The PE Exam

Tomorrow, I'm getting up early to drive to Alexandria to take the Principles & Practice of Engineering Exam (PE). I don't feel very well prepared because the material is so broad, even though I've been studying pretty hard these past few weeks. What is worse, I won't find out my score for as much as 10 weeks after the test! I can't post anything about the test after I take it due to non-disclosure rules so this will probably be the last post about it until up to 10 weeks from now when I will say whether I passed or failed.

The iriver IFP-899

When I left Entergy, my coworkers gave me a super duper going away gift, an mp3 player! I got the iriver iFP-899

I promised that I would post a review on this blog, so here goes.

I don't think that iriver is promoting the 800 series much anymore. They seem to be concentrating on the T-10 and the T-30 series now. As far as I can tell, the T-10 series is identical to the 800 series in features, except that the T-10 models do not allow for Line-In recording. Also, they only offer the 512 MB and the 1 GB models (and 2 GB) in the T-10 series, where the 800 series had 128 and 256 MB models as well. The T-30 series also only comes in the 512 MB and 1 GB models, but it has a AAA battery power supply instead of a AA and thus has a shorter playing time between battery changes or recharges (24 hours on the T-30's vs 40 hours for 8xx and 45 hours for T-10's). The T-30 series also lacks the FM tuner and FM recorder features that the 800 and the T-10 series have.

All that is to say, if you're looking to get an iriver 8xx model mp3 player, you might not be able to find it. But, I suppose that the T-10 series will do just as good or better, unless you must have the Line-In recording feature.

The iriver iFP-899 (and the T-10 and T-30 series) falls into the category of "flash memory mp3 player." iriver calls them "Ultra portable players". These are very different from the hard drive mp3 players, such as your standard Apple I-POD. The hard drive players are much bulkier, have moving parts, and have much shorter battery life than the flash memory players. On the plus side, the hard drive players have tons more memory, like up to 60 GB, where the flash memory players only offer up to 2 GB. So, if massive storage is your thing, go with a hard drive player. iriver makes some models that compete with the iPods, but I've never tried any of them out.


1. Price - well, it was a gift, so the price was perfect for me. If you're looking for a flash memory player in the $120 range, the iriver iFP-899 might just be for you.

2. Mode 1 - mp3 playback. I haven't used any other mp3 player ever, so I can't really compare the playback to anything. It seems to be just fine. With my new Shure E3c sound isolating earphones (that'll be another post sometime) I've been able to listen to music with much more clarity than ever before. I think I can just barely tell the difference in 128 kbps mp3 files and the 160 kbps or 320 kbps ones. Maybe I'll encode a particular song to different qualities and see how much difference I can really tell.

3. Mode 2 - FM Tuner. This is one cool feature of the iriver iFP-899. You get a full 87.5 to 108.0 MHz FM tuner, with .1 MHz granularity. The tuner works alright if you're in an urban area with strong FM stations. The "antenna" is the headphone cord, so when you move around the signal might fade a bit in response. Another cool thing is that you can record the FM broadcast! I didn't even know about this feature until I hit the Record button while I was listening to the radio. I don't really know of that many times when I would want to record the radio, but I know I have the option. One gripe about the FM tuner - figuring out how to do the station presets is by far the most confusing thing about this player. I still don't know how to do it!

4. Mode 3 - Voice Recorder. This is one of the features that made me decide to get the iFP-899. There is a tiny little mic on the front of the player, and when you set the device to Voice Mode, you can record from the mic. There are two neat things about the voice record feature. First, there is an "automatic gain control" option that amplifies sounds that are not as loud. This makes voice recording much easier since you don't have to get the recorder too close to the speaker. Second, you can adjust the quality of the voice recording. You can adjust the bitrate from 8kbps to 160kbps and the sampling frequency from 11.025 kHz to 44.1 kHz. I have no idea why anyone would want to record a voice file at 44.1 kHz 160kbps, but you have the option. Practically speaking, this gives you the option of how much space you want for voice recordings. Remember, you have 1GB total to work with (actually, some of that 1GB is taken up with the firmware, but only about 30MB if I remember right), so if you have the device nearly full up with mp3's, then you won't have much space to record using the voice recorder (or the FM or line-in recorder either - remember, they ALL have to share the same 1GB space). But, even with only 50MB left on the device, you can still have anywhere from about 14 hours to 45 minutes of record time. I use the voice record feature to record my lectures at LSU. I record voice files at 22.05 kHz, 48kbps. There is also a voice record auto detection feature, but I don't use that. It's supposed to only record when it thinks it hears someone speaking, otherwise, during silent times, it automatically pauses the recording, saving space.

5. Mode 4 - Line In recording. The iFP-899 can also record any analog audio signal with it's line-in record feature. The features of this recorder are similar to the voice recorder features except that you have the option of mono or stereo recording and there is a gain adjust. The line input jack is a standard 1/8" stereo jack (just like the headphone jack). I haven't had the opportunity to use this feature much, but I can see where it would really come in handy. I wish I'd had this when I did the sound at BLCR. I could have had the sermon files uploaded within minutes of getting home.


There are lots of other things I can say about this nifty little gadget. Nearly all of them are good. I only have a few gripes, and I know that at least one of these has been addressed in the T-10 series. I'll try to update this post as I get the time with more info.

