I spent most of this weekend in Indianapolis watching musical performances.

On Friday night, I went with one of my Fraternity brothers to a Nickelback concert at the Verizon Wireless Music Center. By utilizing some connections, we got nearly free tickets. The opening bands, Course of Nature and 7 Dust, were decent, but I don’t particularly care for either of their songs. Nickelback, however, was fantastic. They played all of their hits, some unrecorded stuff, and ‘unplugged’ versions of some of their songs. Along with the music, they put on a great visual effect show featuring a plethora of pyrotechnics. It was a good concert.

Saturday morning, I went with another one of my Brothers to the Drum Corps International midwest championships. We went to support another Brother, Martin (who also happened to be my freshman floor’s SA). We got to see a dozen drum corps from around the country compete in the RCA Dome. The show was great. Afterwards, we met up with Martin at a local middle school. We hung out for a few minutes, at which point Martin had to start a practice which would last the next four hours. We departed and began the trip back to Terre Haute.

Okay, I had a nice, long self-reflective post all typed up. I’d been working on it for about an hour when I accidentally backed out of my update page, which destroyed my entry. *Sigh*

Maybe I’ll reconstruct it tomorrow.

I woke up at the Pike house hotter than normal today. The box fan, not more than a foot from my head, was roaring. My alarm, now under my loft for unknown reasons, clanged brazenly but could not compete with the jet-like thunder of the fan. Sweating, I stumbled out of bed, slapped the alarm off, and braced myself for the light of day.

After taking a shower, I decided to tackle the perpetual heat that saturates third floor, location of my room. After feeling the HVAC registers, I decided that a low air flow was the source of my agony. Increasing the flow meant examining the ductwork and the AC unit.

I made my way through the crawl space to the air conditioning evaporator unit, pulled of the cover, and was not at all shocked to see a dirty air filter. Very dirty. In fact, it was so caked with dust that it had become opaque. The last time the filter was changed was in August 2001 when I discovered a similar situation. I’ve heard that the filters should be changed monthly; now I see why. I got a new filter from the supply closet, installed it, and was dismayed to find no increase in air flow. What else could cause the problem?

I checked the evaporator core to see if it had frozen. Nope. Perhaps the blower fan had something touching it. Nada. Maybe the flexible ducts were being pinched. Indeed, some were. Although moving the ducts didn’t increase flow, doing so led me to the real culprit: poor duct joints.

I emerged from the plenum, hopped in the Bonnie, and drove to the hardware store. “Where’s the duct tape?” “Down aisle 10” “No, not the gray ‘Duck’ duct tape. I want the stuff that actually can be used on ducts. You know, the shiny silver adhesive foil.” “Ah, you want aisle 10” “Great. Yowza! That stuff is expensive!” “Yup.” “That’s it? That was some pathetic empathy…” “Yep. Do you need a bag for that?”

Okay, I made that exchange up. The people at Ace Hardware were actually quite helpful, and the girl who showed me the HVAC duct tape nearly freaked out over the price. It was a bit expensive: 10 yards for $3.99. Ah well. Supply and demand.

After I got back to the House, I returned to the ducts. Everywhere I felt cold air, I slapped some tape down. In one case I plugged a hole with tape and a sock. Another time, I needed to plug a gaping (5 x 20 inch) hole, so out came the cardboard. Incidentally, I think that the behemoth hole was the source of my air pressure woes.

After buttoning up the system with the foil duct tape, socks, cardboard, and a pear tree, I checked the register. Success! Iced air was gushing out in a stream of cold.

In fact, it is getting so cold in here that I can no longer tolerate sitting at the computer. That, and it is now 3:20 a.m., so I probably should go to sleep. Off to enjoy a blissful protracted slumber!

Shortly before my previous entry, I returned to Terre Haute. My job: web programming and other computer tasks for the Midwest Center for Rural Health; specifically, revamping and maintaining RuralConsult.com. RuralConsult allows rural doctors to post queries to get the aid of a specialist. By consulting with a specialist via the web, the rural doctor can help the patient without the patient travelling long distances to a major city. The web consultation can generally occur many weeks before the specialist would be available for an appointment, allowing the rural doctor to start treatment earlier. I’m quite happy working at the Midwest center: my job is fun, the office is nice, and my colleagues are great.

Last weekend an air show visited Terre Haute. Planes of all types were doing tricks and fly-bys. My favorite plane was the F-117A Stealth, which flew about 500ft above the Pike House. Seeing and hearing the USAF Thunderbirds was an experience that defies description. Perhaps it is best to just say: wow!

Other musings:

I took some new photos of my Bonneville. In the last week we’ve grilled twice at the House, one time brats and the other chicken. I’m still looking for a bike, though due to financial constraints my search will not come to fruition until spring. We took the pumper truck out on the road for a bit – what a blast!

I think I finally triumphed over the server problems. For the past month, I had been having a problem with my Linux server where the network interface would go deaf. It retained the ability to send packets, but one-way transmission makes communications difficult, so the server was inaccessible. The most frustrating part of the problem was that it usually only occurred in the afternoon, magically fixing itself in the wee hours of the morning. Utilizing various tests, I determined that the problem was not: a cron script; another computer on the network; the router; an ARP failure; related to the internal real-time clock. I would have hooked up a terminal to the server during the deafness, but the box was 600 miles away in a locked room. I grew to suspect either a bad NIC or a bad driver in the kernel, so I purchased a new D-Link 10/100 card, drove to Indiana, and popped it in. The server hasn’t had any issues since then.

