Alarm script fixed!

I've been having problems with the alarm script. Specifically, it doesn't work. Sometimes amarok simply doesn't start playing. Sometimes amarok crashes. Well, I fixed the script to check and see if things were playing at the end. If amarok isn't running or isn't playing, then it goes back and tries to get it going again! Here's the script:

DISPLAY=:0.0
export DISPLAY
killall -9 skype
echo "It's time to wake Kyle up..."
echo "Enabling Randomness..."
dcop amarok player enableRandomMode true
echo "Clearing the previous playlist..."
dcop amarok playlist clearPlaylist
echo "Stopping amaroK..."
dcop amarok player stop
echo "Loading the Awaken playlist..."
dcop amarok playlist addMedia file:///home/paithan/.kde/share/apps/amarok/playlists/Awaken.m3u
echo "Setting volumes..."
aumix -v 32
dcop amarok player setVolume 68
while [ "$(dcop amarok player isPlaying)" != "true" ]
do
if [ "$(dcop amarok player isPlaying)" != "false" ]
then
echo "amaroK appears to not be running! Let's start it!"
amarok
fi
echo "AmaroK will play in 3..."
sleep 1
echo "2..."
sleep 1
echo "1..."
sleep 1
echo "Now."
dcop amarok player play
sleep 5
if [ "$(dcop amarok player isPlaying)" = "false" -o "$(dcop amarok player isPlaying)" = "call failed" ]
then
echo "Playing failed! Trying again..."
fi
done
echo "Here's the weather"
firefox http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=Boston%2C+MA

This should work just perfectly now!

Sleep, The Regular Walk, Meeting Monkeys, Heterosexual Rights

Wow... I really need to get back on a regular sleeping schedule. I'll let you all know when that happens:-P I tried to go to bed at midnite last night, but I couldn't fall asleep, and didn't wind up hitting the hay until around 4:30. Of course I woke up around 9:30, and I'm exhausted. Ugh. I have an appointment to be checked out for sleep apnea in 2.5 weeks. I don't know exactly what this appointment entails, but I hope I can get on the road to fixing my poor sleep issues (note, this is a seperate issue from the bad sleep schedule...).

I figured that since I keep talking about "walks" I should post my usual route, which counts (to me) as "one walk".

I had a pretty ridiculous day for randomly meeting monkeys yesterday. I saw 3 Colby monkeys, Ilya and Mary (and her parents!) and another cool soccer fan I met at The Druid. Crazy!

I was browsing Google news recently, and I read about New York's ruling against same-sex marriage. This was last week at some point, I'm pretty sure. These restrictions still make absolutely no sense to me. The only real reasoning for restricting marriage to opposite-sex, as far as I can see, is religious. The thing that really pisses me off is the idea that children require both a mother and father "figure" in order for their childhood to be uncruel. Worst, does this mean that in order for me to be a good parent I have to fill the paternal role in the parenthood?

Clearly it does! Otherwise, if me or any other guy happened to fill the maternal role, then same sex marriages would be viable, because we could fulfill both roles.

I guess I should feel lucky to be in a state where the government isn't enforcing my role in any marriage, be it heterosexual or homosexual. Still, I'm sure all the working mothers and stay-at-home dads across the country would have something to say if they suddenly found that they had to switch roles! I certainly won't speak for others, but I feel like the government is telling me that completely legitimate parenting options are unacceptable.

(I spent some time looking for a link to a quote I had noticed earlier about protecting families, but I can't find it at the moment...)

Back from California, Walx, German Fourth

Well, I returned from California just about a week ago. I had an awesome trip. Just awesome:)

My sister's new website recently went up. Her life's been pretty crazy lately, especially when you realize that she recently had 16 grandkids! (And over 30 more are on the way in the next two months!) I don't remember the link to pictures of her baby bearded dragons, but I'll post it when I get it. (Congratulations to the parents, Turtle and Matte!)

I got 6 walks in last week, including some of my walking around Mountain View. For most of my time there, I didn't get my walks in... but it would have been much easier to get them there. Here it's simply too humid out during the day to walk anywhere. My body hates me everytime I step outside between the hours of 10am and 7pm.

Up until today, I had gotten 3 walks in this week. Then I walked like crazy today. Here's the gmap pedometer for my traveling today: crazy walking!

Wow, over 11 miles! What the junk was I doing?

Well, over the past month, I've gotten REALLY into the World Cup. Anyone can tell you that Germany's my team. Today I planned to go the Goethe Institut to watch the game. However, I have no Deutsches Fussballbund apparel, so I decided to swing by the Adidas store in Harvard Square. I'm an idiot, though: they're closed on the fourth, obviously!

Then I walked (an indirect route) to the Goethe Institute. I wanted to swing by my office, but by the time I got nearby, I didn't have time any longer. So, my path to the back bay is really convoluted. Especially considering I could have gone straight from my apartment!

Afterwards, I went to my office for a few minutes, then went over to Tommy Doyle's Pub at One Kendall Square for stammtisch. I just don't go often enough... it's so much fun, and I need to keep practicing my german! We left in time to catch the fireworks from the Harvard Bridge (Mass Ave). After that, I led members of our german-speaking contingent back to Central Square, then walked my usual route home.

Whew! Eleven miles! Crazytalk!:-P