Well, another semester has begun at the School of Information, and so I figured I'd share my latest classes and books.

As of now, I've boiled my classes down to the following:

• Mixing and Remixing Information
• Interface Aesthetics
• Social and Organizational Issues of Information
• Strategic Computing and Communications Technology
• Information Law and Policy
• Cyberlaw

And somehow, I only had to buy three books and four readers this semester, for a total of $315. Somehow, this is more than last semester when I had five books and four readers. Oh well. The books from this semester are:

• Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy
• Software and Internet Law
• Pro Web 2.0 Mashups

So far, classes are going well, but at least one of them will need to get cut. It's going to be hard to decide, but luckily I don't have to for another few months.

There has been some talk in my family over the years about my great grandfather, Meyer Lissner. Over the holidays, I scanned some old photos, and discovered that he was quite the famous fellow. Below is a liberty ship that was named after him in 1943.

I also learned that my grandfather donated a LOT of his papers to the Stanford Library as the Meyer Lissner Papers. I haven't read up much on him yet, but he seems pretty influential to California history as part of a reform movement.

Interesting stuff. I'm going to have to do some researching on this fellow one of these days.

Well, there is an interesting development in the theft of my credit card number. Today I received supplements in the mail for my prostate. Supplements that were bought with my credit card. For those wondering, no, I do not need this medicine. No, I did not order this medicine.

I'm intrigued and a bit amused that this is what my identity thief decided to do with my money, but I'm going to have to decline their offer of prostate supplements. This purchase raises so many questions, I don't know exactly where to begin.

Well, we got back from Peru on Sunday (pictures forthcoming), and today was my last day at work with the Community Services Bureau of Contra Costa County.

I've never worked somewhere for so long - all in all, it was about three years, during which time I progressed from Temp Clerk to Intermediate Clerk to Assistant Manager. You do gotta love working in government.

In a way, I've been planning on quitting since about December of 2006, when I first applied to go back to school. Now that it's a year and a half later, I'm surprised I'm not more excited or elated about this change. It's possible it hasn't sunk in yet because I have been on vacation for the past two weeks (and am used to not going to work), but ultimately, I feel pretty normal, which is odd.

Tomorrow is the first day of school at the Berkeley School of Information. I've got my classes all set up, and I'm shocked at exactly how awesome the classes are.

Here's the official list as of now:

• Information Organization and Retrieval
• Distributing Computing Applications and Infrastructure
• Politics of Piracy
• Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation
• Computer Mediated Communication
• Photovoltaic Materials: Modern Technologies
• Metrics of Sustainability

A lot of classes, eh? It's 20 units as of now, so I am definitely going to drop a number of them. It's going to be hard to decide which to drop though. It's a three-way split between classes offered through Haas school of business, the Energy and Resources Group and the iSchool. I guess we'll see which float to the top.

My girlfriend and I have been travelling around Peru for the past week or so. It has been nothing short of awesome.

Our first stop was in Lima for one night, after which point, we left to go to the Amazon Basin, specifically Puerto Maldonado. In Puerto Maldonado, we were picked up by our guide, and quickly ushered down the Tambopata river. From our jungle lodge, we had a number of rather excellent excursions. We went to a bird clay lick, where we saw a fair amount of birds, including red maccaws. We went to a jungle farm, and learned about their practices, and ate a bunch of fruit (some normal, some strange). We climbed a tower into the jungle canopy and did some bird watching from there, and we spent a night camping in the jungle. On that last excursion, we saw the most poisonous spider in Peru (I think), and saw some other spiders that I have to admit were damned frightening. So far, no malaria, or other jungle diseases to speak of.

At the moment we are in Cusco, which is effectively the tourist capital of Peru. Today we saw the Sacred Valley, and tomorrow we head out on a four-day hike along the Inca trail, culminating at Machu Piccu.

From here, we head to Arequipa, and from there, to Lima and then home.

I thought I would post a quick entry today about how I came to be a Linux user and enthusiast. I guess it's a combination of a couple things.

Historically, what happened was that I was using XP and looking at thumbnails of some pictures in their file navigator. I was looking at about 300 pictures, and I didn't want to open them all up individually (this was before useful apps like Picasa came around). I just wanted to look at the thumbnails. Except those were too small, so I wanted to make them bigger. I spent about two hours searching online to try to figure out how to make such an adjustment. Eventually, I discovered a Windows "Powertool" that you could install. It seemed like overkill, but it did the job. What bugged me though about it was that obviously it didn't require a Powertool to adjust image size. It just required a tweak of some bit of code somewhere in the system. That was my tipping point. I decided I couldn't take the viruses, the expense and the closed product anymore, and promptly decided it was time for a new OS.

So that's what brought me to Linux. What kept me here is the openness and the philosophy. Sure, at times it's a bit trickier to get certain things done, but I love the philosophy that if I want a change, I can either make it myself if I am a programmer, or I can file a feature request with the developers. Somebody will read that request, and maybe it will get integrated, if it's a good enough idea.

