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.