Once again, another week has flown by on the hill and it’s time for another radio show. A quick reminder before I jump into other things, tomorrow (Tuesday) from 2pm to 4pm EST tune in to WHCL 88.7 (www.whcl.org) for another one of my shows. Tomorrow’s theme (if you can even describe my show as being theme based) is somber tunes. There’s going to be a good mix of alternative/indie tunes along with some electronic/jazz pieces. I’m pretty excited about the songs that I picked out and I’ve got high hopes for the show. As usual, the playlist for the show will be available here.
So, what happened this past week? Quite a lot, though mostly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Last night, Greg, Grant, and I entertained guests at 4002A. Well, we simply cooked an easy dinner of spaghetti bolognese (w/ real meat sauce), threw together a quick salad, and made sure to have vast amounts of red wine and beverages available. Some friends came over and it was actually very quaint; seven of us sitting around our kitchen table chatting about the latest events and simply catching up. We hope to make this into a semi-permanent fixture of Sunday nights but we’ll see, it’s tough to organize things too far in advance. Also on Sunday, we threw together an EMT training session. As dorky/geeky/fill in the appropriate word here that it sounds, I actually like our hands on skill training sessions. Although I was leading one of the stations, it’s really good to be able to simply take the equipment that we don’t use too often (traction splints, KEDs, backboards) and just make sure we remember how to use it all. I led the traction splint station and it was a good thing too as I learnt a lot about how it works (which unfortunately I’d forgotten about). I also got the privilege to not only be trapped in a KED, but then boarded down, and then used as a weight while Gabe did some curls. Cute.
Friday and Saturday were generally weekend days. I got off campus a couple of times with Greg, visited the cider mill in Clinton, and had a chance to play with the new iPod nano that Apple released a couple of weeks ago. It truly is small; I had no idea it was as tiny as they say it was. Black is a very awesome color and I’m hoping to be able to sell the iPods I own now (40 GB 4th generation and 1 GB iPod Shuffle) so that I can pick up a black 4 GB iPod nano engraved with either “Where words fail, music speaks” or perhaps simply my name and URL. I also had the chance to watch the movie, Crash. Featuring a well thought-out cast, the movie juxtaposed racial tensions with humor to create a shocking movie that brought both tears and smiles. I don’t really want to describe it too much but it was truly a good film. I’d rate it somewhere around a 90 out of a 100.
Not much else is planned for the moment. Friday we’re hosting a gathering here for computer science students and faculty - a simple get together - known as a smash in the department. I’ve got tons of work this week but it’s more manageable than last week. And finally, I also ended up purchasing my ticket for Christmas, so I’ll be spending the majority of the break (Dec 19 to Jan 12) in France!
I finally got around to composing my thoughts on my visit to Iceland this summer. Part journal, part travel writing, the following post encompasses the adventures Matti and I had during out brief visit to the nation in the middle of nowhere.
“Well, Iceland was quite an interesting island that can most aptly be described as being in the middle of nowhere. With a population of just under 300,000 with more than 60% living within Reykjavik and it’s suburbs, Iceland is a very nationalistic country that features beautiful surroundings and a somewhat strange, albeit perfectly reasonable, way of life.
Arriving at Keflavik airport, approximately 50 km from Reykjavik, we encountered a treeless environment and fields of lava. Having booked a trip to the Blue Lagoon on arrival, Matti and I found (after a slight bit of confusion) the bus that was to take us, and six other passengers, to the Blue Lagoon and eagerly boarded it. The Blue Lagoon is a spa just 20 km from the airport featuring salt water that ranges between 39 C and 41 C. It was created from the runoff of a geothermal power plant and was a very modern facility that allowed us to relax and become refreshed after our flight. It’s a very odd feeling being in water so warm - at first it’s extremely satisfying but as time goes by, your body begins to become irritated by the temperature. Nonetheless, in small doses, it’s supposed to be very beneficial health wise and could perhaps explain the high life expectancies in Iceland.
It’s taken me over a month to compile the photos I took of Iceland but in all honesty, I was waiting for the replacement PowerMac. Anyway, like I promised, here is a small collection of the photos I took during my three night visit of Iceland in July with my friend Matti. We were quite lucky in that at least two of the days we were there, the sun was out.
Photos from Iceland
Hard at work, with a a healthy mix of procrastination, can describe my past two weeks at Hamilton. With four classes, two towards my theses, I’ve found myself spending entirely too much time reading, writing, and studying. It truly is amazing how much more work we’ve been given, and in a lot of cases, the work is being piled on in courses that have little to do with my majors. To ease the pain, or at least to make my life somewhat easier, I’ve decided to exercise the credit/no-credit option available for courses that aren’t calculated into your major’s GPA. In my case, I’m taking the course Vietnam through Film as credit/no-credit, and at least for the time being, I’m very happy that I’ve done so.
Outside of work, activities and social life continue. I’ve gotten myself a radio show and this Tuesday between 2 - 4 pm EST you can hear me on WHCL 88.7 FM or online via the shoutcast stream. Titled On-Air Stylings with the Fickle Finn, it will be a continuation of last years show with Sean, except of course, it will be all me. I hope to incorporate a bit more electronic and jazz into the show but we’ll see. It really depends on my mood at the time! My work with the campus EMTs continues and I’m loving the distraction, although some of the petty things we need to deal with are driving me nuts. Whatever the case, it’s still exciting and I haven’t yet gotten tired of the adrenaline rush that you get when the pager goes off.
Living in 4002A with Greg and Grant is a wonderful experience. With a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and three singles, we’ve got plenty of room. This weekend we BBQ’d with friends and it’s genuinely relaxing being able to escape campus and come back to a real house. Ask me though how I feel about the place once I can no longer bike to campus - with snow, it might become a genuine prison!
My saga with Apple and the PowerMac G5 has been completely resolved. Mid last week, I received my replacement machine from Apple and it truly is fast. With dual processors, a faster system bus, larger hard drive, newer graphic card, and dual layer DVD burner, my disappointment with the time it took for the machine to be fixed/replaced has subdued. Now, if only I could get my hands on one of the new iPod nano’s.
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