When “The Seven Serpents Trilogy” was first published in the 80’s, all that was available at the time were two books from the trilogy. I had read both the first and second book but was left wanting to read the final conclusion of the story. Unfortunately the final book had not been publish yet.

Fast forward to the present. Some long lost memory or a some faint desire to finally find out what happened caused me to search for the books and find them I did. I purchased the trilogy in late 2009 and commence to reading this old tale again. The fragments of memory that I had from the original story did not do much to bring back the characters, until I started to read the story.

From the very beginning, the very first page, the very first words on the page, I started to remember why I loved this trilogy so much. Perhaps it’s not for everyone, but because of my Spanish heritage from Spanish and Latin American roots, I was able to relate to the tales told within the books.

I had not realized how much I had forgotten. It was like reading the story for the first time again. I had faint memories of the end of each book, but I couldn’t remember what happened in between. To make a long story short, I’ve finished reading the first two books of the trilogy. I read the second book in the month of January 2010 and the first book between November and December 2009. At the moment I’m slowly pacing myself through the third book in the trilogy and if I continue at this pace I should finish reading this final book by the end of the month.

Is it recommended reading? If you like historical novels, this is a good insight into the Spaniards who came to conquer the New World for the three “G’s”: Gold, God and Glory”. Above all, they came for the gold, but the story also gives you a perspective of the ancient Mayan and Aztec Worlds, their rituals and sacrifices. Finally, it’s about a young man who struggle between his Christian faith and the desire to become a pagan god in a world near the edge of its downfall. Good reading overall.

What can be more practical than to reduce procrastination and work on discipline. I suppose discipline might be more important since it is discipline which requires more effort but alas in order to become discipline you must stop procrastinating. A conundrum which is not easy to resolve. Yet, if I concentrate on discipline I theorize that procrastination will slowly diminish.

Anyway, here is my list for this year. Hopefully I’ll make some progress with these goals and after a month or two I can see if I’ve made it past the difficult stages. They say that breaking a bad habit takes 21 days to break, but making it takes less than a week to create. In no particular order:

• Stop procrastinating
• Improve discipline
• exercise at least 3 times a week (kung fu)
• read 1 book a month (literature or fiction)
• spend more time doing research in the library
• build an access database
• finishing learning php
• more may come later

I suppose this is a good start for now.

When I went to the Microsoft student deal site I looked at the versions available and to my pleasant surprise they were offering Windows 7 Professional for the same price as the Home Premium version. The main interest I have in the Professional version is because it can run Windows XP Mode. If you don’t know much about this, it’s a way to keep XP while still having Windows 7. Ok let’s get to the details.

Once you buy the product, you are offered a download page where you download a small download manager. This appears to be a mandatory step. Here are the steps to follow.

1. Run the download manager (downloads all the Win7 files)
2. When finished downloading run the file to extract all the files downloaded
3. A new folder is created called “expandedSetup” (contains all your Win7 files)

At this point if you want a straight forward upgrade of your OS all you do is run the setup file in the folder and follow the instructions. But if you prefer to make a bootable disk and run a clean install, then you follow the next steps.

1. Copy the folder “expandedSetup” to your root drive C:\
2. Download “oscdimg.exe” and copy it over to %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32 folder (you can skip this step if you go to Microsoft’s website and download and install the “Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK)” -free download
3. Run a command prompt as Administrator (google if you don’t know how to do this)
4. Type the following and hit enter: oscdimg.exe –bC:\expandedSetup\boot\etfsboot.com –u2 –h -m -lWIN_EN_DVD C:\expandedSetup\ C:\Win7.iso
5. Wait till this compiles an ISO for you
6. When finished use your favorite burning software to burn the ISO image to DVD
7. When done insert the DVD and restart your computer and enjoy your bootable disk

It took several hours to figure this out on my own. I did not find any detailed Digital River instructions on how to make the bootable disk. Although they did tell you on the website you could run a “custom install” in order to get a clean install, they left you on your own to figure out how to do it yourself. All in all I’m happy I have my Windows 7 installed. Thanks for reading.

