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My recent trip to The Thinker was nothing more than a guise to onboard another feline; Maya (Angelou) from long time best pal
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galinda822. Of the two of us, I figure I got the better end of the bargain, but what was immediately apparent was the confusion behind who would now hold the Heavyweight Champion title in this house. Momo (Tubblette), weighing in at an incredible fat was possibly facing the upset of her titleholder status. It was approximately three weeks before they were comfortable enough to pose adjacent one another for this hurried snap, but as you can see, the results remain outstanding. I also credit
somebritinmass for the success of this paparazzi capture at the weigh-in; look carefully and you'll spy the imported catnip being defended by the newcomer.Hopefully, once tensions have settled, I'll be able to get some portrait photos of Ms. Maya.
INTERNETWORK TRESPASS
Spent most of the day trying to get my son's computer to see my shared iTunes library, to no avail. My DSL comes in through a 2-Wire router/modem which broadcasts wireless to his Mac Mini. My router acts as the modem's DMZ, absorbing all requests and handing them in turn. I pointed the ports iTunes uses (3689 TCP/5353 UDP) to my host for outside inquiries - All the computers this side of the router can see my library - but his cannot. He can ping past his router, and ping my router, but he cannot ping boxes on the other side of my router. I even tried manipulating his routing table with no effect. The wireless clients simply cannot see boxes on the other side of my router. FAIL.
YES, LORD?
While I was secure shell'd into his mac, I had the computer call his name, then tell him, "Your daddy says you can leave your room. He wants to see you. He's in his office. Go now." He comes running through the house giggling, admitting that when the computer first called his name, he looked around, spooked. EPIC WIN.
LESSONS LEARNED
Finished Season 2 of NCIS and have all four seasons ready to go out Monday for
galinda822 (I even pre-made her an avatar, just in case). When I was ready to send a package of laserdiscs, I sat in my floor and cut styrofoam with my pocketknife for two days, crafting a secure mold in which to travel. Once they were secured, I placed the entire bundle into the styrofoam's original container (my wife's widescreen monitor) for secure traveling. Then I went to the FedEx store where they packaged that box themselves in their own box which was the only way to have the contents insured. Not falling for the same ruse twice, I intend to show up at the FedEx store with only the box sets and let them handle the entire process in-house this time. As an aside, Season Five is released Tuesday. WIN.TRILOGY
When
swashbuckler332 released his tracklist for his newest mix, Sandcastles & Breadcrumbs I read the liner notes to each track as I followed along in iTunes, later popping all three scores onto my iPod to began a journey across the sands of Africa and into the Far East. Rousing, adventurous scores which kept me company all week at work, but I must admit, the cohesiveness of the album brings out the richness of the individual scores. The best of themes across all the films is integrated in such a way that you don't miss any of the lesser tracks and he even managed to (once again) so smoothly piece together disparate selections in such a way to miss title changes. In fact 2,3,4 & 5 were so flawlessly stitched, that until the beating of the kettle drums in Night Boarders (Sandcastles & Breadcrumbs' fifth track) I was unaware I had listened through three selections. MAGNIFICENT. 
The subtle beauty of the cover art masks the stimulating contents
MONSTER BY THE CASE
Monster brand energy drinks retail are between $1.99 and $2.09, and our food services company sells them for $2.99 at our on-site cafeteria. Sam's Club sells them in a case for a per car price of $1.21! I picked up a case yesterday after work and put two in the fridge. One for today, the other for tomorrow. The only difference between myself and
drax0r where this is concerned, is that my case will last me 24 days. When he bought his he played a game called how-many-can-I-drink-a-day-and-still-function? His case lasted him four days. And the 'still function' part of that little experiment is still out for debate.
One of these actors spends a lot on salon products, and the other uses Suave.
LEAVINGS
My wife got a juicer in which she makes these complex, multi-source drinks for us. And its amazing how little juice you can get from a handful of kelp, broccoli, mustard greens, spinach greens, turnip greens, carrots, and the sort. One day, she was emptying the leavings, that is, the pulp which had already been juiced and throwing it away. I stopped her, fascinated and asked, "Can you save that for me?" It looked great! I imagined it in soups, stews, salads, crock-pot meals. I find that a couple of hours after my drink, I enjoy sprinkling a little cheese, salsa and seasoning directly on the leavings and eating them.
One of these bloggers spends a lot on salon products, and the other uses Suave.
SIXTH SENSE
I'm used to rolling out of bed around 0900, giving
drax0r a call, and making it in around 1100. Since my wife has started working, however, and I need to be home before the kids get off the bus, My alarm is set for 0545. Yes, that's early. Too early. Also, my CD-Alarm is set to play Track 22 of theBSG Mini-Series, "The Sense Of Six." Give that link a listen. Yeah, do you have any idea how fucked-up my dreams are between 0545 and 0555 when I finally drag my ass out of bed? Yikes dude.
ehowton used to be a photographic intelligence troop. photogoot used to be a military intelligence photographer. This past December, the two of us went to work together once again, when schpydurx lost his watch during a drunken urination session.FUN WITH INSTANT MESSAGING
About 18-times a day, I lose AIM. The fun part is, unbeknownst to me, without *actually* losing connection my AIM session disconnects & reconnects possibly 18-times a minute, so that when I do finally lose connectivity with the server, Pidgin tells me I'm an asshole for trying to 'reconnect' too often and punishes me by making me wait 10-minutes. EIGHTEEN TIMES A DAY.
I'm ready to do it again. Who's with me?
JUBAL EARLY AND THE TACO BOWL
Richard Brooks played Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette on Law & Order and was one of my favorite actors and characters. Always questioning himself, and his motives. Then he went away (later to return as a race-motivated defense attorney, but that's a story for another post) and I didn't see him again - in anything - until the very last episode of Firefly where he played the bounty hunter Jubal Early - and who, really, could forget that? So the trite hispanic man who used to fill my taco bowl every day has been replaced by Jubal Early and just seeing him every day makes me smile. I wonder if he knows?
Whilst at the Pinewood Derby a lady slid up to me and whispered, I know who you are.
"Ooooooooooook." I replied.
You're ehowton. she said. I nodded. Then she introduced herself - and I recognized her name and was totally at ease. In the future, I think people should start with the introduction!
Fast forward to today. I'm walking from my boss's office to my own. I say, "Excuse me" as I pass through a group of people. A lady grabs me and pulls us away from the bystanders - "Do you live in [my subdivision]?" she asked. Whoa! Completely-blank-stare...I was in work mode! "I'm so-and-so...I live at the end of the street. I recognized your car in the parking lot!" Very cool because I thought I recognized her husband a couple of weeks back and sure enough, he works at one of the other plants...New friends, new neighbors.
The other night we were at a party, and, because
drax0r and I have come close to getting the entire town of Anna, Texas addicted to Monster brand drinks, the subject eventually came up. Because I am outrageous, I started, "throwing down" gang-sign. Only, I used my first three fingers of my right hand, pointing down - to represent the, "M" in Monster while draped over my left arm which I threw across my chest. We'd all been drinking and it was a hoot, until someone turned it on its side and announced, "EHOWTON!" *eyeroll* And only because someone else started using an avatar just like mine making it difficult to distinguish between the two I took that idea, and ran with it:( EHOWTON )
And, by the grace of God, my wife and I rec'd a gift this weekend, the always lovely and engaging
galinda822. (Use only as directed. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required.) She arrived by air Saturday morning and sadly, has to leave tomorrow evening. I was hoping to take Tuesday off to maximize my time with her (as my wife has been stealing her away from me) but as it turns out will be working 0900-1200 tomorrow with a 1400 Parent-Teacher conference prior to leaving for the airport. Thanks for making your way down here again!
catttitude and galinda822 on a gorgeous Texas morning.( Handwriting Meme )
◾ Tags:
"We frequently hear of people dying from too much drinking. That this happens is a matter of record. But the blame is always placed on whisky. Why this should be I never could understand. You can die from drinking too much of anything; coffee, water, milk, soft drinks and all such stuff as that. And so as long as the presence of death lurks with anyone who goes through the simple act of swallowing. I will make mine [Scotch] whisky."
-- W.C. Fields
I have two visitors coming over the next couple of months, and I'm very excited to see them both. Though both are able to co-exist collectively (we all did fine in Saint Louis) separately one requires much more attention (at least in preparation) than the other, and the activities I'm trying to plan vary wildly on opposite sides of the pendulum.
Both will require transportation from the airport. As these people are unaware of Dallas traffic, they'll both likely be screaming in the passenger seat of my car (think
danzigfried's first visit). I drive as if I were piloting the Knight Bus in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and traffic in the Metroplex is equally as forgiving. That being said, when one visitor arrives she has no requirements outside of transportation from said terminal to our domicile. As it will be later in the evening, her transportation is already set. I see no problems or issues arising from it. The other, however, requires the the vehicle be at exactly 71-degrees and that a measure of single-malt Scotch be awaiting him in the passenger cabin upon his entrance into the vehicle. Though with my first guest there will be much chattering and catching up during the half-hour drive, my other guest prefers silence until exactly 15-minutes into my drive. He's very precise, you see. Needs his time to "unwind."While both guests and I have plenty of catching up to do, the care and feeding of one is going to be much more simplistic than the other. Both will be sleeping in the kids room's during their visit, but one demands 600-thread count Egyptian Cotton sheets. Our first breakfast will be lots of fun for both visitors, and though the menu of one visitor is not set, she'll no doubt enjoy whatever morning feast we serve, while the other requires a single slice of dry rye toast, and a single egg over-easy and 8-ounces of coffee at exactly 112-degrees Fahrenheit.
Even though I haven't seen either of these visitors in several months, it will be like we were never apart once they arrive. I am notorious for picking right up where we left off and having a really good time. That is, once I get the list of pre-approved conversations from my more *ahem* structured guest. My wife has events planned and sites to see with our first visitor - I'll be lucky to be able to tag along a couple of days into the visit. The other guest is bringing his own agenda. I'm waiting in eager anticipation to see if I'll be asked to accompany him.
With our first visitor, my wife has picked up a couple of bottles of wine and fun things like "chocolate tequila." She is so much fun and so easy-going I anticipate a great time all around. My other visitor is like Madam Maxine's flying horses from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - he only drinks single-malt whisky, so I've been feverishly stockpiling Scotch. No matter how much I have, I'm afraid it won't be enough. He requires a dram an hour. You've heard of a mean drunk? My second visitor only gets angry if he doesn't drink!
I'm very excited to see both my friends.
We're hosting a large block-party for the first visitor - she already engages in conversation with the locals of Anna, and I have people coming from all over the Metroplex to meet her. My other friend, well, not only are his arrival dates and times kept until the most strict of confidences, I've agreed we're not to leave the house except under the cover of darkness, and to avoid as much human contact as possible. He's written a backstory I've memorized to explain his presence here in Texas.
Either way, how much fun can a person have?
I rock.
Who loves ya?
Neighbor across the street had asked me a couple of days ago if I'd seen the commercials on television with the Mac & PC guy. I told him that yes, I was familiar with them. He then asked me if they were true.
I told him they were.
And its not really my word that carries the weight, its how I came to that conclusion. You see,
drax0r had up and bought himself a mac mini way back around 2004 or so, and I mocked him mercilessly, day and night, for months. When he upgraded to a dual-proc G5 tower, he graciously offered me his mini. I laughed in his face. As a unix adminstrator, I knew XP had its flaws, but they were flaws I knew. My XP machine was a fast, healthy machine. Daily it was set to run full virus scans, ad-ware scans, defrag, and updates. All non-essential services were turned off, and sure it locked up when applications wrote to reserved memory areas, etc - but that what computers do, right?I finally agreed to 'test' it. I played with it for weeks on end, learning its foreign GUI, playing with its FreeBSD-based back-end. This was a unix administrators dream! At the end of a month or so, I hugged him fiercely, thanked him for freeing me, and powered off the XP box. I took my new mini, attached a 7200 rpm 8MB/cache firewire drive as a boot device and built the O/S from scratch. He'd already maxed out the RAM, so all that was left to do was overclock the CPU. Sure its a little dated now, but I have no reason to use anything else. And when the time comes to finally let it go, I'll purchase another one with the Intel duo-core and bequeath this one to my son.
I don't run virus scans these days, or ad-ware scans. Journaled filesystems means never having to defrag. The object database filesystem that they didn't quite get working in Vista is alive and well on my mac, and I'll never go back. I never considered myself one of those odd 'mac people' but knowing what I now know, I pity Windows users.
And now, a w0rd to
galinda822: Sorry I missed your AIM, the neighbors were downstairs in the basement during my tutorial (I think they're going to get a mac). Also, I picked up two boxes of tea for us, The 'Wild Berry Zinger' and 'Madagascar Vanilla Red Roobios' both Celestial Seasonings.Rec'd Terminal Velocity (I've listened to it twice now) and ordered The Pajama Game Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (thanks to lehah on those two!) and Done The Impossible: The Fans' Tale of Firefly & Serenity score. The former is the first time I've seen anything other than the Original Cast release. In fact, ages ago I created a cassette from the VHS just so I could have it. I mean, the Original Cast is great (many of them recreated their roles for the movie) but some of the songs were downright outstanding on the Soundtrack. Furthermore, its usually the Soundtrack which is missing songs from the stage production, but in this case, I really wanted "There Once Was a Man" which was on the Soundtrack only. The latter isn't sold by Amazon directly, rather a 3rd party with Amazon as a broker. We'll see.
photogoot will arrive in just five short days, and already I'm running low on scotch. Work has decided this MLK holiday (which our client observes as a holiday, and by extension, since we mimic our client's holiday's to afford coverage, we do to) would be a fantastic weekend to work! How fortunate for us! As manager of the department I began a grassroots uprising which was quelled almost immediately. We will be working this weekend. So to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together, galinda822 and I maneuvered to begin as early as possible Friday until of waiting after hours. We won that petition, which means I'll be able to pick up dear Goot upon his arrival with a zero-wait time. He will literally deplane, pick up his bag, walk out the door where I will be waiting. That being said, we have a rather dull itinerary this visit:
I read to my little ones every night:
113/69 p63
lehah on those two!) and Done The Impossible: The Fans' Tale of Firefly & Serenity score. The former is the first time I've seen anything other than the Original Cast release. In fact, ages ago I created a cassette from the VHS just so I could have it. I mean, the Original Cast is great (many of them recreated their roles for the movie) but some of the songs were downright outstanding on the Soundtrack. Furthermore, its usually the Soundtrack which is missing songs from the stage production, but in this case, I really wanted "There Once Was a Man" which was on the Soundtrack only. The latter isn't sold by Amazon directly, rather a 3rd party with Amazon as a broker. We'll see.photogoot will arrive in just five short days, and already I'm running low on scotch. Work has decided this MLK holiday (which our client observes as a holiday, and by extension, since we mimic our client's holiday's to afford coverage, we do to) would be a fantastic weekend to work! How fortunate for us! As manager of the department I began a grassroots uprising which was quelled almost immediately. We will be working this weekend. So to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together, galinda822 and I maneuvered to begin as early as possible Friday until of waiting after hours. We won that petition, which means I'll be able to pick up dear Goot upon his arrival with a zero-wait time. He will literally deplane, pick up his bag, walk out the door where I will be waiting. That being said, we have a rather dull itinerary this visit:
070112 - Game Night w/Galinda & Goot. We'll be dining on IMO's St. Louis Style pizza and playing Reminiscing, a game for people over 30. Probably while drinking local mulled wine and listening to world music.
