Update

Well, it's been a while since I updated last. I've been super busy with school and work. I had a birthday on Monday and it was cool. We went to dinner at Carraba's and I opened some presents. (I'm at school right now so I'll update with pictures later.) Anyway, here's how my classes are going:

First class - ECE238: Not too bad, I'm getting used to the binary/decimal/octal/hexadecimal conversions now and our first lab assignment is next week. It's tough but I don't think I'll have too many problems passing the course.

Second class - Spanish 302: On Tuesday, my teacher pulled me out of class and told me my spanish was "impeccable". He also said that I wouldn't get anything out of the class and that my grammar was "perfect". He told me that I didn't have to come to class and instead of going to class, I'm going to read a few books written in classic sixteenth century spanish and write a couple essays on them. Not too bad.

Third class: CS261: This is probably my hardest class this semester, Discrete Mathematical Structures. It's basically a math class that deals with really abstract topics and it gets pretty confusing. What's worse, I ordered the book for this class on January 10 and it still hasn't arrived! My first homework assignment is due this coming Tuesday (January 31) and I haven't even started yet! Well, today I went to my teacher's office hour and he lent me his book. I took it to the library and photocopied the section the homework is over and I have to give my teacher his book back in class today. Hopefully my book gets here soon!

Forth class: Geology 101: Easy class. I have it only once a week but the drawback is that it starts at 6:00pm Tuesdays until 8:30pm so I'm at school pretty much all day on Tuesdays (11 hours!). The class doesn't seem too hard. We have weekly reading assignments, two online quizzes over the reading assignments every week, and like two in class quizzes a week.

On a somewhat related note, I got an invitation to some dessert night/awards ceremony in February because I guess I'm on the Dean's list or Honor Roll or something like that. The invitation looked pretty nice and it said it was a ticketed event and that I could bring one guest. (Jenny, of course!)

Well, I have a class that starts pretty soon so I'll leave it at that. When I get home later today, I'll try to put some pics up.

School

Well, school started again this past Tuesday. I've already changed my schedule 3 times! At first I had registered for CS241 which deals with data structures and memory allocation in C but when I went to the first class, I realized I had already taken the course as ECE231! So, I dropped that course and added CS251 which is intermediate Java programming. After checking out the syllabus and the first programming assignment (which is due next week!), I decided that I should probably take the beginners Java course since I have no idea how to program in Java! Anyway, that course doesn't fit my schedule this semester so I ended up registering for a Geology 101 class that will also count towards my major. The only downside to that class was the cost of the book ($111!) and the time (Tuesdays from 6:00pm-8:30pm!). It looks like my Tuesdays are going to be really long! Wish me luck this semester, it's going to be tough!

Another guy beats Mario 64 in 16 minutes

Check it out!

Guy beats Mario 3 in 10 minutes

Check it out!

Albuquerque

We arrived safely last night here in Albuquerque. After unpacking some things, I went to the computer to download the new photos but when I checked for the cable, it wasn't there! We left the cable in Santo Domingo so now I guess I'll have to find another one or get one of those memory card readers before I can update with new photos. Oh well!

Bani

Yesterday we went to Bani and took pictures of the land Jenny's dad is giving us. We have 7.8 acres of beach! The sand is grey and super soft. The beach has some really nice surfing waves but the current is too strong for just swimming. Jenny and I will probably look for investors so we can open a resort or something there. I don't have the pictures uploaded yet but when I do I'll be posting them!

Update: here's some pictures of our beach!

New Year's Eve, 2005

In the afternoon of the 31st, there was heavy rainfall and Jenny and I went out and bathed in the rain. For New Year's eve, we went to tia Bere's house and had some waaaaaaay good lechon asado (roast pig). We lit a bunch of fireworks, danced, and toasted the new year. When we got home, we all went to sleep and had to wake up the next morning at 8:00am to go to church. I'll update the blog with pictures later.

Temple, King Kong

Yesterday, on the 30th, we went to the temple with Jenny's mom. Jenny's dad had to work so he couldn't come. After the temple, we went to the temple storew and bought temple clothes and garments for me. (They were all out of Jenny's size so we'll probably just buy hers when we get back.) We took one of the guaguas (a van) to get home and it took forever! There wasn't any air conditioning and we were going so slow that you could even feel a breeze from the open windows! After lunch (locrio de salami con bollitos de yuca), we were going to go to Mega Centro (the biggest mall in the carribean) and we ran into Justin Collins! (Justin is an old friend of mine). After taking a few pictures with Justin and his comp, we went to Mega Centro. We were going to see King Kong at 5pm, but the movies didn't even open until 6 so we went to GameWorks (an arcade at Mega Centro) and played some games until the movie started. The movie was in spanish and pretty good but it would have been better if they had cut out all the cheesy dialog and cheesy scenes. (The dancing scene, ice skating, etc.)