P.S. On a final note I had to go to Microsfot’s website to download the 2 components for XP Mode to work. You actually download a version of Windows XP with Microsfot Virtual PC software. As of today it was a free download. Took a few minutes to run and install and I had my XP mode working. As far as I know it doesn’t work on the Home Premium version of Windows 7.

I know this may not sound exciting, but to geology students, well it’s not that exciting either. LOL. Anyway, was a long day, took some pictures and did some work. Learning more about basalts and gabbros. Tomorrow we’ll have an exciting day of sedimentary rocks and possibly fossils.

I’m sure I’ll have better and more detailed updates later in the week, for now it’s a slow start and I think it will start to pick up.

This is all for now, if you want to see more pictures of the trip just check my facebook. That’s all for now.

This episode was better than the premier but it still wasn’t that great. The characters are struggling to like each other and as a viewer I’m also struggling to like the characters. I’ve decided to continue watching SGU until the mid-season finally. Hopefully, it will be just as good as the original series. If it ends up getting worst, well then no more SGU for me.

Now on to the latest episode of Heroes. Ok so the last 2 episodes weren’t too bad. Episode 3 felt like a filler, but the ending gave it an interesting twist. Episode 4 got more interesting and it looks like Nathan Patrelli is out of the picture, but I don’t know yet. And finally, what in the world does having the ability to see sound do for anyone. I suppose projecting sound as a weapon would be cool, but really, they could have been a little more creative with these powers.

I’m still a bit disappointed with the season, mainly because this season seems less dramatic, less suspenseful. People’s abilities have been lowered so much and many of the characters that were introduced in the last 3 season just vanished. The core set of characters seem like every day people with just a little bit of extra skill, even Noah, the main company man seems retired and out of the picture. So far everything seems pretty lame, but it looks like they are slowing building up the story. In my opinion they are taking way too long to develop this story line. Anyway, that’s all for now.

First of all, I know there are people out there that don’t agree with this holiday or festive time or whatever you want to call it, but just from a commercial point of view and from a fun point of view, it’s a good time of the year. I enjoy this time of the year for the candy, the costumes and the scary movies. I’d have to say that the scary movies aren’t scary anymore, but the point is that it’s a good festive time.

What makes Halloween in the United States different from the UK is that in the United States there is a month long build up to the 31st. People decorate their homes, stores get decorated, pumpkins get carved, so much happens for that final day. Then on the day of Halloween, everyone comes out. For a short period of time the streets are flooded with children and parents dressed in costumes roaming the streets, knocking on doors and wielding flash lights (torches).

That doesn’t happen here or perhaps it just can’t happen here. So, for me, it’s missing that time of year when I can be a part of that festivity that I miss. Hopefully I’ll get to see it next year, for now it’s another British Halloween.

After spending 2 hours watching the premiere I was not very impressed. The last 2 series had piggy backed off of the previous successful version of each, however this one lacked that piggy back. In other words, this particular series seems to be a stand alone series with very little connection to the original series. SG1 and Atlantis both had characters and cross stories that made them successful and allowed the view to remain familiar with old characters while being introduced to new characters.

This new series has a brief showing of the old original characters, but it does not feel like an introduction. From my perspective, it’s like I’ve been dumped into this new series without proper preparation. You have one maybe two familiar characters here or there, but it’s not enough to get you fully into the experience of the show. Secondly, the style of moving from present to past in the story line can get confusing at times. The transition from present event to past sometimes seems blurred. Anyway, I’m going to continue watching the next several episodes in hope that it will improve and grow on me. If it doesn’t impress me then I will most likely stop watching this series.

On to Heroes. After watching the first couple of episodes I’m left wondering, will NBC bring back that original feeling that you got when you first watched season 1? It seems that the last 2 seasons messed up much of the story line as well as many of the character’s abilities. Most of this could probably be blamed on the writer’s strike of the time, however, we are now in the present and I’m hoping that this new season will be a major improvement over the last 2 season. Again if they don’t fix the story line, if they don’t make it as appealing or better than the first season, then I’ll most likely stop watching the series and get back to watching my anime. Anyway, here’s hoping that these series will be good.