On Tuesday evening, Chris and I walked a 2.5 mile stretch of the Tuscarora Trail that runs along the top of a mountain. Of course, it got dark, the flashlight wasn’t where it was supposed to be, and the return trip was rather interesting. No broken limbs, but lots of scratches and such. This wasn’t your nice dirt road kind of trail either – just rocks and the occasional blaze for much of the trail. The cell phone provided a good deal of light towards the end, despite accidentally calling Tim.

On Wednesday, Ian and I hiked (on a trail that was like a dirt road) almost 9 miles. It was pretty dark at the end, but a lot nicer than stumbling over rocks. It was one of the few times I was with Ian this summer, so we had the chance to catch up on all of the happenings since the Spring semester.

Now, Doug’s turn should probably be next… but I haven’t decided on the appropriate successor to last summer’s infamous pipeline hike

Well, that makes the third rattlesnake I’ve seen this year, and this time, there are pictures. Chris and I walked up to the Gunter Valley Dam tonight, and this was on the bridge over the spillway. The road now bears the signs and rules of the State Forest Service, which probably means that they now own it.

Other than that, not too much happening. Still sorting things from the LAN party. Also reading… Chris lent me his Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, and I’ve been reading it, uncovering many references I’ve heard elsewhere. Realizing that no work on NetMRG has really happened this summer, I’ve also started hacking at that…

School is looming ahead, only next week at this point. Pam (the math department secretary at Ship) added me to the class I was hoping to get into, which should bring me to a 14-credit semester. Things are still looking on-track for a Spring ‘05 graduation. I still need to do the math on my schedule, see if Ian and I have any lunch overlaps, and plan the rest of my time.

Despite what Doug says, I really enjoyed most of that hike! Well, except the part about wondering if the road was actually a river. It’d be good if DCNR put out some maps where mountain-sized hills aren’t displayed as two elevation lines. Besides, Ian, Isaac and Chris all have similar stories and I don’t hear them complaining (well, very often, anyway) .

Tuesday, the last piece (motherboard) arrived for my Oak upgrade. I proceeded without much problem (except for nearly destroying the processor via misapplied heatsink… my thanks to the A7V8X motherboard for shutting the machine off when it detects the processor is about to melt…). Oak is much faster processing-wise, and transfer speeds have improved, but are not quite at the media-limiting point.

Isaac and Ange organized a Capture the Flag event, which I was able to attend. I think they had 16 people at peak, divided over two teams. We got three games in between around 11:00 and 1:30. Due to the moon, only the last game was *really* dark. And this morning, the family went to the Silver Springs Flea Market. I didn’t get anything except for my usual breakfast sausage… most of my past purchases had been junk for treehouse assimilation, and that pretty much came to an end when I started working.

I’ve been playing with ISC DHCPD a good bit recently. Today I became more aware of the limitations in OMAPI, especially the lack of useful parameters that can be specified for host objects in this manner. This was completely offset by the coolness of dhcp-eval, however.

Demonstrated (yes, intentionally) the floating capability of my Magellan GPS 315 yesterday while canoeing with the family. It worked fine (no, I didn’t lose it). However, today my sister and I went hunting a cache in the area of the former Sherman Mountain Fire Tower that Ian and I unsuccessfully tried to find in the dark a few years ago. Caching is pretty cool, provides a scenic walk, and a chance to use the GPS to find things of a slightly more covert nature. Unfortunately, the GPS might be failing, as the screen is starting to have issues. If it needs replaced, the Cadillac of handheld GPSs will have to be considered.