Snow, USAT and UBUNTU

I'm supposed to get in a 2500 yard today but the blizzard that struck Cincinnati has shut down my gym... Booooooo! I'm going to do the ride I'm supposed to do tomorrow, this evening instead. if the Rec doesn't open tomorrow (the storm is supposed to last until 4 or 5 tomorrow and these Cincinnatians are sissies) then I'll do my Sunday run either outdoors or in one of the academic buildings. Yeah, it's feasible, just not highly desirable.
The perk to this should be that the Rec was closed because school closed.... except we're grad students so my thesis adviser came in and held class from 1-5 anyways. His dedication is admirable but it would have been nice to have the whole day off to work on my document.

I got my USAT membership yesterday in the mail. I'm entered in enough races this year that joining made sense if only to save money on the insurance fees. Plus, now I have a new sticker to slap on my laptop... some people put bumper stickers on their cars, I put them on my laptop (since I don't own a car).

I also recently put Ubuntu on my old laptop. Ubuntu is a Linux release for the less than tech savvy. Most people hear Linux and they freak out because it's not Windows or Mac... but it was really easy to install and, honestly, is probably easier to use than Mac or Windows. Oh... and it's free. Completely free. So are almost all the programs used on Linux (and yeah, there are a lot). The only thing that was even a little bit of trouble was that it doesn't play DVDs. Technically the software to run the DVD players to watch movies is proprietary and, thus, legally questionable to reproduce in the U.S but there are some very easy tutorials online for doing this (if it's legal where you are of course).

Gotta poke a little fun at Coach Mark who emailed me to ask if I use Instant Messenger... Mark... Mark, Mark, Mark... I'm a GenXer, graduate student, and blogger who also has Facebook and LinkedIn accounts (both of which I'm buddied with him on). C'mon, the question shouldn't have been whether I use an IM client, but which ones! Silly Mark!