070113 - Lazy Day. We're going to start out with Buckwheat pancakes & homemade syrup for breakfast. I'm sure the wife will come up with something to keep us entertained. Wife is making a crockpot of vegetable and quinoa stew for the evening meal, so we'll probably have a pretty relaxing day. That evening, with Goot in tow, I'll meet galinda at work to conclude our weekend's activities and Goot will get to meet
070114 - Arch Day. I'll fortify us with some vegetable omelettes before we hit the trail to downtown Saint Louis, the Gateway of the Midwest. Armed only with cameras, we'll wind our way through the historical area, taking snaps. Later, galinda has graciously offered to watch the children so my wife can join Goot & I for dinner at the Brewery in Laclede's Landing and some night shots of the Arch. We'll likely drain the remainder of the scotch this day.
070115 - Goot's Prerogative. What Goot wants, Goot gets.
I read to my little ones every night:
113/69 p63
When I first arrived in Germany in 1991, I found my way to the bowling alley on base. This was my first assignment, and my first time overseas. The bowling alley had nachos, beer, soft drinks, and a pizza parlor. It was Friday night and I didn't know anyone yet and hadn't left base alone on a weekend night, so I ordered a pizza and brought it to my room. During this time I was reading the classics and introducing myself to cases of Spatelese.
I frowned when I opened the pizza box, because though it was steamy hot, the cheese atop the pizza was brown and crusty. I could tap on it. Certainly not what I was expecting, and not what I wanted. Nonetheless, I ate the pizza. My thoughts at the time were, "If I wanted a German pizza, I'd leave base. They should have American pizza on base." Next Friday came, and another pizza. The cheese was odd. It was crunchy on the outside, but soft on the inside. The Friday after that, I ordered extra cheese.
The more I ate, the more it grew on me. It became the best pizza I've ever eaten, and my ruler to judge all others. I can't get pizza like that anymore, and I sure miss it. Fast forward to the ass-end of 2005. I relocate to Saint Louis. I don't know what IMO's is, and I didn't know there was any such thing as 'St. Louis style pizza.'
galinda822 orders me a large supreme. At first, I was mortified. There were these little squares of pizza toppings & sauce atop thin phyllo-like 'crust' and the most god-awful cheese I've ever eaten, provel. As unusual as this was, there were other, more positive oddities about this pizza. The entire pie was covered with criss-crossed slices of crispy bacon.Many IMO's later, its my new favorite, and just like the German pizza I left back in '92, I'm sure once I say goodbye to STL, I'll have a hankering for St. Louis style pizza.
Snatched from
ximo: | You scored as The Operative. You are dedicated to your job and very good at what you do. You've done some very bad things, but they had to be done. You don't expect to go to heaven, but that is a sacrifice you've made for a better future for all.
Which Serenity character are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
110/78 p69.
Concerning Tea
Wife and I left her parents house sans kids by 0900 and hit the post office to pick up a giant package my parents had sent the children. From there we had a cup of Amaretto Roobios at the local tea shop and purchased $30 of loose tea. We then stopped by Borders where I picked up a book for
galinda822 and bought myself Concrete Blonde's Mojave. Visited a model home in a new sub-division my wife found when she was here in October - We'll be able to afford it according to my wife's 5-year plan, but it was at least as roomy as our house in Texas. Sounds good to me. On to Wal-Mart! We'd been so looking forward to visiting a real, Super Wal-Mart, but as it turned out, we ended up spending about $25 on some socks and deoderant and were in and out within half an hour. Sometimes, you can't go back home.
Meeting Go Granny Go
Met Go Granny Go and her husband for lunch at Spangles. It was a delightful meeting - Go Granny Go is so outgoing and engaging! We discussed timely topics, such as ProfessorTom and where to find good french fries in Wichita. As is usual for these types of meetings, there was way too much to cover in such a short period of time, but we did discover that they live approximately 200 feet from my in-laws. How funny is that? And of all the luck, they're heading to Texas Thursday. Safe driving Granny! She's always on the Go! Read Granny's account of our meeting here...
Concerning Wine
After lunch we visited "Under the Cork," the front-end sales to Smokey Hill Winery where I discovered my new favorite red, 'Simply Red.' If any of you recall, this is where I found the Eiswein last year, and who's master wine maker had been killed earlier that year as well, that tidbit is only important because they recently discovered a handful of bottles of port, with nothing more than '815' marked on the bottle. Apparently, they're fantastic. They had them tested to determine the ingredients, but are unable to reproduce it. They were selling for $72 each, and I must admit, I was tempted. After the tasting (oh no, the port was NOT included in that event) we ended up with three bottles of the red, a bottle of Christmas white (complete with mulling kit), another bottle of Spatelese, and a set of four etched wine glasses. Furthermore, we discovered they deliver to Missouri ;)
Concerning Cigars
Saw Nabil at Old Town Cigars; wife bought a box of Cojimar Sage when she found out they're no longer in production, and I purchased a single La Gloria Cubana 8x52 which I smoked at the River City Brewery across the street while downing two pints of a very peatty 8% Scottish Ale which they've dubbed 'Fat Bastard.' (Yes, it was fantastic.) When we were checking out at the cigar store, I asked Nabil if he remembered the cigar he gave me at the birth of my daughter. He did, and upon discovering I smoked it when she turned one, asked how it was. I was truthful - The Best Cigar I had Ever Smoked. It was a 1993 La Gloria Cubana: 10-years old when I smoked it. (While this is mostly a true statement, I did buy a gorgeous box of 12-year old Temple Halls once from J.R. Cigar while I was stationed in Korea. Those were really too good to talk about.)
Concerning Scotch
While we were out, I picked up a 10-year old bottle of Glenfarclas Scotch. As I'm not overly familiar with too many brands of Scotch yet, and I wasn't looking to drop a fortune on a bottle, I played ophthalmologist-patient with the very knowledgeable imported beer dude at my new favorite liquor store: "which do you like better, A or B? Now C or D?" We settled on a preference for Single Highland Malt. Which reminds me, I did get a most delectable sample-pack of what I consider my favorite to date, The Balvenie at a truck stop of all places on the drive down! It included one 10-year, one 12-year, and one 15-year. So far I'm halfway through the 10-year, and I love it. I only hope I'm not disappointed in the Glenfarclas, else I'll probably never buy anything else and just stick to The Balvenie. Its the only Scotch that makes me really, really, happy. I owe my renewed interest in Scotch to
photogoot and for that will be forever grateful. To further drive this point home, I'm saving the 12 & 15-year for his January visit.
The Canon
Stopped at Best Buy to touch, for the first time, the Canon S3 IS after all the research this past month. $545 out the door which would have included the double-speed 2GB SD card, 4 NimH batteries & charger, and tax. My wife suggested I just go ahead and get it. I think she was drunk from all the wine tasting and that pint of Fat Bastard. But seriously, now that she's seen it, and I was able to answer all her questions about it (I didn't notice this at the time, but she told me later that as I was answering her questions about the differences in it versus the SLR, last minute shoppers had surrounded me and gotten quiet so they could listen too) I think I'll just save for that. And even though its more expensive at Best Buy, I try to purchase all my high-dollar electronics there for the 4-year replacement policy.
Concerning Egg Nog
10-hours of sleep later, I took my father-in-law and children out of the house for the day to allow my wife and her mother uninterrupted access to the kitchen in preparation of Crimbo. We went to McDonalds for breakfast and played on the indoor equipment for an hour, visited my father-in-law's brother & his children & grandchildren for an hour, stopped by the grandparents for an hour, played in the park for an hour, and spent
another hour dropping off gifts and grocery shopping on the way home. I grilled some perfect steaks for dinner and we dined like kings. My mother-in-law made a custard pie for her husband's birthday, then all six of us piled into the car to see the Xmas lights. When we returned I spiked my egg nog with the only thing alcoholic I had in the house - my scotch. Turned out to be the best egg nog I've ever had.
Christmas Day
My father-in-law built a fire out by the garage and we stood around it in fingerless gloves singing doo-wop like homeless people waiting for guests to arrive. The meal was expansive, and it was nice seeing everyone again. My mother sent two Power Rangers (the new series 'Overdrive' expected to hit U.S. television in February is about teen civil engineers of all things) for a total of three my son rec'd and two Transformers. My mother-in-law bought the largest one I've ever seen, Cybertron Primus who transforms into an entire planet. Most all of the larger toys, this one has three modes, one of them being 'battle mode.' I tell you, it looked just like the Reaver ship from the opening sequence of Serenity. Anyway, I was playing with it, flying it around attacking my son's Decepticon's, when much to my surprise, my wife pops out with, "Cool, it reminds me of Firefly." *grin* I love my geek-woman. Lori and I made out with $150 combined cash, and my daughter ended up with two Polly Pocket sets from my mom, hand crocheted blanket using four colors my daughter picked out, and a submersible, swimming mermaid from my mother-in-law. And that's just the big stuff...they've got enough new toys to last them at least a fiscal quarter, and there's more toys they haven't seen yet back home that
galinda822 placed under the tree after we left. I think I'm going to save for that S3.This entry brought to you via the 26.4 kbps dial-up connection free with my home DSL account. Thanks to
drax0r for finding me a number. I assure you, it was all I could not to not swallow my tongue getting these few pics up. I look forward to catching up with all of you online when I return.Our office shut down today at 1130 for its annual Christmas Party. The format was identical to last years, and it was at the same place we had it last year. Being armed with this information, I maneuvered just a little differently this year:
There was one constant: Sit betwixgalinda822 and bigdog_etc. Always a good call. They do a great job of insulating me from myself after three drinks of scotch. There was also something new I tried that I will remember not to do next year - seeking out complete strangers to fill your table. Live & learn, I suppose.
- DRINK MORE: Last year, our office arrived half an hour late and didn't get to enjoy the entire duration of the open bar, and once we went down to the formal lunch, there were no more drinks. This year, I managed to get the entire office there on time drinking three Scotches before they closed the bar, and taking a 4th to my table.
- EAT MORE APPETIZERS: I tried to fill up on the hors d'œuvre as the formal lunch itself is horrid. Tough pan-fried beast & chicken. The hors d'œuvre on the other hand were fantastic!
- TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN: It has been twelve months to the day since I last partook of the chocolate fountain. This time, I came prepared to face that chocolate fountain, and win. I may have rec'd some battle scars in the processes, but I gave it a go.
There was one constant: Sit betwix
galinda822 and bigdog_etc. Always a good call. They do a great job of insulating me from myself after three drinks of scotch. There was also something new I tried that I will remember not to do next year - seeking out complete strangers to fill your table. Live & learn, I suppose.Knowing I didn't have any shoes that wouldn't leave me dead at the end of these 16-hour days I'll be working in D.C., I thought back to the Justin Ropers I used to wear, and wondered if I could find them in a dress brown I could wear with my khacki slacks - and if I could find them in Missouri. galinda822 suggested, "Chuck's Boots" in Fenton, and as my wife wanted to get out of the house for awhile, I loaded her and the kids up for our excursion.
Chuck's Boots doesn't have a web page, so I took a gamble that they'd be open today. They were (only after 12:00 noon) and I found the most beautiful pair of Justin Ropers I've ever seen - Marbled Chestut. I put them on and felt...Texan. Missed the turn and ended up at the Joyce Meyer Ministries Headquarters to turn around. I used to listen to her a lot; very charismatic speaker. So that was cool. She owns some beautiful property down there.
From there we hit Wal-Mart, where I finally found two of the three "Series Two" BSG die-cast ships, Colonial One and the Raptor. This lends creedance to the fact that people see my blog but don't actually read it, asceltmanx had purchased these same two for my birthday (he's so sweet) but then didn't send them when he saw the pictures of them on my blog. All I'm missing now is the Viper Mark VII.
Wife wanted Tex-Mex so we stopped at Qdoba Mexican Restaurant. I've finally found my Mexican Mecca, as this was identical to Chipotle minus the really hot salsa, that is. I'm unsure how these people are allowed to even exist, as not only is the menu identical to Chipotle, but the interior of the establishment as well. Damned odd, but I'll take what I can get this far away from Texas.
Stopped at a place called, Slackers and found a veritable goldmine of soundtracks, priced between $3.99 and $7.99 each. I quickly picked out a dozen, then started weighing what I wanted with what I needed. These are the ones I ended up with:
My wife has been on my ass for sometime to get her the score of Congo so that was a good find. I've wanted American Gigolo for ages (again, my father has it on LP), I didn't know anything about La Femme Nikita but I never turn down an Eric Serra score.lehah was extolling the virtues of Nemesis the other day, and I've never had the full album of El Cid, just highlights on other CD's. All-in-all, a steal. I told the Goth dude behind the counter, "You have an amazing selection of soundtracks."
"Do we? That's cause no one buys them."
*sigh*
While in Slackers I saw a large poster ofdrax0r's latest avatar. I couldn't believe it.
galinda822 suggested, "Chuck's Boots" in Fenton, and as my wife wanted to get out of the house for awhile, I loaded her and the kids up for our excursion.Chuck's Boots doesn't have a web page, so I took a gamble that they'd be open today. They were (only after 12:00 noon) and I found the most beautiful pair of Justin Ropers I've ever seen - Marbled Chestut. I put them on and felt...Texan. Missed the turn and ended up at the Joyce Meyer Ministries Headquarters to turn around. I used to listen to her a lot; very charismatic speaker. So that was cool. She owns some beautiful property down there.
From there we hit Wal-Mart, where I finally found two of the three "Series Two" BSG die-cast ships, Colonial One and the Raptor. This lends creedance to the fact that people see my blog but don't actually read it, as
celtmanx had purchased these same two for my birthday (he's so sweet) but then didn't send them when he saw the pictures of them on my blog. All I'm missing now is the Viper Mark VII.Wife wanted Tex-Mex so we stopped at Qdoba Mexican Restaurant. I've finally found my Mexican Mecca, as this was identical to Chipotle minus the really hot salsa, that is. I'm unsure how these people are allowed to even exist, as not only is the menu identical to Chipotle, but the interior of the establishment as well. Damned odd, but I'll take what I can get this far away from Texas.
Stopped at a place called, Slackers and found a veritable goldmine of soundtracks, priced between $3.99 and $7.99 each. I quickly picked out a dozen, then started weighing what I wanted with what I needed. These are the ones I ended up with:
- Star Trek Nemesis
- Congo
- El Cid
- American Gigolo
- La Femme Nikita
My wife has been on my ass for sometime to get her the score of Congo so that was a good find. I've wanted American Gigolo for ages (again, my father has it on LP), I didn't know anything about La Femme Nikita but I never turn down an Eric Serra score.
lehah was extolling the virtues of Nemesis the other day, and I've never had the full album of El Cid, just highlights on other CD's. All-in-all, a steal. I told the Goth dude behind the counter, "You have an amazing selection of soundtracks.""Do we? That's cause no one buys them."
*sigh*
While in Slackers I saw a large poster of
drax0r's latest avatar. I couldn't believe it.My car's trunk was dented while staying at the hotel before I bought my house in St. Louis as detailed in my January 3rd entry.
Recently, I attempted to rectify this with a staff member, a computer room raised-floor puller, and a can of monitor wipes:
( Clean the affected area for good adhesion )
( Securely attach the floor-puller )
( Pull back in a smooth, even stroke )
Photoshop's mensuration plugin confirms a 40% reduction in damage:
Last night I dreamed I was driving a late 20s Grand Prix racer. British Racing Green. It was an open cockpit, and I was driving around deserted cobblestone streets, slowing down around the corners because I was sure the tall, thin tires would give out around the turns. I was driving this car because I had seen a very popular man driving it the other day, and I decided I wanted one to. I was having some mechanical problems, so I chose to exit the vehicle at the stoplight and go into a store I had seen this other man do just the day before. There were no other cars on the deserted street, so I popped the engine cover and removed the troublesome component. It was round, and had four small peaked 'vents' on it with rectangular openings. I walked into a deserted bar and a large man with a foreign accent came from a door behind the bar as if to offer me a drink. I showed him the part. "Ah, bad air conditioning unit." He says, "Just so happens (so-and-so) stopped in here just yesterday with the same problem. The part is $69. I can install it now."
