Rob Bauer

It took a year to do it. But i did it. I passed calc 2. I scored an A in the class. No more calc classes for me! Now I need to transfer the credit to U. Akron and I am done with this flavor of math.  I still have a stats class to deal with.

Olessia's 2009 Honda Fit Sport

Olessia just purchased this 2009 Honda Fit Sport.  She ordered it a couple weeks ago and word was it would be 8 to 10 weeks for it to come in (6 weeks just to ship!).  The dealer pulled some strings and got one a bit sooner.  So Friday the dealer called and told Olessia the car was in.  She ran over to the dealer and did some paperwork while they spent the day preping the car.  She picked it up at 5pm and it was just about good to go (it was missing floor mats since they thought they were standard but were not).

She got a great price on it.  It is a manual transmission (5-speed) and has a navigation unit.  She also added on the cargo tray and cargo shelf.

I drove it on Saturday and it is a FUN car.  It has some nice get-up-and-go.  The seats are very comfy.  The interior has a really nice finish to it.  And geez does this thing have gadgets!  It has a USB adapter for MP3s and iPods, an audio jack, a port for plugging memory sticks in, and plays MP3 CDs and audio DVDs!  The car has voice recognition for controlling the navigation unit and audio.  And to top it all, Olessia is getting about 37mpg!

Now Olessia has a properly working defroster, heating, and AC (and probably her first car with WORKING air conditioning!).

Click the photo to see more pictures…

Awesome.  My cable company doubled the Internet bandwidth at the cable modem.  They sent a mailer, which I have an instinctive response to throw the mailer out.  This time I looked it over and they weren’t selling anything.  I read it again and they provided instructions on how to reset the cable modem to get the faster bandwidth.

I had to put in a tech support call since the bandwidth testing I did didn’t show any change.  A big “doh!” on my part, the connection worked fine when plugged into the cable modem.  For a moment, I thought my router would have to be replaced because it wasn’t downloading anything over 4000kbps.  Then I realized this isn’t just a normal router.  I had QoS enabled and it was still set on the previous bandwidth settings (4000kbps was the max, previously, and it was doing a GREAT job limitting the bandwidth to just that).  I disabled it and bam!  11500kbps down.  Awesome.

Here's the speed results from speakeasy.net

And for comparison, here’s the bandwidth results from my DD-WRT enabled Linksys router:

Linksys Router Bandwidth

I’m going to tackle all of these, although not necessarily in order…

View of Cleveland From the East Side

Nothing too new with photography.  I did attend the Cleveland Photographic Society club meeting and it was quite interesting.  I plan to attend more meetings when I’m feeling better (I missed the last meeting due to sinuses).  Olessia and I headed over to Lake View Cemetery to check out the James Garfield monument.  The balcony has a nice view of Cleveland and we grabbed some shots.  I wasn’t feeling too good so I didn’t shoot much.

Calculus 2 is chugging along.  So far, it appears I am minus 12 points from 100% for 2 quizes and one exam.  I’m hoping and working hard to hold onto this lead.  Just three exams (second one will be tomorrow), two quizzes, and a final left to go.

Something new, I wrote a C# app to change my desktop wallpaper randomly across multiple monitors.  Its open source and can be found here: WallpaperChanger.

Like a print of any of the pictures in the portfolio?  Order prints online!  Here’s how:

First visit my portfolio and pick a picture you like.  Click on that picture.  At the bottom, there will be a drop down box.  From the drop down box, select “Print on Digibug.com” (you could also print at Shutterfly, although you have less options and it is a bit more expensive).

I tested this out with Digibug and it is a really nice service.  They had the prints in the mail the next day!  I had them print poster sized pictures, which were 30″x40″ in size!  Next time, I’m going to go a bit smaller with 24″x36″ so I can buy a frame off the shelf instead of building one.

If you order a photo, let me know!  Or better yet, send me a picture of the photo you printed in action, on the wall, or anywhere else.

