It is 63 degrees outside, and breezy, at 4:47 AM. I have just awakened and have come upstairs after going to bed around 8:30 PM or so. It is supposed to be near 85 today (it hit 84 yesterday), and I plan to wear shorts, sandals, my aviators, and one of my new Hawaiian shirts to teach in this morning (well, I won't wear my aviators while teaching, but you get the idea). This is what I've been waiting not-so-patiently for all semester -- temperatures and weather conditions warm enough to enjoy being out in, temperatures and weather conditions that Kansas usually enjoys six or seven weeks before now.
And then I wake up to see this:
Yes, you're reading that correctly -- that says tomorrow the temperature is supposed to plummet by 23 degrees, and then another 19 on Thursday, and on Thursday, snow. SNOW. In May. MAY!
I am so completely done with this shit. My allergies are killing me this spring, and it's because of shit like this, where it's in the 80s one day and two days later it barely reaches 40 and snows. My lungs and sinuses can't adjust to one weather pattern before another, completely different one ripped from the months of winter replaces it. It's going to be fucking May and snowing.
I have lived in four states scattered around the country and never has it snowed in May in any of them in my lifetime.
I don't know what to make of this. I am so battered down and depressed by the weather systems that I actually want to cry in frustration on a certain level. How long can this bullshit possibly last? I mean, really. We've not really had a spring -- we've had maybe five days of spring interspersed with ice storms and snowfall. Is this going to continue into summer? Are we going to get snow in June, too? The last two days in my house, I've spent wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and flip-flops because it's been so warm. Now all of a sudden I'll have to dress in layers again, and turn on the furnace/electric blanket again in May? I don't know how to otherwise express this to you folks that I have never seen weather patterns like this before, and I turn 31 this year.
Anyway. Rant over.
I slept all night for once because I got up last night around 1AM, and stayed up until the aforementioned time of 8:30 PM. This was not necessarily by choice; I only wanted to stay up until around 5PM or so, so that I could get up around 2 or 3 and be wired for the day. However, in killing time yesterday afternoon while Daisy got an oil change in her car and I was taking care of student stuff (emails continue to roll in, all of them asking questions about how to format/organize/cite things for their final papers, due a week from today), I decided to do some computer surgery and install the new RAM in my old Dell laptop I'd brought back home from school, as that would only take a few minutes.
Well, yes, that only took a few minutes -- unscrew the back panel, take out the old RAM modules, and snap the new ones into place before replacing the panel -- the computer itself had not been powered on for close to six months, and with Linux systems (as that one is) six months is a long time to go without system updates and upgrades. The Dell was already at least two, if not three, OS upgrades behind because its low memory (it had, before I put 2GB in it, 512MB) wouldn't allow it to run a faster or more upgraded OS. The computer's from 2005 and was worked hard before my friend Lacey gave it to me three years ago before I started grad school -- I replaced the keyboard and hard drive then, so it was only a matter of time before I swapped out the RAM. I also know that the 2GB I put in it is basically the bare minimum to run any recent OS well; the Toshiba that Daisy got me for Christmas only has 2GB in it, and it's slower than piss running Ubuntu 12.10. 13 is out now, but until I get more memory in that machine, I can't upgrade it and expect any true functionality. I run 12.10 on this desktop machine that I'm typing this post on and it runs really, really well, but it also has 4GB RAM (and has had 4GB since I purchased it three years ago).
When I installed the new RAM in the Dell, I booted it and it came on/fired up instantly, still with a completely full battery charge even after being unplugged and in storage for six months. This is a good sign -- it means that the battery in that machine is really good. I took it out to the living room, where it was able to pick up a wireless signal (from someone's unlocked wifi router somewhere in the neighborhood) and I began to upgrade the operating system.
In Ubuntu Linux, you can't just upgrade from whatever you've got to the newest version -- no, you have to install all of the other upgrades one by one. This machine had 11.04 on it, which meant that I had to upgrade first to 11.10 and then to 12.04.2 LTS, which is the latest long-term-stable release supported for three years (hence the 'LTS' in its version title). I wasn't sure that with 2GB RAM the machine could run anything faster than that, as the aforementioned Toshiba is again, slower than piss with 2GB running 12.10, and it has a much newer/faster processor. I can't upgrade the RAM in the Dell any more -- 2GB is its max, since it's so old.
