Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

I've been spending the past day (and will be spending several more) trying to get my work computer back up and running. The Windows 7 boot file became corrupt. There's very little hope of recovering from that when the hard drive is encrypted like mine is. So I had to wipe it out and start over. I had a backup (but from late November) of my data. So it's a matter now of reinstalling all my programs and getting everything back up and running. Ugh.

I've been picking college basketball games for the whole season. There's several different methods for my predictions. The first is my "1 pick every day" method. With this, I choose exactly 1 game every day to predict. So far this year I'm 30-22-2 (57.4%). Another method is picking games when I "feel good" about them. With this method I'm 55-43 (56.1%). The final method is using computers to pick the games. These started a week or so ago - I wait until around the turn of the calendar before I start ranking teams. There's a few different ways I make these predictions. One picks quite a few games each day and is 23-15-1 (60.3%). Another picks only games which the computer thinks the line is "way off". This computer program is only 6-5-1 (54.2%). Finally, I have one program that only picks totals. This one is doing very well this year at 13-5 (72.2%).

I just got back from my last trip of the year. So now's the time to look at the year end stats. Using last year as a reference, I've added a couple things this year: I added one new state: Arkansas. I added 7 new airports: CMI (Champaign, IL), CVG (Cincinnati, OH), IAH (Houston, TX), JAX (Jacksonville, FL), MCO (Orlando, FL), TLH (Tallahassee, FL), and XNA (Bentonville, AR) I also remembered that I had been to the COS (Colorado Springs, CO), but I don't remember exactly when - there was a trip that I was supposed to fly out of Denver but ended up at Colorado Springs and I never wrote down when that happened. So I've actually been to 64 unique airports since starting this job. There's an additional 11 airports that I've been to in my lifetime, but before starting my current job: AMS (Amsterdam, Netherlands), AUA (Oranjestad, Aruba), CZM (Cozumel, Mexico), GVA (Geneva, Switzerland), HNL (Honolulu, Hawaii), OGG (Maui, Hawaii), PHX (Phoenix, AZ), PSP (Palm Spri...

I've been picking a college basketball game every day since the start of the season. (So far, I'm 60% 18-12 with 1 push). Today, I log in to make my pick, and there's a grand total of 1 game to choose from - Seattle +5.5 at Eastern Washington. I went ahead and picked Seattle. The line has since moved to 4.5, so at least I know that I'm picking along with the "wise guys" in Vegas - there's been more money on Seattle, so Vegas is moving the line to promote more action on Eastern Washington.

Congratulations to Northern Illinois Huskies football team! They are going to be playing Florida St in the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day. What an awesome pay day for the program - it's really nice to see one of the smaller conference teams (non-BCS) getting a chance to play in a big bowl game.

The next step of rebuilding my SUSE Linux Domino server as a Ubuntu Domino server was installing and setting up Domino. Many of these steps were taken from another web site . Log on as my main user and create the "notes" user. Note that almost every command listed here needs the "sudo" prefix so it can run as root. To save space, that is removed and just the command is listed. useradd -d /local/notesdata notes passwd notes     -- then give the "notes" user a password mkdir /local mkdir /local/notesdata chown notes:notes /local/notesdata Change programs around as instructed: cd /bin rm -i sh     -- answer "yes" to the prompt ln -s bash sh cd /user/bin ln -s mawk gawk FTP Domino from the server where I was holding it. I put it into my home "Documents" folder. I also FTP'd the ID files needed to recreate the server to the same directory. Then I needed to unpack the TAR file and install Domino 8.5.3: tar xvf lotus_dom...

I decided to switch my SUSE Linux Domino server at home to Ubuntu. So today I started the process with phase 1 - getting the OS going. First, I downloaded an ISO of Ubuntu 12.10 from the Ubuntu web site, then made a boot DVD on my Windows 7 home computer. Next, I put the DVD into the computer and started it up. There were only a couple questions that needed to be answered to install Ubuntu on the machine. Once finished, there was a prompt to reboot. Ubuntu opened up the DVD drive and then just sat there. I figured out from trial and error that I was supposed to press ENTER (after removing the DVD, of course) to get the machine to reboot. Upon reboot, I got a "[drm:drm_crtc_helper_set_config] *ERROR* failed to set mode on [CRTC:10]" error. I found a very similar error -- CRTC:6 on the Ubuntu forums. That entry had a solution. Press CTRL+ALT+F1 to bring up a text entry where you can enter in your user name and password. That logs you in, but you're in command mode. Then ...

It looks like that, yet again this year, I'm going to BARELY make keeping my status for 2013. (I wanted to make it with room to spare this year, as I mentioned last year ). I haven't quite hit it yet, but I'm scheduled for the 6 segments I need on American and the 4 hotel stays I need at Hilton properties. The 4 hotel stays is by far the more difficult to accomplish with just a few weeks left in the year, but I'm working the system to make it (assuming everything goes as planned).

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series last night. The whole post season was a season of streaks. San Fransisco's streaks: Lost 2, won 3 (to win division series). Then lost 1, won 1, lost 2, won 3 (to win league series). Then won 4 (to win world series) - they won the last 7 games. Detroit, on the other hand, won 2, lost 2, won 1 (to win division series). Then won 4 more (5 in a row) to win league series, then lost 4 in a row (world series). No "1 game streak" for Detroit at all in the post season.