I was elated.
"Total price with labor will be $569." He said, as he started around the bar to put the new part on my car.
"But I don't have $569!" I said. It was too late. He was outside putting it on. I didn't know what to do, and started to panic.
A couple of weeks ago I dreamed that Carla had painted her nails orange. The same color orange my wife wanted to paint our dining room from a paint chit she'd brought home. I forgot about this completely until today, when I saw Carla's hands. "I thought you painted your nails orange?" I asked her. You should have seen the look she gave me. Then it came flooding back. That was only a dream. Weird.
It was 100-degrees in Korea during the hottest part of the summer. Worse, the humidity was over the top. I was off one day and wanted to do my run, but it was unbearable. So I cranked up the A/C to "High" and waited until about 1600. The ambient tempature in the room was 72. Perfect. Changed into my running clothes and took off. Damn hot, damn humid. I finished my run and started heading back to the room. I had a smile on my lips as I thought of my nice, cool room - just waiting for me to return. I opened the door to my barracks room, and there was my roommate, recently returned from his work day, sitting by the open window, smoking a cigarette. "Hi." He says when I come in. It must've been 85-degrees in the room...and humid. The A/C was off. I didn't understand. "Why is the A/C off?" I asked.
"Oh, I was cold." He replied.
*Grrrrr.* "YOU WERE COLD?" I screamed! "COLD?" I started for him. "WHY DIDN'T YOU PUT ON A JACKET THEN? CAUSE I SURE AS HELL CAN'T TAKE ANYTHING ELSE OFF!" He had that rabbit-look in his eyes, as if I'd just snapped. "I'm sorry," I said, "I'm wrong. If I'm hot, I guess I could take more off." I stripped naked right in front of him and took two more steps. My schlong was right in his face. "Is this better?" I asked. I went to take a shower. When I returned to the room, the air was on and he was sitting by the window reading a book...in his jacket.
I found the car I was driving in my son's History of Auto Racing book. It was a 1930 Bentley Blower (A smaller, one seat-version anyway) and have updated the picture to reflect this.
Recently, I attempted to rectify this with a staff member, a computer room raised-floor puller, and a can of monitor wipes:
( Clean the affected area for good adhesion )
( Securely attach the floor-puller )
( Pull back in a smooth, even stroke )
Photoshop's mensuration plugin confirms a 40% reduction in damage:
Last night I dreamed I was driving a late 20s Grand Prix racer. British Racing Green. It was an open cockpit, and I was driving around deserted cobblestone streets, slowing down around the corners because I was sure the tall, thin tires would give out around the turns. I was driving this car because I had seen a very popular man driving it the other day, and I decided I wanted one to. I was having some mechanical problems, so I chose to exit the vehicle at the stoplight and go into a store I had seen this other man do just the day before. There were no other cars on the deserted street, so I popped the engine cover and removed the troublesome component. It was round, and had four small peaked 'vents' on it with rectangular openings. I walked into a deserted bar and a large man with a foreign accent came from a door behind the bar as if to offer me a drink. I showed him the part. "Ah, bad air conditioning unit." He says, "Just so happens (so-and-so) stopped in here just yesterday with the same problem. The part is $69. I can install it now."
I was elated.
"Total price with labor will be $569." He said, as he started around the bar to put the new part on my car.
"But I don't have $569!" I said. It was too late. He was outside putting it on. I didn't know what to do, and started to panic.
A couple of weeks ago I dreamed that Carla had painted her nails orange. The same color orange my wife wanted to paint our dining room from a paint chit she'd brought home. I forgot about this completely until today, when I saw Carla's hands. "I thought you painted your nails orange?" I asked her. You should have seen the look she gave me. Then it came flooding back. That was only a dream. Weird.
It was 100-degrees in Korea during the hottest part of the summer. Worse, the humidity was over the top. I was off one day and wanted to do my run, but it was unbearable. So I cranked up the A/C to "High" and waited until about 1600. The ambient tempature in the room was 72. Perfect. Changed into my running clothes and took off. Damn hot, damn humid. I finished my run and started heading back to the room. I had a smile on my lips as I thought of my nice, cool room - just waiting for me to return. I opened the door to my barracks room, and there was my roommate, recently returned from his work day, sitting by the open window, smoking a cigarette. "Hi." He says when I come in. It must've been 85-degrees in the room...and humid. The A/C was off. I didn't understand. "Why is the A/C off?" I asked.
"Oh, I was cold." He replied.
*Grrrrr.* "YOU WERE COLD?" I screamed! "COLD?" I started for him. "WHY DIDN'T YOU PUT ON A JACKET THEN? CAUSE I SURE AS HELL CAN'T TAKE ANYTHING ELSE OFF!" He had that rabbit-look in his eyes, as if I'd just snapped. "I'm sorry," I said, "I'm wrong. If I'm hot, I guess I could take more off." I stripped naked right in front of him and took two more steps. My schlong was right in his face. "Is this better?" I asked. I went to take a shower. When I returned to the room, the air was on and he was sitting by the window reading a book...in his jacket.
I found the car I was driving in my son's History of Auto Racing book. It was a 1930 Bentley Blower (A smaller, one seat-version anyway) and have updated the picture to reflect this.
I haven't really thought about it much, and care about it even less. I'm at that point in my life where, shockingly, I don't question anything - I can't. I don't have time to. Right now, I just work to provide for my family. And collect movies that someday I might be able to watch. And music too. Not much time for music these days.
Rec'd the following fromgalinda822. She hand-picked the carved box and the pewter vessel, then form-fit foam in the box in which to nestle it. Enclosed was a beautiful card she created with a small print of her current default avatar, Dawn by Ascensio (more on her site.) Thank you Carla, that was a very thoughtful gift.
Then got a HUGE box full of goodies fromceltmanx filled with enough to stuff to make my wife moan and my children squeal with glee. Yes, I gave my daughter the Amidala figure. She's slept with it every night since, and my son plays with Vader's Tie Fighter Transformer along side my Obi Wan Starfighter Transformer. The chips were the best we've had - half the bag is gone (the quality of these tasty Dallas-made chips spurned my wife into making some guacamole) and I've nearly finished one entire bottle of salsa already. Good stuff, thanks David. I love the Klingon Blood Lager glass! (I could have done, however, without this...) Thanks again, pal.
And from my lovely wife:
photogoot, Once I reduced the image to get another look at it, I see where I need to better center the USAF logo, and I think that'll be that. Really, this small version doesn't do it justice. Click the image to see her in all her beauty.
Rec'd the following from
galinda822. She hand-picked the carved box and the pewter vessel, then form-fit foam in the box in which to nestle it. Enclosed was a beautiful card she created with a small print of her current default avatar, Dawn by Ascensio (more on her site.) Thank you Carla, that was a very thoughtful gift.Then got a HUGE box full of goodies from
celtmanx filled with enough to stuff to make my wife moan and my children squeal with glee. Yes, I gave my daughter the Amidala figure. She's slept with it every night since, and my son plays with Vader's Tie Fighter Transformer along side my Obi Wan Starfighter Transformer. The chips were the best we've had - half the bag is gone (the quality of these tasty Dallas-made chips spurned my wife into making some guacamole) and I've nearly finished one entire bottle of salsa already. Good stuff, thanks David. I love the Klingon Blood Lager glass! (I could have done, however, without this...) Thanks again, pal.And from my lovely wife:
photogoot, Once I reduced the image to get another look at it, I see where I need to better center the USAF logo, and I think that'll be that. Really, this small version doesn't do it justice. Click the image to see her in all her beauty.
Nice slow Saturday morning.
Drank some coffee, ate some breakfast. Played some boardgames with the kids.
Then they took off running between their friends house and ours with their friends in tow to engage in video games and such. I built my son his bedroom suite while watching Serenity and the first half of the season of Firefly while my wife did some running around withgalinda822. She was gone most of the day. I finally got the bedroom finished and was in bed by midnight.
At 0900, I get a call from the Operations Staff at work. Suspected A/C unit was down at our secondary location causing multiple servers to get caught in a reboot loop. I'm onsite before I ask, "Why didn't you page the oncall person?" They didn't know there was one. Hmmm.
Tore down my office to relocate it. Spent most of the day doing that. Cutting boards for shelves, moving my heavy monitors, unloading and reloading thousands of CD's and DVD's. I have no light to speak of in the office. Working on that too. My entire body aches. I've never had a basement before, and with any amount of hard work, or luck - I never will again.
Watchingunixwolf numerous times, and after much talk-of-ease from galinda822, resident telephony dancer, I moved my own DSL line today. The easiet way for me to accomplish this was to put my mad macro photography skillz to work:
Where did my weekend go?
Drank some coffee, ate some breakfast. Played some boardgames with the kids.
Then they took off running between their friends house and ours with their friends in tow to engage in video games and such. I built my son his bedroom suite while watching Serenity and the first half of the season of Firefly while my wife did some running around with
galinda822. She was gone most of the day. I finally got the bedroom finished and was in bed by midnight.At 0900, I get a call from the Operations Staff at work. Suspected A/C unit was down at our secondary location causing multiple servers to get caught in a reboot loop. I'm onsite before I ask, "Why didn't you page the oncall person?" They didn't know there was one. Hmmm.
Tore down my office to relocate it. Spent most of the day doing that. Cutting boards for shelves, moving my heavy monitors, unloading and reloading thousands of CD's and DVD's. I have no light to speak of in the office. Working on that too. My entire body aches. I've never had a basement before, and with any amount of hard work, or luck - I never will again.
Watching
unixwolf numerous times, and after much talk-of-ease from galinda822, resident telephony dancer, I moved my own DSL line today. The easiet way for me to accomplish this was to put my mad macro photography skillz to work:Where did my weekend go?
I recently watched the chic-flick Failure to Launch with my wife and galinda822 during Movie Night. It wasn't a bad chic-flick. And I enjoyed watching Terry Bradshaw. I like Terry Bradshaw. But this was not always the case...
The Dallas Cowboys is America's Team. More people know the face of Tom Landry than they do of our own President, even in other countries. Long before our team was known for being in the slammer more than on the field, we played ball. Good ball. Football. We've made more Super Bowl appearances than any other team.
During my youth there were always two teams that would give us pause: The Philadelphia Eagles, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. This was back in the day when Roger Staubach, Number 12, quarterbacked for the Cowboys, and he was every kids hero. I was no exception. We were always nervous on game day, and during those late 70's, we always seemed to be going head-to-head with Pittsburgh. They'd snatched more than one Super Bowl win from us during the Big Game. Roger Staubach vs. Terry Brandshaw. He was everything my hero wasn't - uncouth, rude, loud, and had a mouth like a sailor. The antithesis of America's Team's Golden Boy! (Even daring to also wear the Number 12!)
My mother had heard a sermon on calling down righteous curses on people in this day and age by a young pastor. As is usual in sermons like this, every one heard something a little different. My mother thought on this long and hard. Then one day, during half-time, here comes Terry Bradshaw. I remember well his sweaty golden hair, missing teeth, and the black pit of death under his eyes. He even looked like a demon to me. And there he was cursing up a storm on National Television, and worse, using our Lord's name in vain. My mother had had enough! She called down a curse on this man to "Put a stop to his evil ways." This was probably 1978. He was injured and set out the rest of the game. My mother felt that she had been vindicated.
Of course when she relayed this story, she was highly chastised by her friends for this move, who heard the sermon in a different way.
Fast forward to 1986. My mother is in John Deer's Saginaw Implement store in Rhome, TX. She's having a bad hair day, feels like crap, and has to pick up a part for my father. She walks in and is surrounded by a bunch of cowboys. She HATES being the only woman in a place like this. She sits to wait for her part, and in walks...Terry Bradshaw (he has a small ranch out near us in Westlake, TX). He looks over at her, but she's so embarrassed at the stunt she pulled in 1978, she can't make eye contact with him! To add fuel to the fire, he's recently retired, and been depressed. He carries on with the other men about the extent of his injuries.
My mother quickly takes receipt of her part, and leaves.
galinda822 during Movie Night. It wasn't a bad chic-flick. And I enjoyed watching Terry Bradshaw. I like Terry Bradshaw. But this was not always the case...The Dallas Cowboys is America's Team. More people know the face of Tom Landry than they do of our own President, even in other countries. Long before our team was known for being in the slammer more than on the field, we played ball. Good ball. Football. We've made more Super Bowl appearances than any other team.
During my youth there were always two teams that would give us pause: The Philadelphia Eagles, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. This was back in the day when Roger Staubach, Number 12, quarterbacked for the Cowboys, and he was every kids hero. I was no exception. We were always nervous on game day, and during those late 70's, we always seemed to be going head-to-head with Pittsburgh. They'd snatched more than one Super Bowl win from us during the Big Game. Roger Staubach vs. Terry Brandshaw. He was everything my hero wasn't - uncouth, rude, loud, and had a mouth like a sailor. The antithesis of America's Team's Golden Boy! (Even daring to also wear the Number 12!)
My mother had heard a sermon on calling down righteous curses on people in this day and age by a young pastor. As is usual in sermons like this, every one heard something a little different. My mother thought on this long and hard. Then one day, during half-time, here comes Terry Bradshaw. I remember well his sweaty golden hair, missing teeth, and the black pit of death under his eyes. He even looked like a demon to me. And there he was cursing up a storm on National Television, and worse, using our Lord's name in vain. My mother had had enough! She called down a curse on this man to "Put a stop to his evil ways." This was probably 1978. He was injured and set out the rest of the game. My mother felt that she had been vindicated.
Of course when she relayed this story, she was highly chastised by her friends for this move, who heard the sermon in a different way.
Fast forward to 1986. My mother is in John Deer's Saginaw Implement store in Rhome, TX. She's having a bad hair day, feels like crap, and has to pick up a part for my father. She walks in and is surrounded by a bunch of cowboys. She HATES being the only woman in a place like this. She sits to wait for her part, and in walks...Terry Bradshaw (he has a small ranch out near us in Westlake, TX). He looks over at her, but she's so embarrassed at the stunt she pulled in 1978, she can't make eye contact with him! To add fuel to the fire, he's recently retired, and been depressed. He carries on with the other men about the extent of his injuries.
My mother quickly takes receipt of her part, and leaves.
Purchased on DVD today:
Also got a second set of 600-thread count Egyptian Cotton sheets. They're like silk...
Snatched upgalinda822 and drove out to Grant's Farm for our annual company picnic. It was dull. But there was free beer.
'Zander' is not a name. It's the short form of 'Alexander.' 'Tori' is not a name. It's the short form of 'Victoria.' Now I know all you people out there can name your children anything you want, the above two included. But why name a child something which is going to make you look stupid?
Have been playing SpyHunter on PS2 with the boy. It really is very well done and lots of fun to play. Nothing like the game of the same name we used to play on the Atari 1600.
- V for Vendetta
- Mr. & Mrs. Smith
- Fantastic Four
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
- The Rock
- Practical Magic
- The Great Outdoors
- Men In Black
- Men In Black: II
- Zathura
Also got a second set of 600-thread count Egyptian Cotton sheets. They're like silk...
Snatched up
galinda822 and drove out to Grant's Farm for our annual company picnic. It was dull. But there was free beer.'Zander' is not a name. It's the short form of 'Alexander.' 'Tori' is not a name. It's the short form of 'Victoria.' Now I know all you people out there can name your children anything you want, the above two included. But why name a child something which is going to make you look stupid?
Have been playing SpyHunter on PS2 with the boy. It really is very well done and lots of fun to play. Nothing like the game of the same name we used to play on the Atari 1600.