The Port-Hole

When I got back to land after the cruise, I found out that my Entergy code of Entigrity was expired. This is a thing that you're supposed to acknowledge every so often. I tried to acknowledge it using the Port-Hole, but it wouldn't work from my parents house in Bastrop. So, I tried to get the BETSY (ENT folks will know what I mean) 1-800 number and call in my acknowledgement. No such luck. All the HR links off of the Port-Hole were for sites that you had to actually be ON the network to access. So, I looked in my dad's information (he's an ETR employee too) and finally found the number. When I called it, it asked me for my employee number. About a year ago, Entergy changed the employee numbers from our SSN to a random number for each employee. I think I've used it like once. I didn't know it, so I thought, well, I could look at a paystub, and those are accessable from the Port-Hole. I clicked on the link. Error. Paystubs are not accessable right now. There are some things about Entergy I will not miss.

The richest man in CCM

The Contemporary Christian Music industry (CCM) just makes me mad a lot of times. I've heard lots of stories of people getting "sucked in" the industry and losing their faith as a result. I've personally seen divorce and broken homes as a result of the terribly secular and worldly industry that is CCM. Just listen to the music coming out of your local AFR affiliate and tell me that it has the depth of doctrine and truth of the great hymns of yesteryear. This CCM industry is run by business savvy executives that play all of the games that their pop music executives play in the skyscrapers across the street. Sometimes, they are themselves in the skyscrapers. Many secular labels have a "Christian" division, such as EMI, which owns Sparrow Records. EMI also owns Virgin Records and Capitol Records. Some of their artists on those labels include (please note that each one of these albums has the "explicit lyrics" warning on it) Bad Azz, Megadeth , and Fat Boy Slim. Companies like EMI have as their main goal to make money, NOT to glorify God.

Some Christian musicians have abandoned CCM altogether. Steve Camp is a great example of this. His 107 Theses are a clarion call to everybody in and around the CCM world for reformation.

Some folks however, are able to remain on the inside, and still keep the faith. Some have been able to produce God honoring music despite living and working in the CCM cesspool. Some musicians who come to mind are Steven Curtis Chapman (who records on Sparrow), Caedmon's Call (most recently recording on Brentwood), and Casting Crowns (who record on Reunion Records).

But, Rich Mullins topped them all.

Somehow, Rich was able to record many albums on a secular owned label (Reunion - which was partly owned by the very secular BMG) without succoming to the temptations of being a big name star. Rich died tragically on September 19, 1997. Nine days earlier, he recorded nine songs that he was going to put on an upcoming album. He had bought a cheap tape recorder and went to an old abandoned church to record the songs. This tape was found, cleaned up, and published under the title "The Jesus Demos." It was combined with a another disc with professional versions of the songs performed by some of Rich's friends. The first song on "The Jesus Demos" is called "Hard to Get", and it (Rich's demo version) is my favourite song of all time. You just don't have that kind of songwriting from 99% of the CCM "content providers."

See for yourself; compare some of Rich's songs to the standard CCM output.

Another one of my favourite songs by Rich is "O Come All Ye Faithful". (not the Christmas carol)


UPDATE 2006-12-07
Here is a paragraph from the wikipedia entry on Rich.

Mullins was seen as an enigma to the Christian music industry. Often barefoot, unshaven, and badly in need of a haircut, Mullins did not look like the average American gospel music writer. He was very much at home among the ungodly, and unafraid to name his own sin and inadequacies in public, often baffling the American Christian culture that he seemed oddly a part of. His lifestyle was unquestionably marked by devotion and discipline, yet his simultaneous refusal to buy-in to contemporary Christian niceties made him a bit of an uncomfortable presence in a music culture marked by artificiality. Although he achieved a good amount of success on Christian radio, he never received a GMA Music Award until after his death.

File Name Standard

{nerd rant}
One thing that bugs me is that most people who are in charge of keeping up computer databases and/or websites do not understand the best way to name their files. The most telling example of this is files that have dates as part of them. For example, a database of sermon mp3 files might have 010205.mp3 as the sermon on January 2, 2005 and 100205 for October 2, 2005 etc. What happens is if you download and store these files on your hard drive, they are ordered by month, then day, then year. So, if you have, say, sermons from since 1996 up to today on your hard drive, and you order them by file name, you will first see all of the January sermons (from 1996 to 2005), then all the February sermons (from 1996 to 2005). . . you get the point. This makes it tough to quickly pick out a file that you want. The simple solution - name the files by date, but put the year first, then the month, then the day (i.e. "2005-10-23.mp3"). That way, they will be ordered correctly.
{/nerd rant}

Lily's attempt at gardening

I had Monday and Tuesday off this week, and I spent most of my time working in our backyard. When we moved in there was nothing planted there besides grass. We've put in a flower bed and planted 9 azaleas, 2 dwarf gardenias, and 3 Bradford pear trees. I used ornamental grass as edging in the flower bed. The day after I had planted the ornamental grass, I caught Lily digging it up. She's learned not to dig in the flowerbeds in our courtyard, but I guess she thought it was OK to dig in the new bed.

Life with Lily

Our new puppy had been a lot of fun. She's almost 6 months old now. She has learned to "sit" and "lay down." Daisy was mad for about a week after we brought her home, but she loves her now that she has learned that she & Lily can get into all sorts of mischief together. They play together very well.

Daisy was the whole reason we wanted another dog. She would get so lonely when we left her by herself. She needed a playmate. So guess Lily is really Daisy's pet if you think about it.

Since they are both at least partly the same breed they have similar personalities. They are both energetic, but easily scared. For example, one night James tapped on the wall - an attempt to get Daisy to bark. Well, it definitely got Daisy to bark, which scared Lily causing her to run and lose complete control of her bladder - which left us a mess at least 25 feet long to clean up.

Lily loves to play in the water. She will stick her whole head in her water bowl. Perhaps Waterlily would have been a more appropriate name for her.