There’s plans in the air for returning back to Moscow in 2009.  It looks like the current plan is to try to catch the 2009 MAKC airshow and at the same time, try to not miss any school classes.

The trip specifics are a bit unknown at the moment.  Olessia has some paperwork she needs to catch up on while back in Dubna.  We are thinking to aim for taking 3 weeks this time, if my work will let me swing it.  If so, we might try stopping in Western Europe, such as Paris.

I’m looking forward to returning and taking more photos.  This time I will be armed with a DSLR which will offer a lot more control in the picture taking process.

Road Trip!

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It is that time of the year.  Fall semester has started.  What am I taking?

Wait for it…

Calculus II!

Ugh.

This one is Tri-C flavored.  I have spent this year at Tri-C.  I took Trig in the spring (aced it).  I took calculus I in the summer (did ok and landed a C, not bad for working full time and sitting in a calc class for 3+ hours twice a week).  Now it is calculus II, at the Metro campus.  The commute isn’t as bad as Parma, but not as nice as the five minutes it took to get to the Eastern campus.  The class is just over 2 hours which is oddly enough, a refreshing change. Hopefully I can get through this one.  The books for this class are getting expensive!

The prof seems pretty good and there’s 800 points up for grabs.  I am striving for a C.  I can probably settle for a D too, although a D is not too exciting to transfer over to the University of Akron.

Also in school news, Olessia attended an MBA open house at Baldwin Wallace.  It seems like a great program and she is looking forward to jumping in in the spring.

St. Basil's in Red Square, Moscow, Russia

I haven’t been able to figure out how to summarize the trip. In one word, I think “awesome” would summarize it pretty nicely. Russia is an amazing country. The United States goes back 300 years, while the city of Moscow alone goes back 860 years! The country is HUGE too.

It is easy to write about it, or look at pictures of Russia. But to actually go there, smell the air, and experience life, it is something else. I think for everything that is good about Russia, you can find the negative. It is still a tough place to live, in my opinion, although it does appear to be getting better. The trip allowed me to meet Masha, Olessia’s sister, as well as see where Masha and Olessia grew up and lived. I also saw where Olessia went to school, where she used to work, as well as where her mom and dad used to work and where her mom works currently. I experienced travel by road, boat, train, and metro (the subway).

Olessia’s mom cooked for us often. I tasted Russian ice cream and can say it is really good, so good in fact, I could see it being worth while eating outside in the cold of winter (which Russians do). It was a real treat to be able to go to Saint Petersburg as well as make it to the air show (the air show runs only once every two years). We ran out of time before we could see or do everything we wanted. This just means we’ll have to go back some time.

Pictures are available. I’ll try to narrate them here. Each album in the gallery is one day. So the first album is day one, the next album is day two, and so on.
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Las Cruces, New Mexico

The end of March, Olessia and I made a trip out to Las Cruces, New Mexico to visit my grandparents. It was a just a weekend trip, although we wish we had more time. It had been probably ten years since I was in Las Cruces the last time. The temperatures in Cleveland were just starting to warm up from 40F. I remember scraping frost off the car before leaving for the airport. We arrived and it was in the low 70F. The weather was absolutely awesome.

My grandparents took us out for lunch and we got some authentic southwestern BBQ food. From there we stopped in Old Mesilla. We had fun checking out the local crafts, jewelry, souvenirs, and art. Olessia found some jewelry and I found a pretty spiffy hat (which came in handy for the hiking we were to do). We stopped at some local art galleries and discovered some great water color works done of the southwest. Olessia enjoyed them and even had a chance to talk to the artist!

Later in the trip, we hiked the Organ Mountains, visited a pecan farm, and eat at an awesome local Mexican restaurant (definitely not the same as the Mexican food found in Ohio!).

The best part of the trip was hanging out with my grandparents. They took us all over and hiked and walked. They wore US out!