Dan informs me that he has the same video card (the ATi All-In-Wonder Radeon) and that it is crashing his system regularly. Furthermore, he says that his online research indicates that this card is buggy and many people have problems with it. I thought my computer was crashing when I had this video card in because the mobo was old and the BIOS might have been out of date. Perhaps getting the new mobo & CPU won't fix this problem. Great... so I may be needing to pick up a new S-Video capable video card.

The knob cover came unglued from the arcade spinner and is just sitting on it. It was really shoddily attached to begin with and was not true. I need to file off the old glue from the shank and re-glue the knob.

Our landlord doesn't allow cats. When Nina moved to Albuquerque she left her cat behind and when she moved here she still couldn't bring him. It's been a point of contention and the resolution has been that, when my lease runs out in January, we would move into a pet-friendly place.

So recently Nina started looking for places going up for rent. She found one that looked good on paper and last night we went to look at it. The landlord ended up being a lady I recognized from the climbing wall at the YMCA, and the current tennant was someone Nina knew from her old job at the coffee shop.

The duplex unit was basically the same in floorplan as our current place, though it lacked the "infinite baffle" wall and was in much better shape. However, it lacked a basement and would probably be too small for all of our stuff. There wasn't really any space for my tools and rocket building, etc.

As we were leaving the landlord mentioned that the other half of the duplex was also going up for rent in a month or so. Fancy that, we were actually hoping to move in in May. So we asked her about it. She offered to show it to us as well. And it was amazing.

A breif rundown of the outstanding features: jacuzzi on the deck, giant back yard with access to and a view of Pueblo Canyon, climbing wall on the walls/ceiling of a storage area, gas grill on the deck, huge kitchen, three bedrooms (though one is a walk-through), master bath with a tub that has air-jets and a separate shower, separate laundry room, tons of storage areas, covered carport for one car, and an awesome landlord.

We were sold instantly. The only problem is that it is understandably expensive. With a monthly rent of $1500, we will probably need a roommate. Which, for a place this huge, is fine. The good news is that we can probably afford it even with just the two of us, since Nina now has her lab job. If we split it evenly between us, I'd be paying $100 less than what I pay now. But paying $500 a piece for this place would be rad. I think we'll take it. I mean, geebus, it has a climbing wall in it.

The major complaints about our current place are that the wiring is ancient (no three-prongers), it is in terrible repair, and they don't allow Nina's cat. This new place is fully rennovated and is very pet-friendly. It solves all of our problems. Speaking of pets, I randomly found out that my network manager here at the lab lives right down the street from us and has six sugar gliders. She off-hand asked if I'd like one of them. She has a number of girls and some fixed males as well. So if she was serious I think I might get Soleil and Noid a boyfriend.

This afternoon I'm going down to the Guads with Carrie to meet Mike, Jake, and Brianna for some caving. We'll keep working on the impact map of Hell's Below, and Sunday I don't know what we'll do. But something...

So much has happened. Here's a recap:

Nina got her job with T-6 here at the lab. This means that she won't have to work shit jobs anymore, will have considerably more money, and will be much happier. The side effect of this for me is that she will now be able to pay me for rent and whatnot, and I will therefore be able to take advantage of my real income. What a relief. It only took the lab 8 months to hire her... ugh.

We had a rocket launch yesterday, but the wind was so high that it was mostly pointless. Here are some pictures.

Nina's play is going well; I went to see it this weekend. I think the writing and direction are terrible, but the actors did very well with what they had. She continues to have performances throughout the rest of the month.

I've been doing some geocaching as a means of getting some daily hikes in. This is training for the Denali group's training trip to Blanca in two weeks. It's also an excuse to use my GPS which now has map data loaded for most of NM and some of southern CO.

This coming weekend I'm going back to Carlsbad to go caving. Mike Mansur, Carrie Finn and I are going to work on the impact map of Hell Below cave. Mike is leaving after Saturday, leaving Carrie and I to ridge walk or whatever. Should be a fun weekend.

The weather has been uncharacteristically warm until yesterday. We've had upper 60's and low 70's for about a week. Last night it rained a lot and early this morning it turned into a light snow. Yesterday's wind hasn't subsided much and now it's blustery. I knew it wouldn't last... but it was nice to get some hikes in the good weather.

I stayed at home this weekend as a consolation to Nina. I'm going to be doing a lot of caving and mountaineering this month and she's going to be performing her play at the Los Alamos Little Theater.

We had a bit of an episode with the sugar gliders. Specifically Noid. She chewed away one of the seams in the corner pouch and got a long thread wrapped around her head and then tied up in one of the metal chains that supports the pouch. In trying to free herself, she got all twisted around until the chain and string were pretty tight around her neck.

When I found her she was totally exhausted and frightened and very very attached to the pouch. I ended up having to cut the pouch out around her with scissors and then start clipping the chain links around her neck with a pair of diagonal cutters. This was a very slow process because she was constantly biting me the entire time. My right hand looks like I got it caught in a blender.

It took about an hour before I could remove enough of the mess to find the thread that was actually securing everything to her neck (up to that point I thought one of the metal pieces had pinched her skin or something). After getting the thread cut (not easy with a squirming/biting sugar glider!) she was free and she sulked back to the cage and drank about twice her body weight in water.

The analysis of the problem is that the pouch is not glider-safe. It was made of material that could fray and produce long threads for the gliders to get caught up in. I will never buy anything from that company again. Here is the specific product:

http://www.gliderconnection.com/cornerclubhousepouch.html

If you have sugar gliders, DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!

Instead, let me recommend that you buy a nice fleece pouch from the people that sold me my gliders, SunCoast Sugar Gliders. I have never had a problem with any of their products and their service is superb.