Archive for May, 2007
Ring
May 31st
Last night, I asked Diane to marry me! I doubt this will come as a surprise to anyone who knows us. We’ve been dating for nearly three and a half years, so it was definitely coming.
The ring is a simple white gold band with a tension set emerald. I have many different reasons why I didn’t get a diamond – mostly it comes down to the fact that I kinda dislike diamonds. The simple, elegant ring is very much what I wanted to find. Diane doesn’t really wear rings, so I wanted to get one that was as unobtrusive as possible so she’d be more inclined to wear it.
She loved it 
I dunno how much she’ll wear it on her hand, but I also got her a chain to wear it around her neck if she so desires.
Spying on the Ducks
May 30th
Back to my walk pictures — here’s a photo of a couple of ducks swimming upstream in the North Saskatchewan River. This is one of the only photos in my stream that is cropped – I don’t usually crop my photos, but this one was much better with some of the trees and distracting scenery cropped out.
Vista + New Video Card
May 30th
Ugh, I’ve been so busy these past few days that I haven’t had the energy to post in awhile. There’s a whole bunch of stuff going on right now with the poker group at the UofA … and it’s making me go slightly crazy. Still, it’s exciting.
Late last week, my video card (a 6600GT) died. I think it’s because the fan that was on it was just a little bit too small and it was driving too many pixels on my two 24″ LCD monitors. So I think it was just overworked. In any case, I needed a new video card. I ended up at memory express two days later and bought a shiny new 8800 GTS. It is certainly a fancy video card and looks far better built so I’m hoping it lasts a good long while.
In any case, I also picked up a new hard drive. When I got everything setup and installed I wondered whether I should install a clean version of windows again. I love having a clean install of an OS – it feels so much better than a clogged down version. Windows seems especially prone to this problem, so it was certainly a tempting proposition. I decided, though, to pick up a copy of Vista from the University. The UofA has this agreement with Microsoft called the MSDNAA (microsoft developer network academic alliance). With this agreement, any staff and students of the University of Alberta get to borrow discs of almost all of Microsoft’s products to take home and install on their home computer. So I went in and signed out a copy of Vista Business edition. I figured – if I was going to reinstall an OS, I might as well give Vista a shot and see if it worked for me.
Let me first give out a tip for anyone considering a reformat. The easiest way to install a new OS on an existing system with little or no risk of losing existing data is to use a multiple hard drive setup. You can, in the bios, set a particular hard drive as the boot up disk. So my advice would be to purchase a new hard drive (or use an existing one you can wipe clean) and set that to the bootup disk. Install the OS on that disk, and then mount your other hard drive(s) so you can access your existing data. Not only does this let you not worry about overwriting your data, you also get the opportunity to access configuration files and other application data for switching over to your new system.
So … I now have Vista running. What do I think? Well so far it sure beats the hell out of XP. It feels snappier, and definitely looks prettier. Vista definitely is an improvement over previous windows versions. There are still some weird ass-backwards ways of doing some things, but on the whole it isn’t so bad. Of course, it’s not a Mac OS … and I’m still seriously considering buying a mac when Apple finally releases new revisions of the Mac Pros.
Heraldk
Casey
May 28th
Legislature
May 27th
Another shot that turned out fairly well from the recent walk with Diane. This is of the Alberta Legislature located in downtown Edmonton. It is a beautiful area to go walking around when the weather is nice.
High Level Bridge
May 25th
On my recent trek through the river valley toward the Alberta Legislature, I got this photo of the high level bridge (also known as the 109th street bridge). I rather like how it turned out
MayDay Flowers
May 22nd
I went on a walk in the river valley yesterday with Diane. It was rather nice to get out and get some exercise and enjoy the sunshine! I even had my camera so I got several pretty decent shots which I’ll be sharing over the next few days. Here’s a closeup of some flowers on a mayday tree.
A Weekend of Fun
May 21st
This was a pretty packed weekend. On Friday, a group of us went over to Mike’s parent’s place which Mike is house-sitting at. We played some games and pool and stayed out pretty late. On Saturday, my family got all dressed up to go do a portrait photo which my mom won at a fashion show she went to in St Albert. We were *going* to buy prints for us and my grandparents and our other relatives. However, we were shocked to see that the price was $80 for a single 5×7 print?!!!! That’s highway robbery! Diane and I had thought we would try and get some photos with just the two of us, but the prices were simply not reasonable enough for us to try that. We’ll have to find somewhere else to go for that. So we went and got our one free 5×7 print and we’ll have to look at other options for portraits. *sigh*.
On Sunday was Nolan’s 1/4 century Birthday party. It was a pretty good party and I got a tad liquored up. We had fun! Today, Diane and I joined her family for an afternoon picnic at Emily Murphy Park near the university. Afterwards, Diane and I took a leisurely stroll down the river valley and across the bridge walking eventually to Corona station where we took the train back to my place to watch the season finale of Heroes.
*whew*. Busy weekend huh?
Heraldk
Alberta Sunset
May 20th
I am incredibly happy with this photo. I took this photo out of a moving minivan on the way home from my sister’s first ticketed recital (she plays the harp). So this was out of a moving car through a tinted window that wasn’t terribly clean, and this photo *still* turned out amazing.
Enjoy!
Serene Lake
May 19th
Diane and I went to Vancouver for a friend’s wedding a couple years ago, and made a bit of a trip out of it. We drove my dad’s car from Edmonton to Vancouver, stopping at a couple camp grounds and Diane’s Aunt and Uncle’s place along the way. This photo was taken at one of the campgrounds we stayed at. It was a beautiful day at the lakefront.
I’m done my week-long look at some of my old photos. I’ll return to posting some newer photos for awhile before I once again return to my archives!
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