Carla and the wife arrived earlier than I expected. We did indeed order out (China Fun) then Garrett and I cracked open GT4 while the girls smoked cigars on the back patio. They had started painting the bedroom, and were waiting for the first coat to dry.
The intro to GT4 was incredible. I can't wait to play the 'game' outside of Arcade Mode. However, as my son and I were going head-to-head, that's all I've played so far. Still, I'm very impressed. Head and shoulders above GT & GT2. I settled on an oval track to help curb my sons frustration, and to help him learn how to drive in a straight line (not necessary for Vigilante V8 for example). My first race was in a silver 1969 Dodge Charger. The replay of that race brought a tear to my eye...seeing that awesome car glide around the track. After about a dozen or so different cars, I gave my son the advantage by choosing a circa 1970 19-horsepower Mitsubishi. He nearly lapped me. Its cool to play video games with your son.
At 2130 the call came in that the power had been restored at our primary location. As Carla and my wife were back inside painting, I snatched her and we headed out. Facilities showed up and restarted the Liebert unit, and 15 minutes later I powered on our backup server, the only Sun Microsystems in the building.
I think I'm going to bed now.
The intro to GT4 was incredible. I can't wait to play the 'game' outside of Arcade Mode. However, as my son and I were going head-to-head, that's all I've played so far. Still, I'm very impressed. Head and shoulders above GT & GT2. I settled on an oval track to help curb my sons frustration, and to help him learn how to drive in a straight line (not necessary for Vigilante V8 for example). My first race was in a silver 1969 Dodge Charger. The replay of that race brought a tear to my eye...seeing that awesome car glide around the track. After about a dozen or so different cars, I gave my son the advantage by choosing a circa 1970 19-horsepower Mitsubishi. He nearly lapped me. Its cool to play video games with your son.
At 2130 the call came in that the power had been restored at our primary location. As Carla and my wife were back inside painting, I snatched her and we headed out. Facilities showed up and restarted the Liebert unit, and 15 minutes later I powered on our backup server, the only Sun Microsystems in the building.
I think I'm going to bed now.
One for the archives!
So I get to the airport an hour and a half early the next day, after only two hours sleep. Security, stand in line at McDonalds for the gazillion-calorie McSkillit, meander back to my gate - they're calling final boarding at the half hour mark! No wonder I missed my flight - even though I arrived 45 minutes prior the day before, they'd already boarded. This flight, too was booked and the standby passengers were trying to prevent me from approaching the boarding ramp!
The Travel Agency got me back good for missing the flight the day before - they put me in the very back of the plane. I'm talking the very last seat. You know those rejects you always make fun in the back of the plane? Yeah, I was sitting next to them. So we get all strapped in, I settle in with my book, and we taxi out and stop. Then the plane makes a complete circle. The plane makes another complete circle the opposite direction! Ultimately, we come to a complete stop in a 'maintenance area' where we sit for an hour and a half while they change a spark plug.
The rest of the flight was uneventful. I arrive in STL, the bus drops me off at work and I get in my car and textgalinda822 who has had approximately 10 hours of sleep in the last three days getting STL up and running since the storms Wednesday. We've both been on phone calls nearly non-stop for the last several days and she got the last thing fixed while I was in the air. I run home to shower and change clothes. I have an eleven (11) minute commute. Between the time I got in my car, and made it home, another storm hit, knocked down more trees, and blew the power from both sites again. So it begins, again. No rest for the wicked. I fully expect a conference call at some point today where instead of looking at redundancy options, we relocate both exchange servers temporarily to our secondary location (which has since been restored with power). Of course this won't give them VPN or blackberry, simply web-access only email. I'm pushing for either the redundancy option, or alternately, a back-up generator.
After Carla got the sites shut down, and I escallated the whole mess, I did get a nap in. I figure I got a good 45 minutes between a text message fromceltmanx and one phonecall each from photogoot, drax0r, and a guy at work. Decided the hell with it, cancelled Movie Night and grilled a medly of vegetables for dinner, put the kids down, read about a quarter of Dan Brown's Deception Point, and went to bed sleeping a full 10 hours. Ah, blissful sleep!
Awoke this morning, kissed the wife goodbye over a cup of coffee, and saw Carla briefly as they went out shopping. I had a little shopping to do myself today. $275 later, and not wanting to leave the house again, I walked away from Best Buy with a PS2, a second controller, two memory cards, GT4 and Racing Italino. My boy's favorite so far is Vigilate V8, and Ridge Racer 4 (both PS1 games). I haven't cracked the two new games yet, mostly because GT2 frustrated him to tears. He also enjoyed Test Drive 5 and N20, two other PS1 games I had sitting around the house.
In order to pacify little girl, and not have her monopolize the television, I headed for the PC games. She wanted Cinderella's Dollhouse for $20. I chose Disney's Magical Dress-Up for $10. She cried. The Dress-Up game was not only cheaper, it was geared more toward her age-group. We got home, I cracked the box, and was astonished to find, "Cinderella's Dollhouse." In a surprising move of situational ethics, I loaded it and she's been playing all day. Perhaps I was incorrect about the age-group thing.
Carla and my wife won't be home until late, we'll probably end up ordering out and watching a movie, but I can't wait just to go to bed again - provided that is, I'm not up overnight moving servers...
So I get to the airport an hour and a half early the next day, after only two hours sleep. Security, stand in line at McDonalds for the gazillion-calorie McSkillit, meander back to my gate - they're calling final boarding at the half hour mark! No wonder I missed my flight - even though I arrived 45 minutes prior the day before, they'd already boarded. This flight, too was booked and the standby passengers were trying to prevent me from approaching the boarding ramp!
The Travel Agency got me back good for missing the flight the day before - they put me in the very back of the plane. I'm talking the very last seat. You know those rejects you always make fun in the back of the plane? Yeah, I was sitting next to them. So we get all strapped in, I settle in with my book, and we taxi out and stop. Then the plane makes a complete circle. The plane makes another complete circle the opposite direction! Ultimately, we come to a complete stop in a 'maintenance area' where we sit for an hour and a half while they change a spark plug.
The rest of the flight was uneventful. I arrive in STL, the bus drops me off at work and I get in my car and text
galinda822 who has had approximately 10 hours of sleep in the last three days getting STL up and running since the storms Wednesday. We've both been on phone calls nearly non-stop for the last several days and she got the last thing fixed while I was in the air. I run home to shower and change clothes. I have an eleven (11) minute commute. Between the time I got in my car, and made it home, another storm hit, knocked down more trees, and blew the power from both sites again. So it begins, again. No rest for the wicked. I fully expect a conference call at some point today where instead of looking at redundancy options, we relocate both exchange servers temporarily to our secondary location (which has since been restored with power). Of course this won't give them VPN or blackberry, simply web-access only email. I'm pushing for either the redundancy option, or alternately, a back-up generator.After Carla got the sites shut down, and I escallated the whole mess, I did get a nap in. I figure I got a good 45 minutes between a text message from
celtmanx and one phonecall each from photogoot, drax0r, and a guy at work. Decided the hell with it, cancelled Movie Night and grilled a medly of vegetables for dinner, put the kids down, read about a quarter of Dan Brown's Deception Point, and went to bed sleeping a full 10 hours. Ah, blissful sleep!Awoke this morning, kissed the wife goodbye over a cup of coffee, and saw Carla briefly as they went out shopping. I had a little shopping to do myself today. $275 later, and not wanting to leave the house again, I walked away from Best Buy with a PS2, a second controller, two memory cards, GT4 and Racing Italino. My boy's favorite so far is Vigilate V8, and Ridge Racer 4 (both PS1 games). I haven't cracked the two new games yet, mostly because GT2 frustrated him to tears. He also enjoyed Test Drive 5 and N20, two other PS1 games I had sitting around the house.
In order to pacify little girl, and not have her monopolize the television, I headed for the PC games. She wanted Cinderella's Dollhouse for $20. I chose Disney's Magical Dress-Up for $10. She cried. The Dress-Up game was not only cheaper, it was geared more toward her age-group. We got home, I cracked the box, and was astonished to find, "Cinderella's Dollhouse." In a surprising move of situational ethics, I loaded it and she's been playing all day. Perhaps I was incorrect about the age-group thing.
Carla and my wife won't be home until late, we'll probably end up ordering out and watching a movie, but I can't wait just to go to bed again - provided that is, I'm not up overnight moving servers...
Dreamed my son and I watched an Imperial Tie Bomber make it's approach to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. It was pretty cool, obscured slightly by the trees in our backyard. It was an unusually quiet craft.
Today, when I put little girl down, she decided she wanted to read me a book! So she picked up 'The Three Muskateers' Illustrated Edition she keeps in her bed, opened a page, and began: "Princess Leia wanted to go on the boat, but she couldn't because the boat was only for boys. But that was okay, because she has wings and could fly."
Played Star Wars Episode I Monopoly Saturday with
galinda822 since she ended up working all night Friday night, and something like 12-hours on Saturday and we missed movie night. So galinda asks if we play any 'house rules' on Monopoly. Not being one to vary much from the norm, I reply in the negative, and she mentions the Free Parking 'pot.' As we've heard of this before we decided to give it a go. Wouldn't know galinda was the only one to get the pot the entirety of the first game? Furthermore, she also suggested that if you land directly on 'Go' you get double the $200 you usually get. I pooh-poohed that idea, and my wife was initially upset until...you guessed it, galinda once again rolled a perfect 'Go.' every. single. time!Coincidence? I think not! We stayed up WAY too late (0300) and I was shocked my wife suggested a second game (after woefully losing the first) to come back and win the second game. It was tons of fun.
Watched the 'Psyche' pilot this evening, and it was one of the better pilot episodes I've seen. Oh, and Carla - I'm burning it to DVD for you since you forgot to Tivo it!
Alert all commands. Calculate every possible destination along their last known trajectory.
Search the search, where is justice?
Couldn't find so in God I trust this
Mind to, so strong and fruitful
Am what I am, black ain't as beautiful
Not political, but aware
Power load with a powerful stare
Never bow down to a mortal man
Here I stand at my own command!
Friday night the wife was in a really poor mood. What to do, what to do? Took her down the road while
galinda822 watched the kids and picked up:- Rum
- Vodka
- HpnotiQ
- Sloe Gin
- Peach Brandy
- Banana Liqueur
- Southern Comfort
- Presidente Mexican Brandy
She proceed to make us Bali Traders and her mood greatly increased. We spent Movie Night sitting in our neighbor's front lawn drinking and visiting until after 2200 when the (almost) unanimous decision was made to call it a night. I was surprisingly drunk as I had only had two mixed drinks, but exhausted from my day I managed to fall asleep sometime between laying down in my bed, and actually hitting the pillow.
Not a follower, not a leader
An exceeder, sharp as a cleaver
Some are sinners, some are praisers
Me, Turbo-B, Heavenly hell-raiser
Two from the hip make some folks stagger
Straight to the heart like a 12-inch dagger
Motley, way of the world -
Gaze upon the Black Pearl!
Yesterday we picked up Carla and drove out to the bookstore where we got the newest Laurell K. Hamilton Vampire Hunter Series book, and I picked up JSA which as you all know I've been looking for. The most expensive movie to come out of South Korea and surprising local hit. I found the movie fascinating the first time I watched it, and cannot wait to view it again - apparently there's a second, more subtle storyline in there most viewers miss upon first viewing. We ate at Chevy's Tex-Mex on the way home. As always, it was fantastic. The best Tex-Mex we've found to date in St. Louis. I'm still waiting for them to build us a Chipotle!
The bigger the badder, bull!
In this game of life, knowledge rules
The one with the brain is the sole survior
What goods a tank with a stupid driver,
See? Don't be a dimwit - ignorant
Really a backwit
Where's the fitness?
This is legit, can I get a witness?
Out at Carla's dad's last night for fireworks and festivities. I chain-smoked cigars and met as many people as I could. It was eerily identical to Fourth of July with my wife's family. The show was spectacular! I'd not seen a private collection of so many fireworks in all my years. There was the one giant starburst that had a broken base, so they secured it to the ground and lit it. I wasn't standing nearly as close as everyone else when it exploded. The concussion nearly knocked me off my feet! They did a fantastic job with the fireworks and my son likened it to Disneyworld (though he's never been) and my daughter, upon watching a fountain exclaimed, "That makes me feel happy inside."
Not the oppressed, the oppressor
Don't make this one anything lesser
Racist? You don't wanna hear it
But if the shoe fits then wear it
Life is tough so we gotta be tougher
Be smart, to outbluff the bluffer
Feet to mind, to a wisdom beat
Absorb the knowledge I speak
Took the boys to Fudd's for lunch and ate too much, as is usual when I'm there. Sent the gang home at 1530 which allows me an hour and a half of absolute stillness and solitude. Except the wife wants me to move the couch we moved into the basement last month, back up. Brinkmeyer called and we're going to postpone the visit this time around, re-scheduling for the end of July. I hope it's not the 20th, cause that's when I'm flying to D.C. hopefully with time to catch up with yet another couple of Air Force buddies (who happen to be married to each other - Ewwww!) so I feel this month will be my busiest, yet!
Yesterday, my wife and daughter spent the night at galinda822's for Girl Night. My son & I had Boy Night. This year, Boy Night was provided in part by two sponsors, Bill and celtmanx. How, you may ask? After the requisite grilled dogs and macaroni & cheese, coke (the only time he gets to drink soda) and Hot Wheels, he brings down the Playskool Millenium Falcon and X-Wing that David had bought him, followed by battle with the Power of the Force spheres he picked me up several years ago, followed by the most boring game I've ever played, "Escape from the Death Star Action Figure Board Game" again, a gift from David...
galinda822's for Girl Night. My son & I had Boy Night. This year, Boy Night was provided in part by two sponsors, Bill and celtmanx. How, you may ask? After the requisite grilled dogs and macaroni & cheese, coke (the only time he gets to drink soda) and Hot Wheels, he brings down the Playskool Millenium Falcon and X-Wing that David had bought him, followed by battle with the Power of the Force spheres he picked me up several years ago, followed by the most boring game I've ever played, "Escape from the Death Star Action Figure Board Game" again, a gift from David...
When I could stand no more, we watched the Trilogy, a parting gift from Bill. My son had a blast and wished every night were 'Boys Night.' From what I understand, my daughter had an equally good time at galinda's.
Tonight, fireworks at galinda's dad's in Jefferson County. Astro called this weekend as well, and I just discovered my longtime USAF buddy is going to be in town as well the next several days. I really don't have the cycles for all this, but when it rains, as they say...it pours.
I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!
My guys are getting really tired of me treating the office as the bridge of a federation starship (yes, they call me, "Captain" well...everyone but Carla) so this morning I was going to call in on my drive and have them put me on speakerphone so I could announce, "Hello Angles." in my best 'Charlie' voice. I think I'll put the whole Star Trek thing on hold for awhile and take on the Charles Townsend Agency persona.
Even with "Moderate Safe search On" it is not a good idea to search for "Rob Lowe" even if you're innocently searching for "Number 2" pics of a young Robert Wagner. That is, unless you want to see his crank. Trust me on this.
Edited another Wikipedia entry this morning.
WSUS is Microsoft's proprietary patch management & deployment system. However Microsoft does not release all of their patches to be WSUS compliant. I don't understand that.
You would think that if the State government required liability insurance on vehicles, they would be prepared to provide said insurance.
I have a lot to say on a subject, and I had a screen capture to prove it, which I have since lost. My arch-nemesis over at xanaga, TheTheologiansCafe has recently had a hate campaign start against him. These morons, who are apparently upset at his rein of xanga's "Featured Content" (which appears based upon eProps and number of comments) have been spamming the everliving shit out of his site with rude comments. Whereas he normally gets just over 200 comments a post, he now has thousands of comments per post - Their excessive behavior is actually driving the site to the goal they wish to rid it of! I find that fascinating.