I also love the fact that I can download, install and run an excellent email server, and a top-notch web server. For free. Also, no viruses. Ever. Nor any anti-virus software to pay for. And did I mention the whole thing is free?

As for the day to day stuff, I really don't notice much difference. At work, I use XP, which involves using Firefox, Word, Excel and Outlook (the latter three of which my work paid good money for). At home it's Firefox, Open Office and Evolution, all of which are very similar to the Microsoft package, only with better compatibility with other programs.

The other thing I really like about my Linux system is the ability to set things up like in the previous tutorial. I did an Internet search for "Linux wake on USB", and knew exactly how to adjust the system in a matter of moments. That kind of customization is a power you just don't have in Windows.

Got my eyeballs checked at the Berkeley Optometric Group on Friday. They dilated my eyes and took this picture. It was awesome. Now we know that my eyes are in good shape. Good.

That's a picture of my eye.

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you are probably aware that I am a huge environmentalist. You may not clearly understand just how huge an environmentalist I am though. Lately, I have been doing some thinking about my long-term goals, and some of them are coming into some clarity:

1. I want to build a house and live in it.
2. I want my house to be made while maintaining a neutral carbon impact. If I use trees to build my house, I want those materials to be renewed before my death.
3. I want to stop using petroleum and coal altogether. No cars. No petroleum fed food. Only clean energy. Offsets for all things outside the realm of the above.
4. I want to achieve the above comfortably.

In a blog, these goals seem a little silly, but I have been thinking about variations of these for many years, and they are indeed quite serious, real goals.

That said, putting them out there in public makes me look and feel like an extremist, like a crazy person outside of what is considered the norm - outside even of the margins. I think I can do it though, and I think I need to get to work soon if I am going to feel like my life has been a success.

The first thing I need is money. More of it. Lots more of it.

Well, it's been a month, and the results are in. For the past month, I've been trying to realize some pretty ambitious goals, and let me tell you, it has not been easy.

The first, and perhaps most important goal was to "avoid single-passenger car usage at all costs." For the most part, this goal has been a success. To achieve this goal, I have had to change my behavior and paradigms pretty radically. For my daily commute, I changed from a 25 minute car ride to a 45 minute bike and train ride. For groceries, I had to carry a massive backpack full of food, and for everything else, I have been riding my bike all around town. The one time I failed at this goal was when my car broke (somebody else was driving it), and it had to get to a mechanic. For that, I apologize, but what can you do?

The second goal was to jump a rope 500 times daily. I have failed at this goal for a couple of reasons. The first is travel. I did a fair amount of travel during the past month, and it's a tiring thing to do. I don't like jumping rope after traveling. That's a fact. The second reason is that I was doing a lot of other exercise during the past month. I biked about 120 miles during my commute, I played soccer and basketball, and I hiked about 30 miles. Am I really supposed to jump rope after all that?

The next goal was flossing. I flossed pretty much every day during the period, but I did forget to bring it during one of the vacations mentioned above, so I didn't floss during those nights. I was lucky enough to have a dentist (dis)appointment during the month, wherein I learned that I have three fresh, new cavities in my mouth, so that helped to make the flossing goal a success (sort of).

No hydrogenated oil. This was a pretty easy one all in all. I failed once, when in a meeting it just was kind of unavoidable because of social circumstances. I made up for it though by persuading a friend not to eat hydrogenated oil at a later date, so my karma is good there. This stuff is all over the place in food. It's pretty surprising where it turns up when you start looking for it.

For the reading a half hour goal, it was a piece of cake since I was riding public transportation anyway. I did neglect it on the weekends, but I think the balance came out OK.

That was a lot of detail, I know. More than you probably wanted, but I wanted to get it on paper (so to speak). The real outcomes of this are not those of the 30 days, but rather the outcomes of long-term change in my habits. I can say that this was a rather challenging process, and I didn't really enjoy it the entire time. It made me a lot more tired each day, and the commuting made me have to get up earlier, so that was tough. Figuring out how to do things by bike has a learning curve as well, which was also stressful at times.

When it is all said and done though, I can say that this has been a positive experience. I am planning on continuing most of the goals (floss, oil, car and reading), but I think the jump rope can leave my life at this point.

There are two answers to the question of whether the mission was a success. I did not achieve any of the goals without some kind of qualifier, so in that regard, no the mission has failed. However, on the other hand, it has created lasting change in me, so in that regard, the mission is a great success.

I'm starting something new. I can't tell you what it is yet, but I'm very excited about it. It has nothing to do with anything you might be thinking that it is. Unless you already know what it is. Confused? Don't be. You'll find out what it is soon enough. For those of you that are wondering, no, this has nothing to do with my "Secret Skill" that I picked up while in Spain.

In other news, it's official - I'm going to Peru in August before starting at Cal. I had no idea Peru was so awesome. It's like a giant exaggerated California, except with jungle. They have massive sand dunes, the 4th highest mountain in the Americas, the headlands for the Amazon River, giant canyons that make the grand canyon seem quaint, and so much adventure, I have no idea how to handle it. Also, did I mention Machu Picchu? Lake Titicaca?

More details to come on this craziness.