For the past few days I have been slowly packing up for the drive up to Atlanta (from Houston) to begin another school year. This year will be different. I’m trying to take up as little as possible. The past two years I’ve had way too much junk with me and in a small room that left little walking space. I’ve been able to narrow down my tech inventory to one small plastic bin with a few chargers, cables, Apple Airport (airtunes) Express, an external hard drive, a WD 74GB Raptor (for Chris to borrow) and a TI-89 Titanium calculator (which probably won’t get much use given the classes I’ll be taking this semester).
Stowed away in my new messenger bag will be the MacBook, DS Lite and a Diablo Predator ECU programmer for my car (so I can fine tune settings like spark advance timing and air to fuel ratios). The Apple Cinema Display will be fastened in the back seat while some Logitech speakers get cozy in the trunk next to the down comforter and pillow.
Yeah, you read that correctly – I’m only taking up one computer. Last year I had the Mac Mini, Dell Inspiron 300m notebook (its battery is probably recalled too) and a Shuttle SN85G4v2 that I built (for gaming). I absolutely had to have a computer capable of running Windows XP due to CS2260 which required a programming IDE for developing on the Gameboy Advance, that only ran on Windows. Paired with Parallels, my MacBook has replaced the need for all those computers (except the gaming Shuttle, but I don’t really game much anyways). There have been quite a few Georgia Tech freshman that have found my site and wondered if they would be fine with a new MacBook; my response was generally something along the lines of as long as you have Boot Camp or Parallels you’re in great shape.
The drive is usually 12 to 13 hours and it can and has been done in one day before but more recently I’ve been stopping somewhere in Alabama for the night. David Tracy (roommate #2, who needs to get a blog) has done it in 11 hours by himself, or so I’ve been told. Considering I get ~15MPG when not being throttle-happy, I’ll be making many pit stops. Other than that the drive up is rather pleasurable… some great scenery on the way there; when nearing Georgia there are some amazing views. It’s also nice that no one drives/tailgates near my car.. it’s just so annoyingly loud. =)
As for housing we had finalized an awesome 3 floor, 3 bedroom townhouse with garage and patio but the current resident extended her lease for a month so we’ll be living in a slightly smaller place for the first month. Unfortunately, living off-campus means that we will be using Comcast cable for internet as opposed to the 30-65 megabit connection on campus. Chris and David already moved in so you can thank them for the following pics of the 2 floor, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom with patio townhouse:
I think I will be enjoying this year a whole lot more. There will be no more linoleum floors with tons of dust, community bathrooms, self-locking doors that locked you out all the time, toilets that keep flushing by themselves and flood, neighbors that can see what you’re doing and giant courtyard lights that illuminate your room at night making it impossible to get any sleep. Oh and how could I forget the prepetually clogged sink (although rumor has it Dan dropped his razor in the sink earlier in the semester) and the neighbors that couldn’t cook and were able to set off the fire alarm not once but three times in one night.
I’m also looking forward to meeting some of the new 9rulers. Round Four brought in several bloggers from the Atlanta area, bringing the number to something like 5 or 6. Hopefully later in the year we can arrange some kind of meetup and maybe get Mike Rundle to come down from NC for it.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
cool looks like you got your self a nice place. I just moved to the atlanta area(Roswell) a few weeks ago so far its great.
Congratulations on finally giving up your PC!
Hey the apartment looks nice. Looks liek you guys are going to have tons of fun this school year. I’m still trying to find a place up here. Guess what: You can BitTorrent with ease now! no, you won’t get that sweet GaTech bandwidth, but you also don’t have to worry about the NOC trying to track what you’re doing.
BTW, I wrote up a review on Blogger’s new Beta. Could you take a look at it and give me some writing pointers. I’d appreciate it.
the review
Turn your new place into a smart home dude :P
15 mpg!?!!!
Geeze no wonder there is global warming!!
There was another freshman asking about the macbook for tech? I thought I was the only one! (unless by a few, you mean me on AIM and then me on email, to which you replied as if you didn’t talk to me on AIM, possibly not making the connection). Damn! And here I thought I was special. Oh well. Good recommendation though… I absolutely LOVE this macbook. Once I get XP I’ll bootcamp it and it’ll be all I need! Moving to the dorms is a mess though, and I guess I get to live with all the shit you just left. :) At least I get GT’s fast connection!
yeah, there were a few of you guys.. which is why I replied to your email too, wasn’t sure if I had talked to you on aim.
You don’t happen to know if I’ll be cool for going through tech with NeoOffice/OpenOffice, or should I invest in Office for Mac (or install Office on Windows)
Well for some English classes they require that you have MS Office because they take advantage of the feature where you can leave notes and see what was editted.. although the recent update this year might mean you’re okay. Just try w/ Open Office and if you need anything you can run to Tech Square’s Barnes & Noble’s Technology Center (upstairs) and get it on a student discount (i think), if not, newegg it.
You can also make good use of the library. I personally like using the dual screen Dells as it comes close to my home assembly. You can also hook up the 24″ Dell widescreens to your laptop if your a sneaky enough.
nice apartment. looks like mine, but yeah, all apartments look the same.
Nice. I got a nice set up too, after doing the dorms last year.
Looks like good times will be had for sure. I forgot, how far away are you from campus? Walking distance?
Yeah, like 5min from the corner of campus where I can pick of the campus bus, the stinger, that goes all around.
What route do you take through Alabama? I would guess I-10 to I-65 in Mobile then I-85 in Montgomery up to ATL.
Your new place looks great.
hope the place is workin out well.