I am also ready to reveal my opinion on net-neutrailty:
If money-making corporations are to compensate ISP's for providing internet, we might as well...
- Pay aircraft manufacturers for any profit rec'd overseas if a salesman uses their transportation to seal the deal in person by flying there.
- Pay clothing designers and manufactures for business contracts won based even if just loosely based in part because they looked professional.
- Pay computer manufacturers proceeds from stock due to high-uptimes and no missed SLA's.
- Pay colleges for high-profit inventions by former students they may accomplish later in life.
- Pay handgun manufacturers a portion of profit from crimes involving money when a handgun was used in a robbery.
- Pay telecom's a portion of any multi-billion dollar deal sealed over the phone...oh yeah, that exactly what they're trying to do!
Got
galinda822 set up with her new mac mini intel core solo. It is a sweet earth you might say, along with all her hard, pip-hittin' apps she'll ever need. Well, everything but a Cisco OSX VPN client. I have drax0r all over that one. I imagine a world where I don't require Windows, and don't acutally speak to people who do. Of course the best part about all of this is the powerful linux box she now has sitting on her desk at home...Eric Howton --
[adjective]:
Pretentiously academian
'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com
jesskd26 recently posted that drax0r should buy her an island.I support this, and I'll tell you why. I want him to start his own evil empire, and live atop a volcano in an elaborate multi-billion-dollar insane-architect-designed mansion. I'll call him Extreme Chancellor Phallax if that's what he desires, and he can call me, "Number Two." I'll sit at his right hand as we eat wild hog that we hunt with with our newly designed super-secret weapons. I think I really just want to sit on the beach of this island and drive those little 6-wheeled buggies he'll no doubt have to get around on. Maybe we'll finally build that hovercraft out of vaccuum-cleaner parts? I dunno, I just think it would be cool.
Track 17, "Prelude to War" from the BSG: Season 2 soundtrack is my new favorite track. I don't know how I initially missed this gem, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
In researching a user issue today, I found what was probably THE information needed to solve my problem on Google, this link: Acrobat Reader won't launch...in pdf format? *eyeroll*
And if that's not bad enough, I ran across this statement: ...this is the most least likely circumstance, but still possible. Most least...huh?
galinda822 is getting her mac mini today, and I have a short list of items I need to ensure I have on hand:
- Power cord for monitor
- Cat-5 Patch cord
- Cat-5 Crossover cable
- Sun Microsystems USB keyboard & mouse
- Mousepad
I'm very excited. I already burned her a disc of essential apps and soon she will be online! Now that she's a mac user, I've decided I'm going to stop talking to all non-mac users. As soon as I stated this,
bigdog_etc flipped me off!And yes, it's been one hell of a day today.
All right, guard, begin the unnecessarily Slow-Moving Dipping Mechanism.
Downloaded an ID3 editor to modify the tags on the Independence Day album for the iTunes problem I'm having. It didn't work. Furthermore, even if it had worked, it would have been very tedious to modify everything that needed to be modified. The utility did identify about 3000 duplicates (mostly the reimport of the Final Fantasy album, but because I used the utility to remove the duplicates, I'm sure that's going to wrek havok on my iTunes database. Additionally, the utility identified many tracks which were not in iTunes, but on disk...again, it would be a nightmare to individually identify these tracks to re-import them. I'm beginning to believe iTunes is just not capable of keeping track of as many songs as I have. Next, I'm looking for a utility which will work with iTunes in helping me identify these rouge tracks automatically. Funny enough, the only thing I can find so far works only with iTunes on...Windows *sigh*
Decided to make double-car payments until my car is paid off, then take that money and put it towards my wife's car. I'm figuring I can pay both cars off in about a year. Then save that money for another six months or so and just pay cash for my next car. That'll work...if I stop drinking beer. I think I'll stop drinking beer awhile, see what happens. Of course I was more impressed with that car this morning when I drove my POS into work than at the actual time of driving it...I liked that 3.0 V6.
Finished my part on
galinda822's desk project. This time I brought ALL my tools over, and we got it until it was done. Of course now she's needs a little wood putty and some stain - my work is far from flawless. But I did find that the bigger and more powerful the saw, the easier the job. Is that wrong? It's turning out to be a gorgeous "L" shaped desk, the two pieces fitting flawlessly together. Also, her mini may be arriving two days early - I still have to burn off her applications, but we successfully created a DVD-backup of her entire iTunes database. Speaking of, I'm going to try and clean up what I can tonight, burn some one-off's and delete (do I really need 6GB's of Final Fantasy online?) and then, once properly organized, burn off my entire database, delete the files and all databases, and...*sigh* re-import. Such is my life.
"You're talking about a composer who has established a very identifiable sound that filmmakers have come to rely upon for a successful collaboration of sound and image. It's obviously a very successful approach, and he has maintained a great deal of musical integrity while pursuing that identity, which is no small feat. And I think one would do well to remember that composers of the stature of Haydn and Beethoven were known to sell the same piece of music to different buyers. Making similar accusations against contemporary composers of film who commonly come under extreme conditions of time restraint (among many other real obstacles) might be seen as being irrelevant in light of those historical facts. So, the short answer is: it's just you." -- Don Davis when asked if James Horner's score to Titanic sounded familiar.
Mac user.
If I give my daughter too many kisses, too quickly, she covers her face and says, "Enough kisses for a day!"
Today is a fantastic day for multifaceted reasons. First,galinda822 is not only in a most unusually playful mood the likes of which I have not experienced before, but it marks the diametrical opposite of her mood yesterday. And as there are only three of us in the office today, yesterday that would have been two few, today it feels just right. I was up late last night blending and creating the graphic for last nights post - yet still managed to get a full eight-hours of sleep. Tonight its a case of Corona and movie night.
We had an excellent discussion on the possible nomenclature ofdrax0r's possible new toy...
Masta Rasta Rakka Chakka Stakka
Then debated why Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would fabricate the story of Paul Revere eclipsing the real-life story of Israel Bissel. I won with the following Yiddish adaptation of "Paul Revere's Ride"
Tonight, I'm firing up the grill, lighting a cigar, wrapping my meat-hooks around an ice cold bottle of Corona, and grilling salmon. I wish you were here.
I'm really enjoying the last track of the new BSG soundtrack, Black Market which is very Marrakesh in tone. It stays with me.
Started whistling tunes from Paint Your Wagon much to the consternation of my staff. Sucks to be them.
So sitting on my Daily Service Review this morning, where the only thing I am required to utter are the words, "Zero Green" severely limits my expression, I instead chose to play this. In the cacophony which followed I was asked to play it again for its humor value, heard something which suggested that it was the epitome of laziness, and applauded for creativity. Lots of different perspectives for two simple words.
celtmanx I do not have your Conan DVD. I've never seen it, and don't have any plans to.
Talked with Tony on the phone today a little bit - that's always fun, and my mother twice, which is almost unprecedented.
Today is a fantastic day for multifaceted reasons. First,
galinda822 is not only in a most unusually playful mood the likes of which I have not experienced before, but it marks the diametrical opposite of her mood yesterday. And as there are only three of us in the office today, yesterday that would have been two few, today it feels just right. I was up late last night blending and creating the graphic for last nights post - yet still managed to get a full eight-hours of sleep. Tonight its a case of Corona and movie night.We had an excellent discussion on the possible nomenclature of
drax0r's possible new toy...Masta Rasta Rakka Chakka Stakka
Then debated why Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would fabricate the story of Paul Revere eclipsing the real-life story of Israel Bissel. I won with the following Yiddish adaptation of "Paul Revere's Ride"
Harken me kinder and gimme a listel
Of the miten-tog gezuntel of Israel Bissel,
On the yom of 18, in yortseit of past;
A yungermantshik mount ferd fast!
Nisht do gedacht from da var...
Tonight, I'm firing up the grill, lighting a cigar, wrapping my meat-hooks around an ice cold bottle of Corona, and grilling salmon. I wish you were here.
I'm really enjoying the last track of the new BSG soundtrack, Black Market which is very Marrakesh in tone. It stays with me.
Started whistling tunes from Paint Your Wagon much to the consternation of my staff. Sucks to be them.
So sitting on my Daily Service Review this morning, where the only thing I am required to utter are the words, "Zero Green" severely limits my expression, I instead chose to play this. In the cacophony which followed I was asked to play it again for its humor value, heard something which suggested that it was the epitome of laziness, and applauded for creativity. Lots of different perspectives for two simple words.
celtmanx I do not have your Conan DVD. I've never seen it, and don't have any plans to. Talked with Tony on the phone today a little bit - that's always fun, and my mother twice, which is almost unprecedented.
User calls in a ticket after her wireless mouse stops responding for the second day in a row...after she'd unplugged the USB base unit.
I've worked more hours the past 6 years than anyone else I know. Except maybe my lawyer. And my boss. And maybe stuf123, who's not even in IT. So I was going to sleep in just a little today...and get up in time for a cup of coffee right before my 0900 conference call. But now I have a 0700 conference call as well. *sigh* Just got the kids down, so I guess I'm going to bed.
Oh, and I was asked to compose a list about the things I like about STL. Here's what I've come up with so far:
I've worked more hours the past 6 years than anyone else I know. Except maybe my lawyer. And my boss. And maybe stuf123, who's not even in IT. So I was going to sleep in just a little today...and get up in time for a cup of coffee right before my 0900 conference call. But now I have a 0700 conference call as well. *sigh* Just got the kids down, so I guess I'm going to bed.
Oh, and I was asked to compose a list about the things I like about STL. Here's what I've come up with so far:
It's not that I can't sleep. It's that so rarely do I get the opportunity.
Yesterday - great day at work. Cool and high of 77-degrees, work was steady without being slow or overwhelming. In a word, perfect. But I get a call from my boss. When he's in town, he's the the go-to man to get things fixed. Which sometimes involves me driving to downtown St. Louis in the midst of rush-hour traffic.
The good news is that this ain't Dallas. St. Louis is tiny comparatively. But by the time I get get to actual 'downtown' what with traffic and all, I sit through 5 conncurrent lights 8 cycles each - that's annoying. I wanted to scream. I havegalinda822 guiding me in on my cell phone, as I'm trying to get to an unfamiliar hotel. "Where are you now?" she asks, wanting to precisely manuver me to my destination. "The same place I was five minutes ago."
There were two senior-VP's at this meeting, and countless other VIP's. Now I wouldn't say I was 'hobknobing' but I did run into a few people I hadn't seen in six years or so, and did take advantage of that and meet some new people. I was there until 1900. Screaming down the interstate on my way out, I'm home in something like 15 minutes. Change clothes, dinner, kids to bed, I'm not even on the computer before I'm in bed at 2130. I remember opening my eyes at 2300 and thinking, fsck, but it was a fleeting thought as I was down for the count. Which would have been a great story - except I have a 0600 conference call the next day! People, I don't even get out of bed until after 0700!
Then, at 0400, I am filled with thunderous fury as my wife's wristwatch alarm clock goes off...and beeps...for a full 30 seconds. I want to choke her in her sleep. But alas, I'm too tired to even roll over.
I have my alarm set for 0530, but am awoken seven minutes early by my cell phone. Woe is me! What fresh hell is this? Apparently, the early girl forgot her keys, could she swing by my house this morning and get mine? "Of course." I tell her. She feels bad for waking me, but she shouldn't - it was that asshole and his 0600 conference call. Only the early girl has the dial-in information, and I'm impressed that she actually stopped at the "STOP" sign at the end of my road, as she was driving backwards down the road, Hooper-style. Then reversed out into the other lane and continued on her way.
I never heard from her again.
I never made the call.
Yesterday - great day at work. Cool and high of 77-degrees, work was steady without being slow or overwhelming. In a word, perfect. But I get a call from my boss. When he's in town, he's the the go-to man to get things fixed. Which sometimes involves me driving to downtown St. Louis in the midst of rush-hour traffic.
The good news is that this ain't Dallas. St. Louis is tiny comparatively. But by the time I get get to actual 'downtown' what with traffic and all, I sit through 5 conncurrent lights 8 cycles each - that's annoying. I wanted to scream. I have
galinda822 guiding me in on my cell phone, as I'm trying to get to an unfamiliar hotel. "Where are you now?" she asks, wanting to precisely manuver me to my destination. "The same place I was five minutes ago."There were two senior-VP's at this meeting, and countless other VIP's. Now I wouldn't say I was 'hobknobing' but I did run into a few people I hadn't seen in six years or so, and did take advantage of that and meet some new people. I was there until 1900. Screaming down the interstate on my way out, I'm home in something like 15 minutes. Change clothes, dinner, kids to bed, I'm not even on the computer before I'm in bed at 2130. I remember opening my eyes at 2300 and thinking, fsck, but it was a fleeting thought as I was down for the count. Which would have been a great story - except I have a 0600 conference call the next day! People, I don't even get out of bed until after 0700!
Then, at 0400, I am filled with thunderous fury as my wife's wristwatch alarm clock goes off...and beeps...for a full 30 seconds. I want to choke her in her sleep. But alas, I'm too tired to even roll over.
I have my alarm set for 0530, but am awoken seven minutes early by my cell phone. Woe is me! What fresh hell is this? Apparently, the early girl forgot her keys, could she swing by my house this morning and get mine? "Of course." I tell her. She feels bad for waking me, but she shouldn't - it was that asshole and his 0600 conference call. Only the early girl has the dial-in information, and I'm impressed that she actually stopped at the "STOP" sign at the end of my road, as she was driving backwards down the road, Hooper-style. Then reversed out into the other lane and continued on her way.
I never heard from her again.
I never made the call.
Dreamed
galinda822 and my wife were dining together at a steakhouse. I decided I wanted to go, so I jumped out of bed and wrapped myself in the comforter, and walked over to the restaurant. There I am, standing at the "Please wait to be seated" sign wearing nothing but my comforter. The waitress just stared at me, and I walked past her saying, "My party is already here."Three new BSG toys for my desk have just been announced, I'll submit my own pictures when I get them (this may mean another whirlwind trip to Target in the middle of the day, galinda):
And speaking of BSG, even though I listened to my new soundtrack all weekend, it was not the most conducive of environments in which to actually enjoy music. I did, however, get a good five minutes of listening done on the drive into work this morning (when I had a 75 minute one-way commute, this was never an issue). Allegro so far is my favorite. A mixture of last seasons The Shape of Things to Come & Passacaglia and yet, so very complex. Its hard to explain the emotions that particular piece invokes, and I'm sure its partly where I was in life when the previous two songs were released, the admiration of the complexity in that composition, and the nostalgia of the other two songs...I could never be a composer, but I so enjoy the fruits of their labor. Black Market is unlike anything on the previous two albums - yet very enjoyable (I prefer the scoring over the episode!) but I found I didn't like A Promise to Return as much as I wanted to; especially being a string quartet.
In other news, I nearly deleted Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire from iTunes and snapped my disc in half. I was initially excited to see Patrick Doyle take the reins on this project (I loved Needful Things) but the occasional break in score with the horrid rock tracks intertwined broke my concentration too much to enjoy it. I think I'll delete those tracks, and burn a new disc to replace the one in the jewel-case. *shiver*
Did absolutely nothing Sunday, and it was fantastic. Well, almost absolutely nothing. I did run over to galinda's to work on an ongoing project with her (turn a handmade entertainment center into a desk) but was stopped halfway when I realized I required my circular saw, which is still packed away somewhere. Then I spent several hours on and off deleting a trojan from my XP box which I myself put there. Fun, fun. I ran across an issue I haven't yet solved with my iTunes. I was updating album art (long overdue) and came across an album (Independence Day) that would not 'take' the art. Further investigation revealed that I could change all the other fields, until I went to play them, then they reverted back to the original import information. Other than that, I didn't do anything Sunday. Watched Sci-Fi's Arabian Nights and was pleased to see James Callis (Baltar) playing Prince Ahmed...