Yes, I am back in Indiana. More on that in a moment…

Two weeks ago, I received a motorcycle endorsement on my Minnesota driver’s license. I took the Minnesota Motorcycle Safety Center‘s ‘Basic Rider’ course to supplement my previous experience and to garner a skills test exemption. The course was excellent; I highly recommend it. Now all I need is a suitable bike. I would like a mid-90’s super-sport ‘crotch rocket,’ perhaps a Katana 600 or a CBR600F3. If only I had the money…

The day after I got my endorsement, I had my two lower wisdom teeth extracted. I had enjoyed my last ‘real meal’ the previous Saturday: an Applewood burger at Bar Abeline with Justin, Webb, and Eric. Monday did not arrive fresh and rosy-fingered; rather, it was dark and storming. My mom drove me to the oral surgeon’s office, the logic being that I would be unfit to drive after the extraction. I checked in, signed a liability waiver, and was led to a room with a TV. A nurse started a short video tape explaining the procedure, potential side effects, and post-operative care. I met the surgeon then was led to the surgical suite. I had previously been given the choice of local or general anesthesia. To minimize potential complications, I decided to have local anesthesia. This consisted of nitrous oxide (“Laughing gas”) as a sedative and lidocaine as a anesthetic. A nurse started up the nitrous oxide, and I breathed it heavily. In short order, I was tripping on Cloud 9. I felt like I was floating, and suddenly I started babbling to the nurse. Whenever I said anything, I would end the phrase with a chuckle, not unlike the Beavis and Butthead laugh. Oddly, I was fully aware that my comments weren’t funny, but I could not resist laughing and talking more. I recall apologizing for acting so childish, a comment that, of course, was ended with a giggle. The surgeon noticed my drugged behavior and turned down the nitrous a bit. On went the topical anesthetic, in went the lidocaine needles, down went the plungers. Wait five minutes for maximum potency. I never lost consciousness, but I abandoned all concepts of time. In what seemed like five minutes, my two wisdom teeth were out, the stitches were in, and I was returning to earth via pure oxygen. The surgery actually took about half an hour. I felt no pain, as the lidocaine was still active, but I received prescriptions for Vioxx and Vicodin “just in case.” My mom drove me home where I relaxed in a chair, changing the gauze in my mouth every half-hour. The bleeding for my right tooth stopped in about two hours; the left took about four. After a while I made and carefully consumed a smoothie. The taste was bland, thanks to my tongue and mouth being completely numb. Several smoothies later, about ten hours after surgery, the numbness dissipated. I was quite happy, and not just because I no longer was drooling on myself: the lack of numbness meant that my nerve had not been injured during the procedure. I quickly tired of smoothies. By end of the day following surgery, I was carefully eating Fig Newtons. By Friday I was eating Hawaiian burgers at a joint in Wichita, Kansas. It has been almost two weeks since the surgery. I am eating everything I always ate. At no time did I ever feel any pain — and not because of the Vioxx and Vicodin, for I took a total of two Vioxx pills and no Vicodin. Did you hear that, world? I had my two lower wisdom teeth removed, experienced absolutely no pain, and was essentially back to normal food within 96 hours.

Did I mention Wichita? Yep, it appears I did. Last weekend I went to Wichita, Kansas with my friend Eric for the GM W-Body Gathering in Eric’s Grand Prix GTP. It was fun, although Eric had a bad experience washing his car. First, the car wash pressure washer stripped a chunk of paint from his car. Next, while drying his car, he discovered that the towels were leaving some sort of white film on his black car. At about the same time, he noticed that his aftermarket high-polish rims had been corroded by something during the wash. After getting back in the car and starting it up, the ABS and Traction Control lights came on, probably due to his washing of the engine bay. We got back to the hotel (Saturday night) and started working on the ABS problem. At this point the “Service Engine Soon” light came on and the transmission started acting very strangely. Not wanting to make maters worse, and at this point having an undrivable vehicle, Eric decided not to dyno nor drag race his car. After the dyno and drag racing times (now Sunday evening), we returned to the hotel to work on the car some more. Numerous repair methods were employed, but in the end, the problem turned out to be a fuse. With the fuse replaced, the car ran like a dream, albeit with the ABS and TC lights on. Monday morning we packed up and returned to Minnesota. To get to Wichita, we drove on the Kansas Turnpike. There are many ranches along that road, though very few buildings and even fewer access ramps. However, there are so many cattle that bridges have been built over the freeway exclusively for the livestock!

The Fourth of July was fun. I had the chance to ride a 110 h.p. Polaris SL900 personal watercraft (a.k.a. Jetski). What a rush! There’s nothing quite like jumping waves at 50 m.p.h. Sure, PWC’s are loud and annoying, but they’re so much fun that nothing else should matter.

I returned to Terre Haute on Friday. For the summer, I’ll be staying at the Pike house. Right now I’m the only one on the grounds, so I’m eerily lonely. Seven other Brothers will be coming back on Sunday, so human interaction should pick up a bit next week. Things are a bit of a mess here, so I spent all of Saturday cleaning around the House and running errands. The question is: why did I come back? The answer will need to wait for a future entry…