My new Mac

I love my new mac.

Last week, despite a UPS and a surge protector, the old iMac was fried and fricasseed when the yard was struck by lightning. The hard drive went hinkey and the video was entirely gone. Ben at MacDoctor saved the day and was able to recover the harddrive after much effort, but the computer was done for.

I can't be without a computer. I spoke with Ben who suggested the MacBook Pro, but after working with Mom's MacBook and the itty bitty 13" screen, I wanted to scream. It was just too small. I can't imagine using that all the time. Instead I decided on the iMac 20" from Small Dog Electronics, with a 4 gig RAM upgrade and the AppleCare. After it arrived, I took it back to Ben and he made it all right, putting a disk image of the old hard drive on the new one. I placed that on the 500 GB external and will dig through that while I pull what I need off it.

I am eligible for education discount and Apple had the buy a Mac, get an iPod Touch for free, but I already have a Touch. I'm waiting for the new ones to come out, but until then, what I have is fine.

I've watched several movies on it and Netflix, and it is wonderful. The 13" would just have been horrible.

A little disappointed, but way excited

I had the UCF orientation yesterday and I know my guardian angel at UCF, Ms. Carol Anne Pohl, had told me I would likely be a transient student because of the lateness in registration, when it happened I was still a little disappointed.

This semester I have a lone class at Brevard Community College online, a lone class at Valencia Community College, though I am wait-listed for another one and hoping I get that one otherwise things are really going to be difficult in two semesters and one two-credit class at UCF in engineering economics. Currently I have 10 credits for certain and potentially another 4, but if the wait-listed chemistry doesn't come through, then I will take CADD as a filler to get to the full-time status I need.

In other news, I heard from Dr. Gonzalez, of the International Engineering minor program. I am meeting with him on Monday the 31st of August in the morning. I'd ike to see what he has to say about me working out an African or Middle Eastern program within the confines of the existing program. It'd be a lot of work, but it would be mine and made for me. We'll see what he has to say and for that I am WAY excited.

The VA is another adventure. As soon as I'm done with this post, I'll connect the scanner and scan the acceptance letter to UCF and the graduation audit. I'll also write a letter to Hollie explaining what has happened so far, what I expect to happen and the current schedule I have paid for. I am getting kind of frustrated with the VA. I feel like I already paid for this schooling with the loss of my eye, but I have to pay for it again because of the bureaucracy.

Incredible

This morning I received an email from Valencia. It said sorry after reviewing your records, you didn't graduate. Now I had been working with a woman all summer long who was on top of things who had told me the week previously all was fine. I sent a short note back telling Mr Edwin Sanchez to check his records as they were missing something.

Almost immediately I got an email saying they were wrong and all was fine. I am incredulous that they don't have a system to prevent something like this from happening. This mistake could have changed the outcome for graduation, college admissions, living arrangements, financial aid, etc. Clearly this was a significant error.

Not as bad as the UC San Diego error, but still pretty bad.

EDIT: 8/21 When I was at the orientation this afternoon, there were four other people who also received this letter. This was apparently a wide-spread mistake of colossal proportions.