Want to take the kids to see Cars this weekend. Don't know if I'll get a chance. I know the theater will be packed with screaming children, and that will make me angry. And that they'll tag-team me for restroom breaks. Still, I'd love to take them. We downloaded the HD trailers a couple of days ago and watched them over and over.
Once upon a time, during in Air Force days, my roommate had recently gotten married, and his wife's arrival was pending. She would need a car. He needed something cheap. I suggested - just for a test drive, just in case it wasn't as bad as we assumed it was - the Geo Metro. I'm in the back seat, my roommate is driving, and the salesman is in the passenger seat. As we're driving, I ask the gentleman, "What's that on the right front fender?"
He takes a look out the windshield, but doesn't see anything.
I point this time, "That thing protruding from the right fender, what is that?"
He moves and strains to see it, but cannot.
"That metal whip, secured in the fender," I say, "What is it?"
He sees it, and turns to me, confused and answers, "The antenna?"
"Yes!" I proclaim. "That's right!"
The salesman is now looking at me as if I might be retarded.
"What is that for?" I ask him.
Now, pretty much convinced I'm stupid, says very slowly, "The radio?"
"WHAT RADIO!?" I nearly scream, as the car is not equipped with one.
Nice. He didn't buy the car.
Loaded Windows Vista (the Longhorn replacement) on an X1 and will be playing with that all week. Our group test-upgraded to Office 2003 prior to the migration to our users, and I lost my office bar. Office 2003 doesn't have an office bar. I know a lot of people hate the office bar, and many don't use it. I rarely care what "other people" do, or do not do. I liked it. I used it daily. However, in a fantastic turn of events, the Microsoft knowledgebase article written concerning the absence of the office bar in Office 2003 running on XP, (and I quote:)
The Office Shortcut Bar is not available in Microsoft Office 2003. However, you can use the Start menu in Microsoft Windows XP to start an Office program or to open a file or a folder. Additionally, you can use the Quick Launch bar in Windows XP or in Microsoft Windows 2000 to start an Office program or to open a file or a folder.
I wish I could slap someone at Microsoft for releasing that ignorant "Summary." Do they think I'm stupid?
So, sitting in the boardroom yesterday, I notice that my CEO is wearing a pink tie, with a pink shirt? I never would have done that. But he is a very distinguished, powerful man. Today - what the hell, I too show up with pink-on-pink. So far half a dozen people have mentioned to me, "Hey, the CEO wore pink and pink yesterday too..." The king looks like the piss-boy!
galinda822 came over for movie night, and the three of finally watched Office Space. I think I was the only one who enjoyed it, unfortunately. We followed that up with the first half of the mini-series Revelations, a galinda suggestion. It was quite good.Took the kids to see Cars this morning. I expected the worst, and the wife even tried to talk me out of it. Boy was I surprised. I took a page out of the book of my dad and went to the first showing. There were maybe, 10 other people in there. I couldn't believe it. A nearly empty theater on a weekend opening show. Furthermore (and this really is hard to believe) neither of the children had to go to the bathroom for the duration of the full-two hour movie! And yes, it was good, on many different levels.
( mild spoilers here )
Was drinking my coffee this morning when my wife announces, "Oh, and your CD came in yesterday."
"WHAT! WHAT! WHAT? Hell woman, why didn't you mention this before?"
"I just remembered."
I snatched it out of her hands and ripped it into iTunes, read the liner notes, and made a copy for the car. I've been listening to it all day. it's very good, and as promised, a scan of Bear McCreary's autograph:
Drinking Pilsner Urquell...
These last few days have really been draining. Last night, I bit the bullet and went to bed at 2200. When I awoke nine hours later, I was unsure if it had done the trick. But then something odd happened. I little ditty started playing in my head. My foot started tapping. I through off the covers for a visual confirmation. Yep, there it was. Dancing on the sheets. I almost jumped out of bed and did a little jig to the bathroom, dancing in the shower. By the time I was dressed, I was soft-shoeing across the floor, and out the door. What a fantastic morning! I think I'll go to bed early tonight as well!
Well, I finally bit the bullet and enabled VNC on my folks computer. This was not easy, because I had to talk my father through giving me remote access to his router to open the port. He has a lot of patience. We did it, and I was thankful his ISP provided him a router with the very specific option of "Web access --> WAN --> Only this IP." Of course I had them bookmark http://whatismyip.com so they could reference that just prior to contacting me each time. I now have VNC capability on their computer and that alone could possibly save my relationship with my mother.
Almost every movie you've seen with the antagonist as a captain of industry amazing his board members with techno-wizardy...is crap. Now, I'm not saying that my CEO can't run a computer - he can; he's one of my best users. But guess who really runs all that gee-wiz stuff in the boardroom? The IT guy who gets stuck after hours. Yep, launching powerpoint presentations from mystic 'network' drives, to using magic 'alt-tab' to fullscreen a DVD presentation...
As a contractor outsourced to manage Information Technology, I rarely get involved with the day-to-day activities of my client. Unless asked, of course. According to an email which circulated site-wide, our client was considering changing coffee vendors, and wanted the input of all coffee drinking associates. See, that's not me. I'm a TNT mushroom-cloud-laying coffee drinking contractor. However,galinda822 and I were actually sought out to participate in this sampling, as several recreational drinkers were choosing the weaker coffees in their vote. I tried them all, settling on what I am sure is the most expensive, the massive dark roast. It was so delightful, I stayed past my welcome drinking several cups.
And lastly, stuf123 found my next grill for me: A 5.7 liter (350 CID) HEMI Powered Grill - this puppy can cook 240 hot dogs in 3 minutes...just a tad shy of Tony's last hot-dog eating contest!
Well, I finally bit the bullet and enabled VNC on my folks computer. This was not easy, because I had to talk my father through giving me remote access to his router to open the port. He has a lot of patience. We did it, and I was thankful his ISP provided him a router with the very specific option of "Web access --> WAN --> Only this IP." Of course I had them bookmark http://whatismyip.com so they could reference that just prior to contacting me each time. I now have VNC capability on their computer and that alone could possibly save my relationship with my mother.
All Things Considered, September 16, 2005 · According to a new study by the British Cheese Board, different cheeses can give you different types of dreams. None of the study volunteers reported nightmares from their bedtime snack. NPR's Melissa Block talks about the results of the study with Nigel White, secretary of the British Cheese Board.
Almost every movie you've seen with the antagonist as a captain of industry amazing his board members with techno-wizardy...is crap. Now, I'm not saying that my CEO can't run a computer - he can; he's one of my best users. But guess who really runs all that gee-wiz stuff in the boardroom? The IT guy who gets stuck after hours. Yep, launching powerpoint presentations from mystic 'network' drives, to using magic 'alt-tab' to fullscreen a DVD presentation...
As a contractor outsourced to manage Information Technology, I rarely get involved with the day-to-day activities of my client. Unless asked, of course. According to an email which circulated site-wide, our client was considering changing coffee vendors, and wanted the input of all coffee drinking associates. See, that's not me. I'm a TNT mushroom-cloud-laying coffee drinking contractor. However,
galinda822 and I were actually sought out to participate in this sampling, as several recreational drinkers were choosing the weaker coffees in their vote. I tried them all, settling on what I am sure is the most expensive, the massive dark roast. It was so delightful, I stayed past my welcome drinking several cups.An Ode to
He scrimps, he saves, to primp and fawn
Using a lathe on his beautiful lawn
He knows Chewbacca and sells him his wares
He wears Dockers and Star Trek underwear
He's Irish and Catholic and proud of that fact
But he's the first to offer the shirt off his back
He's smart and polite; a bachelors in history -
Has no sense of humor but thinks that he's funny!
If I told you people anything more
He'd drive to Saint Louis and beat down my door...
And lastly, stuf123 found my next grill for me: A 5.7 liter (350 CID) HEMI Powered Grill - this puppy can cook 240 hot dogs in 3 minutes...just a tad shy of Tony's last hot-dog eating contest!
As long as there is injustice, whenever a Targathian baby cries out, wherever a distress signal sounds among the stars, we'll be there. This fine ship, this fine crew.
I was given a simple task: Order business-DSL for my two sites, for a wireless implementation project off domain. No problem. Unfortunately, most telecom's refuse to publish their phone number online. *sigh* Once that hurdle was overcome, the order process was just as easy as when I used them for my home setup, and, as it turns out, just as fux0rd. My boss was pressuring me to get this accomplished quickly, as we were behind on project deadline. Great. Why something they don't involve me with until it's dropped in my lap is my responsibility, is, I suppose, why I'm here. I was downright gleeful when I was told the installations could proceed as early as the next day! My boss would be pleased. We use our own cabling company, so the would follow up the next day to extend the line from the DMARK to the server room, both sites. That all fell apart this morning. Come to find out, they'd only scheduled one site for the line to be run, even though I'd scheduled our vendor for both places today. And when I called about this, I get the run around, along with the news that my office was responsible for the self-install modem which would be shipped separately? I didn't order a self-install modem. Why was I told I could get a quote when someone else told me you don't give quotes? I didn't give you shipping information or an 'attention to' contact for a modem delivery. HOW DO YOU DO BUSINESS WITH BUSINESSES? I just wish, sometimes, people on the other end of the phone would take more responsibility. I run across it every now and then, and it's always refreshing. If I passed the buck like these people do, I wouldn't have a job.
It's like throwing gasoline on a flame.
Spoke to Bill for 30+ minutes yesterday. It was the most fun I've had in weeks.
Are you enjoying your Kep-mok blood ticks, Dr. Lazarus?
The reason I enjoy watching Office Space is because it has a tendency to shift my paradigm and see work in it's proper perspective, for a time at least. It usually wears off, but damn what a new outlook on life and work when you show up (late) the next day after watching that movie.
You know, with all that makeup and stuff, I actually thought you were SMART for a second.
So I've been shopping for a mac mini forgalinda822. Funny thing about Apple - they set all the prices in all the stores. You cannot buy an Apple without Apple telling you how much you will pay for it. An interesting news article on chrisbarrett77's personal site blog in which Apple announces that Best Buy will start selling Macintosh computers. Unfortunately for us consumers, that means nothing at all, since the price of Apple computers at Best Buy will be the same price as everywhere else you could ever think to buy an Apple. Because there's no competition in price, there's no 'best' place to purchase. And another Apple oddity: Whenever they release a new or faster product, the old product it replaces - STAYS THE SAME HIGH PRICE AS THE NEWER MODEL! Fantastic. So, let's take stock of what we know: Brand-spanking new Intel 'solo' core mini's with half a gig of RAM and aircards are $599. New older-model, busted-assed G4 mini's with 256MB of RAM and modems are $599. Used mini's are $599. Hmmm, whatever shall we get her? Grrrrrr.
Sorry, I was - door was a little sticky. Did you see that? I'll get one of my boys up here with a can of WD-40.
A couple of weeks ago I posted concerning the number of comments I have rec'd on this site ordered by lj user. While most sane persons view this as an interesting but totally useless tidbit of triva, other, less sane people begin posting multiple, single-word comments to drive up their ranking. Riddle me this, Batman - How can you drive up your ranking if I begin deleting multiple, single-word comments?
Well, the Protector got super-accelerated coming out of the black hole, and it, like, nailed the atmosphere at Mach 15, which, you guys know, is pretty unstable, obviously, so we're gonna help Laredo guide it on the vox ultra-frequency carrier and use Roman candles for visual confirmation.
I was given a simple task: Order business-DSL for my two sites, for a wireless implementation project off domain. No problem. Unfortunately, most telecom's refuse to publish their phone number online. *sigh* Once that hurdle was overcome, the order process was just as easy as when I used them for my home setup, and, as it turns out, just as fux0rd. My boss was pressuring me to get this accomplished quickly, as we were behind on project deadline. Great. Why something they don't involve me with until it's dropped in my lap is my responsibility, is, I suppose, why I'm here. I was downright gleeful when I was told the installations could proceed as early as the next day! My boss would be pleased. We use our own cabling company, so the would follow up the next day to extend the line from the DMARK to the server room, both sites. That all fell apart this morning. Come to find out, they'd only scheduled one site for the line to be run, even though I'd scheduled our vendor for both places today. And when I called about this, I get the run around, along with the news that my office was responsible for the self-install modem which would be shipped separately? I didn't order a self-install modem. Why was I told I could get a quote when someone else told me you don't give quotes? I didn't give you shipping information or an 'attention to' contact for a modem delivery. HOW DO YOU DO BUSINESS WITH BUSINESSES? I just wish, sometimes, people on the other end of the phone would take more responsibility. I run across it every now and then, and it's always refreshing. If I passed the buck like these people do, I wouldn't have a job.
It's like throwing gasoline on a flame.
Spoke to Bill for 30+ minutes yesterday. It was the most fun I've had in weeks.
Are you enjoying your Kep-mok blood ticks, Dr. Lazarus?
The reason I enjoy watching Office Space is because it has a tendency to shift my paradigm and see work in it's proper perspective, for a time at least. It usually wears off, but damn what a new outlook on life and work when you show up (late) the next day after watching that movie.
You know, with all that makeup and stuff, I actually thought you were SMART for a second.
So I've been shopping for a mac mini for
galinda822. Funny thing about Apple - they set all the prices in all the stores. You cannot buy an Apple without Apple telling you how much you will pay for it. An interesting news article on chrisbarrett77's personal site blog in which Apple announces that Best Buy will start selling Macintosh computers. Unfortunately for us consumers, that means nothing at all, since the price of Apple computers at Best Buy will be the same price as everywhere else you could ever think to buy an Apple. Because there's no competition in price, there's no 'best' place to purchase. And another Apple oddity: Whenever they release a new or faster product, the old product it replaces - STAYS THE SAME HIGH PRICE AS THE NEWER MODEL! Fantastic. So, let's take stock of what we know: Brand-spanking new Intel 'solo' core mini's with half a gig of RAM and aircards are $599. New older-model, busted-assed G4 mini's with 256MB of RAM and modems are $599. Used mini's are $599. Hmmm, whatever shall we get her? Grrrrrr.Sorry, I was - door was a little sticky. Did you see that? I'll get one of my boys up here with a can of WD-40.
A couple of weeks ago I posted concerning the number of comments I have rec'd on this site ordered by lj user. While most sane persons view this as an interesting but totally useless tidbit of triva, other, less sane people begin posting multiple, single-word comments to drive up their ranking. Riddle me this, Batman - How can you drive up your ranking if I begin deleting multiple, single-word comments?
Well, the Protector got super-accelerated coming out of the black hole, and it, like, nailed the atmosphere at Mach 15, which, you guys know, is pretty unstable, obviously, so we're gonna help Laredo guide it on the vox ultra-frequency carrier and use Roman candles for visual confirmation.
I have an immediate need for all four Alien scores, and I have swashbuckler332 to thank for this. After reading swashbuckler's revisited mix album, it dawned on me I didn't actually own any of the soundtracks! All my Alien music is on Telarc discs - bits and pieces you understand. Thus begins my quest.
Apparently, the first film is out of print. Damn. The horrifically commuted "Alien Trilogy" soundtrack looks like crap, but I did find the 1999 release DVD which contains the full score as a separate audio track on the DVD for under $10 at Amazon. Thanks for the heads up, again, swashbuckler!
The second film comes in a remastered 'second edition' score which I will have to sneak by the wife to purchase, and the third film will be a sneak as well. I figure in a month I might have them all. I can get away with ordering the DVD because I have the middle two films on laserdisc, and she wants me to replace all my laserdiscs with DVD's. THAT'S going to be a chore. I'll probably never get rid of my Matrix laserdisc - one of the final releases on that media.