We returned from a Walt Disney World vacation in Florida a few days ago, and I thought I'd review the character meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) that we had during the trip. These are sorted by the order we went to the restaurants. Akershus Royal Banquet Hall (Epcot) - lunch - grade A+ Our first character meal was the best all around. This is a meal with the princesses. Belle is the host - everyone greets her when you arrive and you get an included picture with her. Then Cinderella, Ariel, Aurora, and Snow White come around and greet you during the meal. There was a salad bar and a few entrees and desserts you could choose from. The sight lines were good - you could see the princesses most of the time. They did a "parade" of princesses where the kids could walk along behind one of the princesses during the parade. The cost (if we weren't on the Disney Dining Plan) would have been $111 for 2 adults and 1 child. The Garden Grill Restaurant (Epcot) - dinner - grad...

I was looking at my TripIt stats today. Since I started using it (January 2008), I have traveled 250,884 miles. That covers 130 trips. The average distance of my trips have been going down since moving back to Illinois. I have more trips to the east coast than the west coast, and now that I'm in Illinois instead of Colorado, I'm obviously closer to the east coast.

As I sit here in the O'Hare Admirals Club on my way back from Washington DC, I decided to see if I was still on pace for my 2013 status on American and Hilton. The end of August will be around 67% of the way through the year (8 out of 12 months, don't know the actual day number). This final flight today will get me to 41 segments (out of 60 needed), which is 68% of the way toward next year's status. And the hotel stay I just completed will make 18 stays and 41 nights. I need 28 stays, so I'm 64% of the way there, or 60 nights, which is 68% of the way there. Last year at this time I was behind schedule but ended up making it with a lot of creative scheduling of flights and hotels over the last three months of the year.

Over the last couple of days, fields for some of the early season college basketball tournaments have been announced. Illinois is going to be playing in the Maui Invitational this year. One of these years it would be cool to go to a tournament over the Thanksgiving week to watch some games and have a vacation.

Back in 2009 I posted a summary of trips during March Madness going back to 2001 (the first March after moving to Colorado). Late in 2009, I moved back to Illinois. In 2010 , I made it to Las Vegas for the second weekend of the tournament. It was a lot more low-key -- the casinos weren't as crowded (although it was still tough to get a seat during the games) and we were able to gamble during the day and watch games at night, so it wasn't so tiring. In 2011, I watched the games in Illinois with friends. In 2012, I watched the first and second round games in Illinois, but then went down to St Louis to watch the regional semifinals and finals in person. That was pretty cool. Next year there are regional games in Indianapolis, so I might do that same thing again next year. Although I'd love to make it to Vegas again....

It's nice to get back to Denver occasionally. And I'll be doing so in early August. Hopefully I'll be able to see a lot of my friends while I'm there.

I'm at the halfway point of 2012. Am I half way to renewing my Hilton Diamond and/or American Platinum status for 2013? For Hilton Diamond, either 28 stays or 60 nights is needed. I normally get there based on the number of stays instead of the number of nights. This year is no different. I'm exactly half way there with 14 stays, but not quite half way there with 26 nights. For American Platinum, either 60 segments or 50,000 miles are needed. Without having overseas flights, I generally get there on segments. This year I'm at 28 segments, so a little short of the half-way point. And I'm st 21,488 miles. That means I'll need to get there on segments again. A trip to Chicago (train - no segments), a one-way drive to Cincinnati (I flew back), and a trip to Indianapolis (drive both ways) have affected by airline segments so far this year.

I haven't posted in a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I had a golf trip to Riverside, IA for a couple days. Then we had a garage sale to get rid of a lot of stuff (not as much as we wanted, but some stuff). Then I had a business trip to New York. Then we went down to the in-laws for the weekend to celebrate father's day, my daughter's birthday, and my monther-in-law's birthday. Then was my daughter's birthday. Finally, last weekend we had a party at the zoo for my daughter's birthday. It's been a completely busy month.

I was just looking at my TripIt statistics. I started using TripIt in January 2008 to track my travel. According to my account, I've been on the road 506 days. 2008 was a leap year, and 2009, 2010, and 2011 were "regular" years. May 25, 2012, is day 146 this year. That's 1607 days total. 506 out of 1607 is 31.5% on the road, which counts weekends (but also counts my vacations). That's a lot of travel.

This Sunday, May 27, 2012, is when Frontier Airlines starts flying into the Bloomington, IL airport. They are flying to/from Denver three times a week and to/from Orlando twice a week - at least that's what I think is happening based on looking at the web site. My family and I have already booked our flights to Orlando for later this year. It is nice to fly directly to Orlando MCO when going to Disney. Allegiant Airlines is already in Bloomington and fly to Orlando, but they fly to the "other" airport (Orlando Sanford) and Disney transportation doesn't pick up at that airport. So we bought tickets for an airline before it started flying into the airport we will be using. On a related note, AirTran will be stopping its service from Bloomington to Atlanta on Saturday, June 2. So there's a week when both airlines will be here, but I'm guessing that ground crews working for AirTran will be switching companies.

I just read an article from Vegas Magazine called The 10 Best Burgers in Las Vegas . I thought I'd post the list here. BLT Burger (The Mirage Hotel & Casino) Bottles & Burgers (Tivoli Village) Burger Bar (The Shoppes at Mandalay Place) Five Guys (3 locations) Holsteins Shakes and Buns (The Cosmopolitan) I Love Burgers (The Shoppes at The Palazzo) In-N-Out Burger (10 locations) KGB: Kerry’s Gourmet Burgers (Harrah’s Las Vegas) LBS (Red Rock Casino) Le Burger Brasserie (Paris Las Vegas)