Vu’s Blog

Hi everyone. So I finally was able to reformat the tablet computer (with xp tablet addition thanks to Tim) and I’m trying to see how long I survive using only open source software - minus the o/s since otherwise the tablet features are useless. Anyway, I found a couple of software that I think is pretty neat. And again.. it’s open source, so it’s free.

NVU - this one’s great for a Dreamweaver alternative.

Gimp - Kind of like photoshop.. takes a bit to get used to.

Inkscape - Very much like Fireworks, but has a few really nice features.

That’s pretty much it for now. Things like Firefox and Filezilla you all should know by now. I’ll see if I can draw up anything neat to post.

Anyway, everything’s been going pretty well on my side. Christine’s been feeling well which is a good sign. We’re at about.. wow… almost 5 months now. Which means soon we get to see the sonogram of the baby!! Crazy.

I think Mark and Kristin are coming in this weekend too so we get to see their freshly engaged-selves.

Well, other than that… nothing else really new. Pittsburgh was supposed to be covered in ice today. PennDOT did a too-nice-of-a-job cleaning up the roads. Right now it’s just raining and nasty. Anyway, I’ll keep on posting. This is much nicer than what I used to have. Until then… stay warm!

The Phoenix Palm Rises From Ashes, originally uploaded by JPhilipson.

This is a beautiful photo. I just wanted to share this with everyone

Christine and I spent a good bit of Sunday night cleaning out junk from the office (old computer parts, papers, random crap!) in order to make room to convert the guest room (Tung’s room right now) into the nursery. We got rid of a whole lot of stuff. We were also trying to get everything out of christine’s desk and put it over to mine. Her computer died, so it really wasn’t being used.

It was a success though. Christine’s desk is ready to be moved, and the closet is all clean. We just need to move the guest bed to that room, and starting putting the baby stuff into the guest room.

It felt good though getting rid of old junk. I think the next thing we have to do is go through our clothes and make another trip out to Goodwill. I have a bin labeled “winter clothes” that I didn’t even open up this winter. That was a sign to me that I needed to gives some clothes away.

This Valentine’s day was pretty great. Christine made me this AWESOME book of our lives. She made it from www.shutterfly.com. I spent the last couple of weeks making our wedding video. It worked out alright, but Premiere was being funky on me and would’ve export correctly.

Anyway, we spent yesterday eating take out Applebee’s with my brother, and just hung out at the house watching our wedding video.

I hope you all had a good valentine’s, whether or not you spent it with a S.Other or just with friends.

It was very wet today. It rained throughout the middle of the night all the way until morning. I hope everyone made it to school/work/wherever alright. I’m just glad that Millvale didn’t flood again. I guess the whole cleaning of the river really helped.  :shrug:

Anyway, a couple of fun things came about today at work. Tim is finally given the chance to go ahead and make a windows-based help system that actually will make ROBOTC a hundred times better. Jesse, Ross, and I made a neat in-video quizzing system which will really help with students understanding the concepts. It’s pretty neat.. you guys can check it out at www.robotc.net/vex_full and click on the Sensors > Operator Assist > Video 1

I hope everyone is doing well. I’m just at home and relaxing. Have a good night everyone!

Oh man oh man oh man…. That was one crazy last quarter!! The whole time I wanted the Giants to win. The last 2 minutes I was screaming because of how well Eli was doing. And everyone has to agree that the game-making play was when Eli (..Little Eli…) broke away from probably 4 guys going at him, and threw a pass - which I have no idea how Tyree caught it - and Tyree magically caught the ball over his head without dropping it.

I have to say though… I felt REALLY bad for Belichick, Brady, and their team. The news guy kept asking the coach all of these questions, and obviously he, and their whole team, was devastated. He kept responding, “We are disappointed”.

Well, mark that up for one VERY good game. Good job Giants! Maybe next time Patriots.

Today was actually really sunny. It was one of those winter days where if you looked out the window, you’d think that it was warm… but as soon as you stepped outside you’d scream at how freakin’ cold it was outside.

Work went well as normal. We are so close to getting the Teaching ROBOTC for VEX project done. This is the time when I just want it to finish, but I know that if we rush then some parts will just end up looking horrible… and we can’t have that! Seriously… we make the material look too good to sacrifice the end.

I had a great idea of bringing home our PC-BOT (by White Box Robotics). I figure I can see what people have done with those in the community. It seems like a lot of people have worked with it. It looks cool… so we might as well make it do something cool, right?

I hope you guys had a great day today even though it was cold.

I know everyone says this by the time the end of the day comes, but man… I’m tired. I’ve been doing pretty well about getting up in the morning to work out - and I’ve been having some good workouts too!

I’m learning how to work with LabVIEW pretty well too. It’s not too bad, actually. You can pretty much do ANYTHING with it too. I’ll keep you updated if I get any cool projects going.

No picture tonight though. Maybe I’ll carry around the camera tomorrow

I’m testing this out, but I might as well test one that I may actually want to blog. John Grisham is probably my favorite Author, and his next book seems to be coming at a pretty convenient time I’m in for this one.

The Appeal
” is John Grisham’s handy primer on a timely subject: how to rig an election. Blow by blow, this not-very-fictitious-sounding novel depicts the tactics by which political candidates either can be propelled or ambushed and their campaigns can be subverted.

read more | digg story

This was one of my favorite photos that I took down in Austin. Obviously I don’t have a crazy nice camera or anything, it’s just a point-and-shoot Casio Exilim. I get a surprisingly nice shot every once in a while though.