The fourth film's score is $4 used on Amazon. Wow.
I'm a little obsessive this way, you know.
And I'm now going to go out and purchase Homeworld 2, a game I've never before played, based on THIS alone. If you still don't get it, watch the trailer. Wow. Also, Firefly writer Jane Espenson will be writing an episode for BSG Season Three. Wow again. I don't know how I'm going to be able to contain myself until all this goodness comes to fruition. Click the image for a direct link to the trailer:
Rec'd a nice gift this past weekend,galinda822 apparently tired of hearing be bitch about not having Office Space to watch with her...bought me the Special Edition release! Woo-hoo; now we're cooking with fire! Perhaps we'll get a chance to watch it together during Friday's Movie Night? Thanks galinda! I'll grill up something special for the occation ;)
swashbuckler332 to thank for this. After reading swashbuckler's revisited mix album, it dawned on me I didn't actually own any of the soundtracks! All my Alien music is on Telarc discs - bits and pieces you understand. Thus begins my quest.Apparently, the first film is out of print. Damn. The horrifically commuted "Alien Trilogy" soundtrack looks like crap, but I did find the 1999 release DVD which contains the full score as a separate audio track on the DVD for under $10 at Amazon. Thanks for the heads up, again, swashbuckler!
The second film comes in a remastered 'second edition' score which I will have to sneak by the wife to purchase, and the third film will be a sneak as well. I figure in a month I might have them all. I can get away with ordering the DVD because I have the middle two films on laserdisc, and she wants me to replace all my laserdiscs with DVD's. THAT'S going to be a chore. I'll probably never get rid of my Matrix laserdisc - one of the final releases on that media.
The fourth film's score is $4 used on Amazon. Wow.
I'm a little obsessive this way, you know.
And I'm now going to go out and purchase Homeworld 2, a game I've never before played, based on THIS alone. If you still don't get it, watch the trailer. Wow. Also, Firefly writer Jane Espenson will be writing an episode for BSG Season Three. Wow again. I don't know how I'm going to be able to contain myself until all this goodness comes to fruition. Click the image for a direct link to the trailer:
Rec'd a nice gift this past weekend,
galinda822 apparently tired of hearing be bitch about not having Office Space to watch with her...bought me the Special Edition release! Woo-hoo; now we're cooking with fire! Perhaps we'll get a chance to watch it together during Friday's Movie Night? Thanks galinda! I'll grill up something special for the occation ;)All over the meader and the hill!
Took the in-laws to see the Arch this evening. This marked the first time I've been under the arch, where they have a museum of the mid-west which is really well done, and various other displays and shops. And a beautiful carved stone mural which displays the arch prominently amongst other American monuments.
Buds're bustin' outa bushes
Walked through the old part of town, The Landing which hosts a fabulous Blues Festival each year. We attended one the weekend I proposed to my wife when we were here in '97. She wanted to eat dinner at the Brewery, and we found one, Morgan Street Brewery where I, in a surprising move, ordered a Golden Pilsner. It was fantastic. I had the grilled chicken & andouille sausage over penne pasta which was cajun spicy and delicious. It even filled me up - no small feat! I ended my meal with their Graham Cracker Porter, which was to die for. My father-in-law, a very difficult man to impress, was so thrilled with his steak, he thanked the entire waitstaff and the checkout girl. I'd never seen him so pleased. I think that alone made the entire outing worth it.
And the rompin' river pushes
It had stormed most of the day and was calm and cool by the time we hit the streets, a perfect evening to an otherwise hectic day. All this would not have been possible of course without the help ofgalinda822 who watched the children for us so we could enjoy this evening with my wife's folks. Thank you!
Ev'ry little wheel that wheels beside a mill!
As dusk overtook us, the city lit up and we concluded our evening with a walk down the riverside.
Took the in-laws to see the Arch this evening. This marked the first time I've been under the arch, where they have a museum of the mid-west which is really well done, and various other displays and shops. And a beautiful carved stone mural which displays the arch prominently amongst other American monuments.
Buds're bustin' outa bushes
Walked through the old part of town, The Landing which hosts a fabulous Blues Festival each year. We attended one the weekend I proposed to my wife when we were here in '97. She wanted to eat dinner at the Brewery, and we found one, Morgan Street Brewery where I, in a surprising move, ordered a Golden Pilsner. It was fantastic. I had the grilled chicken & andouille sausage over penne pasta which was cajun spicy and delicious. It even filled me up - no small feat! I ended my meal with their Graham Cracker Porter, which was to die for. My father-in-law, a very difficult man to impress, was so thrilled with his steak, he thanked the entire waitstaff and the checkout girl. I'd never seen him so pleased. I think that alone made the entire outing worth it.
And the rompin' river pushes
It had stormed most of the day and was calm and cool by the time we hit the streets, a perfect evening to an otherwise hectic day. All this would not have been possible of course without the help of
galinda822 who watched the children for us so we could enjoy this evening with my wife's folks. Thank you!Ev'ry little wheel that wheels beside a mill!
Laclede's Landing, named for Pierre Laclede, St. Louis' French founder, is a vibrant entertainment district just north of the Gateway Arch along the Mississippi River. Once the hub of river trade where fur trappers rendezvoused, music now echoes off the Landing's cobblestone streets, and restaurants, music clubs and shops fill the former warehouses that once held tobacco, cotton and other products brought to St. Louis by steamboats. On the edge of the Landing, modern casinos recall a time when gambling boats plied the Mississippi.
If there's one place that conjures up images of St. Louis' river past, Laclede's Landing is it. Streets in the nine square block area of the Landing are the same as they were when Laclede laid them out in his original plan.
Here cobblestone thoroughfares harken back to the time when St. Louis was a center of river commerce and conjure images of traders selling their furs, tobacco and cotton arriving on steam boats and paddle wheelers taking on and discharging passengers. In fact, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Landing was a busy area of manufacturing and commerce.
Today the Landing's preserved historic brick and iron façade buildings house some of St. Louis' best restaurants, exciting music clubs, the country's longest running dinner theatre, the unique Dental Health Theatre and the Laclede's Landing Wax Museum. At the foot of the landing is the President Casino, St. Louis' only downtown casino.
As dusk overtook us, the city lit up and we concluded our evening with a walk down the riverside.
I'm drunk on margarita's.
My Final Fantasy Collection
Dreamed about the second half of Battlestar Galactica Season Two. I won't tell you about it because I dreamed spoilers.
Successfully migrated all my iTunes data to my new 160GB drive. It rocks harder. $60!
Just ate leftover fire-burgers from yesterday - they're fantastic!
Carla here. That r0x.
Tony is my hetero-life mate and I miss him. It's like...twins being separated. It hurts.
Every neighborhood kid with in a mile came to swim in the pool today. We were all drunk on margarita's so we didn't care.
I'm Texan. I like George Strait.
I snatched open the humirdor and lit a cigar forgalinda822 and myself. They were fantastic
I have my 'Stephen Segal' in.
Daisy is the most beautiful cat on earth.
I'm going to bed now.
My Final Fantasy Collection
Dreamed about the second half of Battlestar Galactica Season Two. I won't tell you about it because I dreamed spoilers.
Successfully migrated all my iTunes data to my new 160GB drive. It rocks harder. $60!
Just ate leftover fire-burgers from yesterday - they're fantastic!
Carla here. That r0x.
Tony is my hetero-life mate and I miss him. It's like...twins being separated. It hurts.
Every neighborhood kid with in a mile came to swim in the pool today. We were all drunk on margarita's so we didn't care.
I'm Texan. I like George Strait.
I snatched open the humirdor and lit a cigar for
galinda822 and myself. They were fantasticI have my 'Stephen Segal' in.
Daisy is the most beautiful cat on earth.
I'm going to bed now.
Ya see, me and the Lord have an understanding.
I'd like to welcomebigdog_etc to our little circle. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, The Cluckster.
Four fried chickens and a Coke. And some dry white toast.
The wife picked up the sole leftover case from Cinco de Mayo of mixed Mexican beers. Today, after work, after my walk, I will light a cigar, fire up the grill, throw some potatoes on it, and grill a particulary thick cut top sirloin...and drink a beer. I can't wait.galinda822 will be joining for eats & afterward. Afterward being 'movie night' in the newly reconfigured, rear-surround-where-they're-supposed-to-be, dark and cool dungeon. I don't know yet what we're going to watch, but the top two on my list are Batman Begins and The Last Castle. Neither of the ladies have seen the latter, and only my wife has seen the former. Should be fun no matter what transpires.
I hate Illinois Nazis.
One Timex digital watch, broken. One unused prophylactic. One soiled.
Life goes on.
Your women. I want to buy your women. The little girl, your daughters... sell them to me. Sell me your children.
I have a lot of good music I want to try and listen to this weekend. How much of it actually gets listened to is anyone's guess at this point. And for those of you itching to hear about X3 head over toswashbuckler332's site for his spoiler-less comments.
Who wants an orange whip? Orange whip? Orange whip? Three orange whips.
Picked up the following soundtracks:
I'd like to welcome
bigdog_etc to our little circle. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, The Cluckster.Four fried chickens and a Coke. And some dry white toast.
The wife picked up the sole leftover case from Cinco de Mayo of mixed Mexican beers. Today, after work, after my walk, I will light a cigar, fire up the grill, throw some potatoes on it, and grill a particulary thick cut top sirloin...and drink a beer. I can't wait.
galinda822 will be joining for eats & afterward. Afterward being 'movie night' in the newly reconfigured, rear-surround-where-they're-supposed-to-be, dark and cool dungeon. I don't know yet what we're going to watch, but the top two on my list are Batman Begins and The Last Castle. Neither of the ladies have seen the latter, and only my wife has seen the former. Should be fun no matter what transpires.I hate Illinois Nazis.
SIP stack, shell map
System PLC
Go, stop, food shop
VOIP
One Timex digital watch, broken. One unused prophylactic. One soiled.
Life goes on.
Your women. I want to buy your women. The little girl, your daughters... sell them to me. Sell me your children.
I have a lot of good music I want to try and listen to this weekend. How much of it actually gets listened to is anyone's guess at this point. And for those of you itching to hear about X3 head over to
swashbuckler332's site for his spoiler-less comments.Who wants an orange whip? Orange whip? Orange whip? Three orange whips.
Picked up the following soundtracks:
House of Flying Daggers
Indepedance Day
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Backdraft
Crimson Tide
◾ Tags:
Final Fantasy Advent Children Soundtrack is at times beautiful and melodic. At others, WAY too fast paced for a 2200 entry.
Wife let me sleep in until about 0900. That was awesome. Went to see a man about a kitchen. Price is right - but will require the father-in-law leading the project. Is he game? Home Depot, pick up the boy, lunch at Cancun's Mexican Buffet, Office Depot, Dollar Store, Hobby Lobby, SAM's. Move 32" TV downstairs, move 27" TV upstairs, move couch downstairs, move 'tapestries' downstairs, move & install surround sound downstairs. In the past two weekends I have completely rearranged the house. The basement is now officially the 'Man Room' according to my wife. With only the lamps and the television on - it's the perfect environment for experiencing a movie! Of course there are now nine speakers and three subwoofers in the basement.
Needless to say, I was busy. Looking very forward to going into work tomorrow morning...
/RANDOM THOUGHTS:
My boy asks, "When is grandma going to be here?" My wife said, "Monday." He asks, "How many naps until she's here?" That got me thinking. Perhapsdrax0r should use 'naps' as his unit of time? It only makes sense.
/END RANDOM THOUGHS
Only 19 days until BSG: Season Two soundtrack ships!
In other news,celtmanx 'remembered' that Tony and I had fabricated professortom after arguing relentlessly with 'him' for the better part of a week. He's been going back reading posts 'he' made kicking himself now. It's been quite amusing. This is one of the farther-reaching pranks we've ever pulled.
SuperCluck posted anonymously earlier today. Going to have to keep a watch out for him!
The funny part about that synopsis, is how closely it relates to my Cluck. I'm pretty sure he's from outer space, and was adopted by Mrs. Cluck. I've also noticed his unusual attribute of large size...
Can't wait for the good news tomorrowgalinda822...
And....it's 2300. Good night all!
I'd like to take this opportunity to thankceltmanx for all his drunken comments below.
Wife let me sleep in until about 0900. That was awesome. Went to see a man about a kitchen. Price is right - but will require the father-in-law leading the project. Is he game? Home Depot, pick up the boy, lunch at Cancun's Mexican Buffet, Office Depot, Dollar Store, Hobby Lobby, SAM's. Move 32" TV downstairs, move 27" TV upstairs, move couch downstairs, move 'tapestries' downstairs, move & install surround sound downstairs. In the past two weekends I have completely rearranged the house. The basement is now officially the 'Man Room' according to my wife. With only the lamps and the television on - it's the perfect environment for experiencing a movie! Of course there are now nine speakers and three subwoofers in the basement.
Needless to say, I was busy. Looking very forward to going into work tomorrow morning...
/RANDOM THOUGHTS:
My boy asks, "When is grandma going to be here?" My wife said, "Monday." He asks, "How many naps until she's here?" That got me thinking. Perhaps
drax0r should use 'naps' as his unit of time? It only makes sense./END RANDOM THOUGHS
Only 19 days until BSG: Season Two soundtrack ships!
In other news,
celtmanx 'remembered' that Tony and I had fabricated professortom after arguing relentlessly with 'him' for the better part of a week. He's been going back reading posts 'he' made kicking himself now. It's been quite amusing. This is one of the farther-reaching pranks we've ever pulled.SuperCluck posted anonymously earlier today. Going to have to keep a watch out for him!
Super Cluck is a chicken from outer space, accidentally left on Earth as an egg, and adopted by the kind Mrs. Cluck. Soon after he hatches it becomes evident that Cluck has some unusual attributes--his large size, amazing strength, and ability to fly. Children attracted to "Super Hero" characters will delight in Super Cluck's story. Lloyd's bright watercolor-and-pen illustrations are often more detailed than the usual beginning-to-read fare; many of the chicken coop scenes are delightful. Readers will be awaiting the further adventures of this chick. Meanwhile, Robert and Super Cluck can serve as role models for aspiring young authors.
The funny part about that synopsis, is how closely it relates to my Cluck. I'm pretty sure he's from outer space, and was adopted by Mrs. Cluck. I've also noticed his unusual attribute of large size...
Can't wait for the good news tomorrow
galinda822...And....it's 2300. Good night all!
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank
celtmanx for all his drunken comments below.Cancelled my order with Amazon on BSG:Season Two score. Placed an order with La-La-Land Records (the label) who ship 10 days earlier and, autographed by the composer! For all you non-soundtrack types, that would be Bear McCreary, who took over from and worked with Richard Gibbs of the mini-series. What might you expect to hear on this second season album? Here are my notes on the few preview tracks provided:
I for one, can't wait!
Here's the link for your own copy and to give the preview tracks a listen!
Updated Firefox on teh max0r which fixed the gif viewing issue.
Watched Ultimate Avengers with my son, which was pretty damn good. I wasn't planning on actually paying attention when I put it on for him, but it was great.
Wrote a little script and made a cron entry on xirr to rotate my banner picture on LiveJournal.
Grilled chicken.
galinda822 came for a nice visit.
Mowed the lawn.
Played countless hours of Hot Wheels with my boy.
Brought all primary systems down at J:42 yesterday and swapped the master bedroom and the office. Miraculously, my clock started working again and everything was back up by 1900.
Installed a new MFP for my wife on the XP uber-box, and shared it out only to discover that OSX can only connect to OSX-shared printers. I assume the same can be said for connecting it to teh max0r and trying to connect to it via XP.
