest in the future? There’s a good chance that it will somehow involve either Minnesota or motorsports.

Sitting here in Minnesota, with many things better ro do but not the drive to do them, I decided to make some minor changes to Keacher.com. First, I now have a blog roll featured prominently in the upper-right corner of the page. Previously, these links were burried on the Files page (go figure). The four currently listed all share several common traits: they all go to Rose, they all are members of my Fraternity, they all use a blog-type format, and they are all (in my opinion) interesting to read. That, and three of the four link back to me.

The second major change was to the search function on the site. I wrote up some new code so now the search results feature a snippet of the article that the search term appears in, complete with highlighting. Ooooo, aaaaah. Try it out!

The final change was to make permalinks more prominent for my posts. Clicking on the article post date or title will open the article on a page of its own. This will probably be most useful for search engines. Speaking of which, almost nobody finds this site by searching for “Keacher”: the most commonly used search term to find this site is “cdrw800 firmware”. Yeah, go figure.

Living in Minnesota, one must find ways to enjoy the ice, cold, and snow. Popular methods to find happiness include ice fishing, snow mobiling, snowball fights and hockey. Today I chose to indulge in another Nordic pastime: snowboarding. I have been downhill skiing for many years but never considered trading my skis for a board. That is, until last month.

Sometime around Thanksgiving, I began to get the urge to expand my alpine knowledge. Unfortunately, there was a distinct dearth of snow in Minnesota at the time, which conspired with warm temperatures and a lack of time to postpone my boarding endeavor. Not so on this break.

Now, some of you, dear readers, might be pondering why I don’t just go boarding in Indiana. Those who pose that question apparently have never been to Indiana. But I digress.

I spent the past few nights looking at the web sites for the various ski hills in the Twin Cities area. My goal was to find the hill with the best introductory snowboarding package (lift ticket, rental, lesson). After considering all the options, I realized that I was more confused than when I started. So, I decided to go with what I knew, and chose Afton Alps.

I spent today at Afton. I started with several hours of lessons then spent the remainder of the day practicing. And falling down. And practicing. And falling down. And practicing. And falling down slightly less. And practicing. You get the idea. Anyway, I had a great time. I started the day barely able to skate the board on level ground and ended linking turns. A small triumph, but I’m happy with my progress. Overall, I had a great time. Snowboarding is fun!