Tonight we're going to tia Bere's house for dinner and we're eating that pig!

Update

Yesterday I hung out with Julie and her boyfriend Kenny while Jenny and her mom were at the salon geting there hair done. We walked over to a member's house to get some clothes fixed and I visited one of my old investigators. (Her name is Ada and currently has a baptism date set for February 26th. The reason that she's had to wait for so long is that she needs to be married first but to get married, you need a birth certificate, which she doesn't have. Jenny's dad has been working on getting her a new one and it should all be done by next month.)

After Jenny and her mom came home, we took a nap and later had dinner. At 7pm that night, we went to an activity at the bishop's house where we ate spaghetti and danced merengue and bachata.

Oh, and one of the 128MB RAM sticks died yesterday and the computer wouldn't boot up until I took it out.

Later today I'll upload more photos of yesterday and hopefully some photos from today. Today we're going to Santiago to visit more family!

One last thing, I'm going to post a link to the folders where ALL our photos are stored. Only those people with user/password will be able to access them! (Family, if you want an account to access our photos, email me with a username/password and I'll get you access.) So keep your eyes open for that link! It'll be on the left sidebar of this blog.

Tuesday, December 27th

On Tuesday, Jenny, me, Julie, and Julie's boyfriend Kenny went to the beach at Boca Chica. We rented a table under some umbrellas and had fresh fried fish from the sea. (They totally ripped us off... I told Jenny we should buy from another vendor but she insisted! We ended up paying close to $60 for our day at the beach.)After eating, we spent most of the day in the water. The Carribean Sea is warm and the beach that we were at, Boca Chica, has clean white sand, no waves, and the water is only chest deep for 100 meters!

Monday, December 26

On Monday, December 26th, Jenny and I went and visited a couple of my friends from the mission. First we went to Margarita's house and saw her and her daughters Keisy and Rafelina. Rafelina's friend, Ana, also showed up and is in the photo.

After visiting Margarita, we went to Las Americas to visit Manuela and Yudelka. I took a picture with Manuela but Yudi wasn't there. We promised Manuela that we'd be back before we left to visit her.

After talking with Manuela, we went to Mega Centro, (the biggest mall in the Carribean), and bought some souveniers as well as some board shorts for me. (On Tuesday we went to the beach.) The prices here are a lot higher than they used to be but we still found some good deals.

La Finca de los Castillos

Here are some pictures from Jenny's dad's farm. He has about 50 tareas of land. (I'm not sure how many acres that is but it's a lot.) He told me that 18 tareas of that land was for Jenny and I!

We're having this guy for dinner on the 31st!

More Christmas pictures

Christmas

Christmas with Jenny's family was awesome! We had some really great food and I met all the family. Here's some of the food we had:



We have to leave now but I'll post more pictures later.

Pictures from the airports

We made it!

After a long flight from Albuquerque, NM to Atlanta, GA and after spending the night in the airport, we finally made it to Santo Domingo last night! We gave Jenny's family there Christmas presents and then stayed up until around 11:30 talking. This morning we woke up and while Jenny was getting her hair done down the street, I went with Jenny's parents to buy some food for the big noche buena dinner tonight. Pictures to follow.

Santo Domingo

Today we leave for Santo Domingo! Our plane leaves Albuquerque today at 3:55 and we arive in Atlanta later tonight. Tomorrow morning at 11:15, our plane leaves Atlanta and we arrive in Santo Domingo at 3:45pm. Pictures to follow...

Dell laptop

Well, everything WAS working great with the laptop until I updated Quicktime to 7.0.3. After rebooting, the laptop won't get past the loading screen! Anyway, I reformatted the hard drive and just loaded XP back on there. I guess I'll just wait until the REAL OS X for x86 comes out!

On another note, our web server is back online: jmhobbs.homeip.net

You have to have an account to access files!

Mac OS X 10.4.1 on a Dell Latitude D400

Last night I successfully installed Mac OS X x86 on my Dell Latitude D400 laptop computer! I had to tweak one of the kext files to get the graphics working right but now everything works great! Only problem is I don't know how to wake it up from sleep mode. If anyone has any pointers, let me know!

Under Fire cab update

It's been a while since my last post so here's an update:

On saterday, my dad came over and helped me take the old broken monitor out of the cab. I found a new 27" tv for free with a resistor problem. I unsoldered the old resistor and replaced it with a new one and now the tv works great! To flip the picture and miror it, I cut the green and yellow wires and crossed them. Now the tv will work correctly with the mirror in the cab. All I have left to do is mount the tv in the frame and put it into the cab. After that I have to build a new control panel, repaint the side art, create a custom marquee and cp overlay and I'll be done!

I'm still looking for the resistors and diodes I need to repair my Fire! pinball. Once I find them, I'll probably get some help with the pcb soldering. I don't want to ruin the circuit board!

On an unrelated note, Jenny and I are leaving for the Dominican Republic on thursday!