For those of you who don't use Linux and/or have never upgraded a Linux OS, the process is a very long one -- you can either do it via disc or via the web, but the disc upgrade is pretty ponderous as well, and you won't get the latest updates since the disc was burned. The upgrade process usually takes several hours no matter what system you're using. My upgrade from 11.04 to 11.10 was fairly short -- a little more than an hour, give or take, but then I made the mistake of deciding then and there to get it running 12.04.2 LTS just so I wouldn't have to upgrade it later.
I started that upgrade around 4PM. It told me "about 7 hours remaining."
Oy.
I set it up, made sure the battery was charged and plugged in, and went to bed. There was no way I could stay up until after 11PM just to let the OS upgrade and continually watch it -- not if I wanted to be able to wake up and go teach this morning. Throughout the overnight hours, during my slumber, it downloaded and installed everything it needed and finished the upgrade, and when I got up around 4 and came back upstairs, all it needed to do was restart in order to completely finish. I let it do that, then went out to get the GNOME shell interface that I'm used to and actually like, before shutting it down. I now have a solid, fast backup computer in that Dell that will do anything I need it to do, including play DVDs and videos without skipping -- which is why I upgraded its RAM in the first place. It's going to become my new bedroom portable DVD/media player, so I can finally watch movies as I fall asleep at night again. I plan to take it downstairs tomorrow, while I'm off, to test that out. Even if it's still sluggish with DVDs (which wouldn't surprise me because the drive itself is old) I have a ton of old anime series on CD-R from my undergraduate days that I've never yet watched, so I could feasibly copy those right to the HD and finally watch them. If I can get that open wireless signal downstairs, as well, I could even watch Youtube or stream movies off Amazon Prime. Additionally, if that Dell does eventually die, I still have the Toshiba I could replace it with.
It is nearing 6AM and is starting to get light outside. I have showered and dressed for the day, and will soon leave the house to get gas before I drive to campus. The car seems to be acting fine again; it hasn't flashed the "Service Engine Soon" light at me since that one time last week, though I do know that I'll have to do a little preventative maintenance on it myself pretty soon -- including adding more coolant (which, for some reason, it also tends to burn off) and oil, and if the last of my bottle of Marvel Mystery Oil is in the car already, I plan to drain that into the gas tank this morning when I fill up to keep her running correctly. I'm pretty sure my car has hot/cold weather allergies as well -- she doesn't like the rapidly fluctuating temperatures any more than I do, and responds by burning more or less oil/coolant off over time depending on the conditions, being a little sluggish from time to time, and basically whining at me. Sorry, baby, I can't control the weather.
This is, technically, the very last week that I have left to teach; one week from today, my Engineering English 102 class ends, and I will collect their final papers. This week is workshop week for my students, where the drafts of those papers will be peer-reviewed in class. This is also the last week where I'm holding formal office hours (read: today) and will be working in the Writing Center -- next week, if I'm needed, I may work my hour in there, but if they're relatively or completely dead, I'm just going home. My students all know this because I have made it clear to them. I'll probably get home a little before 5PM today, give or take an hour.
This weekend, on Saturday, is the Newton City-wide Garage Sale. I look forward to this weekend all year long leading up to it, as everyone has a garage/yard sale at the same time, starting at (usually) 7AM. Last year I couldn't do it due to circumstances out of my control, and the year before me, my ex, and Rae & Jay came up for it, and we raided this town for hours all day long. I've been trying to get a group of us together for this year's event, making my house a "home base" of sorts, but the difficulty in doing so is that most of us are trying to get rid of what we already have so that there's less to move to a new destination after graduation, and the majority of us don't have a vehicle large enough to carpool around town in. My Monte Carlo is a landboat, but its trunk is small, its backseat has never been cleaned since I purchased the vehicle (and thus is a dirty, dusty graveyard for bees, flies, and wasps), and driving it around town stopping every block or two would not only be incredibly bad for its already-overtaxed engine, but would overheat its naturally-aspirated engine quickly -- trust me, I know this; as soon as I get off the interstate and drive a more reasonable speed of 35 between the exit and my house (about four miles), stopping at stoplights and the like, the temperature gauge slowly moves from left to right, heating up because it's not getting the fast, cool airflow from the highway anymore. Stopping and starting that car over and over and over, all over town, may kill it. And obviously, I can't do that. Only a few of us have SUVs big enough for a group of us to fit in along with anything we purchase, and I've not-so-subtly been trying to recruit them for a day of fun and running around town.
On that note, it's time for me to grab my bag and go. It's a beautiful morning and wonderful driving weather -- I can't wait to hit the interstate with my window down and the stereo cranked.
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