Encounters with Stupidity

This is one of my all-time favorite photos (above!). It's of the southern Galiuros, the range to the East of the Catalina-Rincons N, NE, and E of Tucson. This was last year, when I actually went outside. Sabkha and I haven't been hiking in a long time.

Lately I work late into the night using the Almega XR, an enclosed Raman spectroscopy system.


Weekends are a good time to use the instrument since other lab people tend not to be here on weekends. The UA semester is over, and with it ends my last class ever. I needed one more credit for the ole PhD.
I got a new computer when Dell had a 40% sale on desktops. Gotapex seems to be a front-page for Dell with their current short-run specials. If you're patient you can find good deals.

I'm happy with the Dell (Dimension E510). It has a Pentium D 820 2.8 GHz (D for dual core) and 2 GB of RAM, but it doesn't seem much faster than my 2.5-year-old Dimension with a non-HT 2.8 P4 and 1.25 GB RAM (visible on the floor below my desk). I have a dual-drive RAID which is nice... automatic backup. Part of the second drive is partitioned for manual backups. Main complaint: noisy, hissy headphone jack.