Snow! I love Snow! And winter being, well, winter!

Getting paid up on virtually everything and having a little left over. Also, I just started a new job recently and I love it. It's definitely easier finding work when you already have work, a sad fact for the unemployed ; /

Finally!

At the moment I'm renting a small living area in a part of a house that's been converting into a small apartment. The problem though is that the rest of the house where a family lives has an alarm system, and one of the alarm panels is 1.5 meters from my desk where I work, and every now and again the thing lets off a series of 5 loud beeps. Today, with a splitting headache I reached the end of my patience with the thing. My civility in dealing with the matter has been exhausted as well as I've repeatedly told the landlord how incredibly annoying and distracting it is. Just now I've taken a screwdriver to the thing and completely dismantled it, and I don't care what the landlord has to say about it. I'm never going to have to listen to that infernal beeping again!

I installed Cyanogenmod 12,1 (Android 5.1.1) successfully to the Samsung Galaxy Trend+ phone that I have acquired. It's odd, I have installed Cyanogenmod or some other Android variants already on three phones and tablets before, but every time it feels I need to re-learn the whole procedure again from a scratch. This time also I was googling like crazy where to even start, and how to proceed with the vague and sometimes erroneous instructions.

Partly it is because the instructions are a bit different to different devices/models, and also because the tools themselves change. E.g. now that it was a Samsung phone, I had to use an "Odin" tool on Windows to install a recovery program (TWRP).

Also it seems that nowadays it is not necessarily to "root" the phone beforehand?

Oh well, at least I was able to update the phone's stock Android 4.2.2 to 5.1.1. Let's see if that was a good idea (many people complain about the changes in 5.1.1), but at least the phone works fine.

Last year I updated my Onda V712 with OmniROM to get 4.4.x instead of 4.2.2 and even though it initially looked fine, it started to hang and get very hot and then the screen stopped working (would show up for a fraction of a second then disappear). I eventually managed to restore it to a semi-official ROM and that solved the problem. And yes, it's always a struggle. There's also an official 4.4 ROM for the tablet, but it requires a Baidu download, and I don't feel it's worth signing for that just for this ROM.

The earlier devices I updated with an unofficial Android are generally ok. Maybe for the old Huawei phone the newer Android version was a bit too much, it would sometimes struggle running it, but generally it worked. I think it was maybe related to the Huawei device having very little memory and internal storage, and maybe lack of CPU power. It was a cheapo low-end phone already when it came to the market originally (Huawei Ideos U8800).

The one I installed on my ASUS tablet (not Cyanogen, but some other, I don't recall the name) otherwise works fully fine... but Skype crashes upon launch on it every time. I don't know if it is related to that Android installation or Skype itself, but Skype works fine on other Android devices. Also I can't be sure if Skype would nowadays fail also on its original stock ROM.

All other apps (and games) seem to generally work fine on that tablet, but Skype doesn't. That's a rather big minus, similar as to many would be Facebook not working.

Well I visited the rental gun range today and first rented myself a S&W M&P Shield but felt I wasn't ready to go through an entire box of 9mm with it so after firing off 2/3 of the box, I returned it and rented a semi-auto AR15 chambered in 9mm. It was freaking awesome. It was easy to manage, accurate, and I could just fire quickly without any severe inaccuracies or needless risk.

I really felt relieved of all stress built up in the past week after that.

Just stocked up my fridge with fruit juice and a week worth of healthy meal prepping.

I am happy now.

Got to see my daughter after 2 weeks away. Back to more of a normal routine- was spoiled by spending time with her so much over the holidays, but alas now it's back to workin' in the city and just getting down here a couple time a month.

Still, today was the happy part of that equation. Was even surprisingly sunny and warm for winter here. Drove down in the afternoon with the windows open.

Finishing a very hard Freespace mission that has been bugging me for some time in the Insane difficulty level, even reaching the bonus objective.

http://www.gog.com/forum/freespace_series/freespace_insane_difficulty_has_anyone_finished_it/post3

I think I will enjoy the game more after that mission because it was the last mission where you didn't yet have the shield technology. Without shields, every enemy stray shot hitting you brings you closer to death, which was no fun especially in that mission.

Onwards... I'm sure there will be even harder missions later, but at least I have that damn shield now.

I found out that Saints Row IV and Gat Out of Hell were released for Linux... on December 21, when I completely missed it... woohoo!

Of course, performance is awful as I run the open radeon driver, but at least they run.

Out-of-town for work but some unforeseen circumstances on the job led to both Saturday and Sunday off. Weather here was fantastic today, so we took the short trip up to Mount Rushmore. Pretty spectacular, and it would have been a great area to visit even without the monument: simply a beautiful area to roam around in.

Swung by the Crazy Horse memorial since it's just down the road about 15 minutes. I don't see this thing being completed in the next few centuries, unless some billionaire throws a bunch of money at it. The scope of the project is simply enormous.

Tomorrow I'd like to drive east, to go see the Badlands area. Or I might instead save it for a later trip - would really like to bring the wife out here for a vacation and we can both see it then. Maybe take two days to get here, seeing stuff along the way, 3 or 4 days in this area, and then a day or two getting back home.

Watching the snow and drinking hot cocoa.

I ate chicken.

My 7 year old daughter's naivete made me happy.

We played Hero Kids yesterday, a pen and paper RPG for kids. The kids (my son's and daughter's characters) and their families were taken prisoner by pirates, but the kids managed to escape their cells. Three pirates then came into that part of the ship, saw the two escaped kids and tried to capture them again.

My 5 year old son was all gung ho about fighting them, but my daughter said: "I talk to them and try to convince them to be good guys." She addressed them and said: "If you become good you will have a lot more friends."

Unfortunately the pirates weren't convinced, and fighting ensued. At the end there were three unconscious pirates, and the kids found a rope and bound them.

My daughter also said they were going to gag them. The reason? Because they're bad people and if they wake up they might say curse words. I pointed out that it might also be helpful against them calling for help.

It was a really nice session.