A few key things:

1. My computer HD crashed last Wednesday/Thursday. Thanks to a number of people (Kerry/Paul, Dad, and Tim Lien) I've been able to get back pretty much up and running again. Kerry/Paul let me use their computer to try and figure out what went wrong and use their Firewire cord to recover my critical data before wiping the HD clean and starting with a clean slate. Dad sent/is sending a copy of a later version of the OS X recover disk than I had on hand at the time of the crash (I have 10.2.7, he has 10.3.4 I think). Most of MS Office for the Mac won't run on the earlier system (it needs a newer version of 10.2), and for that matter, many of the programs I had also need either higher versions of 10.2 or a version of 10.3 to run. Tim Lien let me borrow his copy of Microsoft Office for, um, evaluation purposes to try and get up and running on my Windows PC (which he and I re/built a few weeks ago). I may just try and see if this thing can get me through the March-May time frame of 2007 then possibly scrap it (it'll be 2.5 to three years old then, having been in my hands for 2 years) and look into getting a newer Mac then.

2. I may be leaving the Cart Lab for my final semester of grad school. I was informed of this yesterday. I'll still be employed elsewhere on campus and still keep my assistantship and stipend, just no longer at my current place of employment. Craig is losing three geography grad students at one time, and possibly a fourth (anthropology who could, in theory, get a teaching assistantship at any point thus meaning she'd have to leave the Cart Lab) all of whom will have been there for 2 - 2.5 years a piece. He's looking at hiring a couple of current undergrads who are considering grad school and wants to break at least one of them in for my job before he starts grad school (he's a good guy, he's one of the folks who went to Ghana this past summer). If I end up leaving the Cart Lab, I'll end up at the Office Land Management for my final semester (Land Management too is losing a geography grad student and the geography department wants to keep that position...so I suppose I'm serving as a placeholder). Little will change. I'll still do GIS work, I'll still do it for 20 hours a week (though probably at a higher hourly rate). I'll even be within a baseball's throw of Farrah Hall (Land Management is in Hayden-Harris Hall, which is along Hackberry between Burke and Farrah). I'd work under the University Geologist whom I've worked with on projects before (Handicapped accessibility map in tandem with Dr. Judy Bonner--University Provost, and the Google Earth project). I'd also work in close contact with the Cart Lab. I don't really want to leave the Cart Lab, but I also really don't have much control. If it's a terrible switch, it's only for a semester...it may make me more encouraged to get my non-thesis requirements done.

3. Speaking of non-Thesis requirements, I've approached Dr. Seth (Appiah-Opoku) about resubmitting my Ghana paper for a non-thesis paper. He seemed to think it was a good idea and is currently (allegedly at least) looking over it again. Then we'll meet and discuss how to bring it up to non-thesis standards. (I think I'm on his good side again after that first fifteen minutes of comps--yeesh). I'm still trying to think about a final non-thesis paper/project. If all goes well on my current GIS-T project, I may try and expand it a bit more (in terms of project breadth and paper length). Today was a good day on the project (Kelly, I found out through initial analysis that all but the extreme SW portion of Chesterfield county is within 15 minutes of a fire station, and four select key sites are within five minutes--St. John's Church, The Capitol, The Diamond, and The Richmond Coliseum--of a fire station). I judge a good day by everything working out well in data gathering, manipulation, compilation and analysis. I'm about |___| <-- that close from being ready to start the paper writing and necessary map production. It is indeed true the axiom that seventy-five percent of the time, effort and frustration of GIS is the data gathering.

4. My thoughts are now turning to Thanksgiving. Can't wait!

5. I also bought two old maps on e-bay last week. They came in (thanks Kerry for serving as a "c/o" for me!). I'm currently getting them custom framed at Michael's. They are a 1930 map of Gold Coast (that is, Ghana), and a 1905 map of Japan. They're both smaller than I thought, but they're old maps...so I like them.

Hooray!

I just looked at my time sheet for the first time this pay period (in theory, I should have looked at it the past few days, but whatever...). For the first time since May, I'm actually ahead in hours! I have a +0.5 by my name. Keep in mind, the day I got back to work after going to Africa, I had a -77 by my name, meaning I owed 77 hours. It's been a long, hard five months, but I finally broke even (and that's including two and a half days off for comps, a week off for Virginia, and a day off last week for a head cold from which I needed to rid myself).

On a completely un-related note, Tim Lien was officially installed by Warrior Presbytery as Senior Pastor at Riverwood PC. Now maybe the PCA's website will update the RPC entry on their church directory (assuming the stated clerk of Warrior Presbytery informs the folks in Atlanta in time).