For the first time in a month, considering going to be at 2200 so I can be well rested for my day tomorrow. I haven't played DS2 in a week, nor even cracked my new Strategy Guide...
Remember the documentary of the Galactica by Lucy Lawless? Remember the theme music of the clip they showed? It was the 70's original theme. It's included here on the first track as Colonial Anthem
There's an Allegro on track five which is in the same orchestral style of, and contains some of the same bars as our past favorites The Face of the Shape to Come and Passacaglia.
Track eight, Pegasus at first sounds kinda gay, like 'Endless Love' until I remembered the scene where they first discovered Pegasus and everyone was disembarking onto Galactica; very exciting suddenly as I filled with the emotion of the moment.
Lords of Kobol is the first vocal track (track 9) on the disc and as is all their vocal tracks, in some foreign tongue - but nothing like the mini-series fav To Kiss or Not to Kiss, harder, and with more force. Oh, and electric guitars too. Pretty cool, it was from the episode 'Pegasus' but I couldn't place it.
So Roslin and Adama (track 13) starts off simply with solo synth piano and a solo violin. It adds a couple of acoustic guitars and maybe a cello which crescendo's into something reminiscent of Firefly. Pretty cool.
Prelude to War (track 17) is a very fast-paced piece with violins, snare drums (on nearly all battle themes) and bigger drums. Here Bear goes back to his ethnic drum line but the addition of the snare rolls behind the frantic violins makes it very exciting.
Track 18 (Reuniting the Fleet) is the same Irish-themed track (6) on Season One (A Good Lighter) with the addition of drums, snare, and a bass.
Black Market is a middle-eastern-esque piece which starts with classical guitar and ends with electric guitar and drums. This is the last track, track 23.
I for one, can't wait!
Here's the link for your own copy and to give the preview tracks a listen!
Updated Firefox on teh max0r which fixed the gif viewing issue.
Watched Ultimate Avengers with my son, which was pretty damn good. I wasn't planning on actually paying attention when I put it on for him, but it was great.
Wrote a little script and made a cron entry on xirr to rotate my banner picture on LiveJournal.
Grilled chicken.
galinda822 came for a nice visit.Mowed the lawn.
Played countless hours of Hot Wheels with my boy.
Brought all primary systems down at J:42 yesterday and swapped the master bedroom and the office. Miraculously, my clock started working again and everything was back up by 1900.
Installed a new MFP for my wife on the XP uber-box, and shared it out only to discover that OSX can only connect to OSX-shared printers. I assume the same can be said for connecting it to teh max0r and trying to connect to it via XP.
For the first time in a month, considering going to be at 2200 so I can be well rested for my day tomorrow. I haven't played DS2 in a week, nor even cracked my new Strategy Guide...
My job is to build galinda822 a computer for her home office. She's going to order DSL, we already have a monitor, and we're working on making her desk. In previous posts, I've identified the parts we need for her computer, and they run about $125. Then we can get started. However, in a stroke of brilliance this morning, I've decided on something far more fantastic for her future home-office: The Mac Mini.
That's right. With bidding starting ~$150 on eBay these days, she can surf the web in style and free herself from the bonds of XP. I don't have to build anything, either ;) Anyway, I'm pretty excited for her, and I hope you are too! And, no Tom, I will NOT be installing Opera for her. She'll be using Safari, and is prepared to ignore your every comment on the matter. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
My weekend just got a lot busier. I'm receiving a FedEx shipment of an HP wintel server to rack-mount this weekend to expand the quickly diminishing space of our existing email server. Fun, fun! Oh yeah, the wife doesn't know about that yet. And seeing how tonight we're drinking margaritas and grilling for movie night, I sure as hell hope I'm able to answer the front door by 1000 tomorrow.
At home I run Photoshop CS on my 1200x1600 display. That's a lot of real estate. Imagine my frustration trying to finish up projects at work using Photoshop Elements on a 1024x768? Grrrrrrr.
So, I've pretty much decided I'm going to do everything I need to do on my linux box. I'll use my laptop for Outlook and the few times I need to launch IE. That's really about all it's good for. The linux box is an unbuntu install on a Dell Optiplex SFF with a 3GB P4, half a gig of RAM and a 7200rpm SATA drive. I couldn't ask for a better box on my desktop here at work.
Yahoo! Mail gives me 2GB for my email space. Each site I've been at gives me nearly unlimited email space. The company I work for however, a technologies company, gives me 110MB, and bitch if I don't archive. Nice. You know, I would archive - if I hadn't had 10 computers across 4 accounts the last six years. There are some things I will never understand.
Got to de-rack a Solaris box and tear into it this week. The highlight of my week, as usual; back to my roots. The power-supply had blown and I will likely be here this weekend replacing it.
*sigh*
galinda822 a computer for her home office. She's going to order DSL, we already have a monitor, and we're working on making her desk. In previous posts, I've identified the parts we need for her computer, and they run about $125. Then we can get started. However, in a stroke of brilliance this morning, I've decided on something far more fantastic for her future home-office: The Mac Mini.That's right. With bidding starting ~$150 on eBay these days, she can surf the web in style and free herself from the bonds of XP. I don't have to build anything, either ;) Anyway, I'm pretty excited for her, and I hope you are too! And, no Tom, I will NOT be installing Opera for her. She'll be using Safari, and is prepared to ignore your every comment on the matter. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
My weekend just got a lot busier. I'm receiving a FedEx shipment of an HP wintel server to rack-mount this weekend to expand the quickly diminishing space of our existing email server. Fun, fun! Oh yeah, the wife doesn't know about that yet. And seeing how tonight we're drinking margaritas and grilling for movie night, I sure as hell hope I'm able to answer the front door by 1000 tomorrow.
At home I run Photoshop CS on my 1200x1600 display. That's a lot of real estate. Imagine my frustration trying to finish up projects at work using Photoshop Elements on a 1024x768? Grrrrrrr.
So, I've pretty much decided I'm going to do everything I need to do on my linux box. I'll use my laptop for Outlook and the few times I need to launch IE. That's really about all it's good for. The linux box is an unbuntu install on a Dell Optiplex SFF with a 3GB P4, half a gig of RAM and a 7200rpm SATA drive. I couldn't ask for a better box on my desktop here at work.
Yahoo! Mail gives me 2GB for my email space. Each site I've been at gives me nearly unlimited email space. The company I work for however, a technologies company, gives me 110MB, and bitch if I don't archive. Nice. You know, I would archive - if I hadn't had 10 computers across 4 accounts the last six years. There are some things I will never understand.
Got to de-rack a Solaris box and tear into it this week. The highlight of my week, as usual; back to my roots. The power-supply had blown and I will likely be here this weekend replacing it.
*sigh*
heh:
Bought a 5-pack roll +1 (2x3-can special pricing) of Grizzly this morning at QT. Hand him my card, he swipes it and asks, "Credit or debit?" I give him my standard answer, "Your preference." As I've noticed different proprietors prefer using one or the other based upon either certain charges associated with one or the ease of the other. With a line of people behind me, all in a hurry to get to work, he loudly exclaims, "It's your money, man! Your money! You decide!" Nice. Let me see if I can translate my answer here, for you, the common man who works at QT and possibly reads random lj entries: "I DON'T GIVE A RATS ASS HOW YOU DEBIT MY CHECKING ACCOUNT."
Grilled salmon in the rain yesterday when I got home. It was perfect. Friday night is our order-out night, and the day I get to bring home a brand-spanking new case of Pilzner Urquell! I love that beer, you know. To me, there is no more perfect beer on the planet. So cold, so fresh, so damn tasty! But of course that's all the wife will drink as well, which is always a double-edged sword. On one hand, I think she's awesome because of it, and we only ever have one type of beer in the fridge. On the other of course, She's drinking my beer! And Friday night is the one night a week we turn on the television. We've got catching up to do on The Sopranos.
I only post on lj, however, not everyone is as singularly minded as I am, they jump around - post everywhere! Have you ever tried to follow a thread on xanga? Following a conversation is a nightmare. And asdrax0r heh, heh, pointed out all responses are posted on the corresponding person's page? wtf? My point is, in order to effectively post (or sometimes to post at all) an account is required. I regret to admit to the following:
Carla took off work Thursday, Friday & Monday. As she was leaving the office she exclaimed, "SEE YOU NEXT TUESDAY!" I was mortified! To her credit, she was unfamilier with the euphemism.
Xanga will be down today from 7 am - 2 pm EST, as we move our servers to a new network facility (we ran out of room in our old one). We're loading a few hundred servers onto a truck, driving them across the Hudson River, and reassembling them in New Jersey. We'll get the site up and running again as soon as we can!
Thanks for your patience,
The Xanga Team
Bought a 5-pack roll +1 (2x3-can special pricing) of Grizzly this morning at QT. Hand him my card, he swipes it and asks, "Credit or debit?" I give him my standard answer, "Your preference." As I've noticed different proprietors prefer using one or the other based upon either certain charges associated with one or the ease of the other. With a line of people behind me, all in a hurry to get to work, he loudly exclaims, "It's your money, man! Your money! You decide!" Nice. Let me see if I can translate my answer here, for you, the common man who works at QT and possibly reads random lj entries: "I DON'T GIVE A RATS ASS HOW YOU DEBIT MY CHECKING ACCOUNT."
Grilled salmon in the rain yesterday when I got home. It was perfect. Friday night is our order-out night, and the day I get to bring home a brand-spanking new case of Pilzner Urquell! I love that beer, you know. To me, there is no more perfect beer on the planet. So cold, so fresh, so damn tasty! But of course that's all the wife will drink as well, which is always a double-edged sword. On one hand, I think she's awesome because of it, and we only ever have one type of beer in the fridge. On the other of course, She's drinking my beer! And Friday night is the one night a week we turn on the television. We've got catching up to do on The Sopranos.
I only post on lj, however, not everyone is as singularly minded as I am, they jump around - post everywhere! Have you ever tried to follow a thread on xanga? Following a conversation is a nightmare. And as
drax0r heh, heh, pointed out all responses are posted on the corresponding person's page? wtf? My point is, in order to effectively post (or sometimes to post at all) an account is required. I regret to admit to the following:Carla took off work Thursday, Friday & Monday. As she was leaving the office she exclaimed, "SEE YOU NEXT TUESDAY!" I was mortified! To her credit, she was unfamilier with the euphemism.
Planned on posting pics of the new Bengal kitties this morning. That is, until I discovered it is impossible to actually capture the little creatures on digital media. At this point, you'll have to just believe me that they are not a myth. They jumped out of their carrier and made themselves right at home with no issues whatsoever. After astro pointed out their personalities, I chose one playful one (the three-legged Trinity) and a quiet, introspective one (the darker Niobe). Everyone except Daisy is enjoying them. Daisy hides from them.
Found my Ernest Haiku hidden away in Notes. This one was inspired by the Coen Brothers film, The Big Lebowski:
Went to bed with a headache, awoke with a headache, and every single Missouri driver I encountered today frustrated me on my drive in this morning. Perhaps I shouldn't listen to Billy Idol on my drive in? Just took two ofgalinda822's Excedrin.
time passes...
Headache still here. Fighting management and users left and right via email, had one meeting over in the other building, and one of my guys ended up being the 'slide advancer' for a powerpoint presentation! Grrrrrr. Trying to work lj's fux0rd css by hand to modify my journal further. Basically, I want either the S2 'Variable Flow' with an info bar and links area on the left much like 'A Sturdy Gesture' (my old style page) or using 'A Sturdy Gesture' with the background images visible just like my current. It's ass to mess with though.
I want to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels the musical when it comes to town Mar 2007!
Long day.
Found my Ernest Haiku hidden away in Notes. This one was inspired by the Coen Brothers film, The Big Lebowski:
A line in the sand
One Hubert Ernest Cody
A man for his time
Went to bed with a headache, awoke with a headache, and every single Missouri driver I encountered today frustrated me on my drive in this morning. Perhaps I shouldn't listen to Billy Idol on my drive in? Just took two of
galinda822's Excedrin.time passes...
Headache still here. Fighting management and users left and right via email, had one meeting over in the other building, and one of my guys ended up being the 'slide advancer' for a powerpoint presentation! Grrrrrr. Trying to work lj's fux0rd css by hand to modify my journal further. Basically, I want either the S2 'Variable Flow' with an info bar and links area on the left much like 'A Sturdy Gesture' (my old style page) or using 'A Sturdy Gesture' with the background images visible just like my current. It's ass to mess with though.
I want to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels the musical when it comes to town Mar 2007!
Long day.
Monday, Monday
Couldn't use text messaging this morning, the firefox update crashed firefox (with my weekly tabs already open no less), Ad-aware and Spybot found 90 items collectively (most of them IE related, despite the fact I don't use IE), my Outlook & Notes accounts are so full, they won't close properly, defrag is crawling, and I had over 15 voice messages this morning, most of them from vendors, I have to pick up my Bengal kittens sometime this morning, I'm hungry, I'll be working late today (at the Sister's - adding & deleting user accounts), iTunes can't find my library due to a corrupted file...and I've had to reboot this thing three times before 1100! Perhaps it just feels slow since I've been using my uber-box at home?
So good to me
Dreamed last night that I was trying to get an audience with data10 who was running his business out of an abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere, but his two oldest sons (who were both middle-aged CEO's) kept blocking me from seeing him. I could get glimpses of him every now and again, and he always wore his political baby-kissing smile, and doing the Queen's wave.
I also dreamed I went to an interview for a unix admin position. This nice-looking lady was doing the interview, and had brought her entire staff with her. Two of them I had met before, but they didn't remember me. It was in a dark hotel room (what's with all the hotels?) and there were lots of drinks and laughing. I was assured the job. I didn't think twice about this short dream until I was asked for my resume today - wtf???
Then I dreamed that I was having a fight with my wife. But I'd look back up and it wasgalinda822. So then we'd start arguing and it was my wife again. This went on and on. I woke up exhausted.
Monday, Monday
Tickets, emails, and phone calls coming in back-to-back like crazy. astro just called, he's 30 miles out. I'm 10-minutes away. I'm bringing Carla with me to help pick which two kittens we want from the litter. How will my Maine Coon take to this? WE DON'T KNOW!
It was all I hoped it would be.
Yes, I know this song has been posted recently but only today am I feeling the ramifications of leading such a busy life...and a busy dreamlife after hours as it turns out. So much on my mind...all the time.
Oh Monday morning
( Encouragement )
Monday morning couldn't guarantee
Got a call from astro. He told me what highway he was on, I set a meeting place. Left work, drove to meeting point. They ended up on a parallel highway. Set a secondary meeting place. Tore-ass across town. Secondary meeting point had been razed. Made an impromptu thrid meeting place - he was three minutes behind me. It was nice seeing astro and his family again. They were travelling in a lumbering R.V., pulling a horsetrailer, preceded by the brother-in-law in a Jeep pulling a car. Only a lack of a rocking chair lashed to the top prevented it from looking straight out of The Beverly Hillbillies. Ok, that's not true, but it sounded funny. All the Bengal kittens were sleeping on the massive dash of the R.V. so I gave them and their mama's some lovin' and picked out two. My wife is naming the one with three legs, 'Trinity' and that being said, I'm thinking of naming the other one, 'Niobe.' I wish them a safe trip!
That Monday evening
Just heard from my daughter. She likes holding the kitties. I hope to game tonight.
You would still be here with me.
Couldn't use text messaging this morning, the firefox update crashed firefox (with my weekly tabs already open no less), Ad-aware and Spybot found 90 items collectively (most of them IE related, despite the fact I don't use IE), my Outlook & Notes accounts are so full, they won't close properly, defrag is crawling, and I had over 15 voice messages this morning, most of them from vendors, I have to pick up my Bengal kittens sometime this morning, I'm hungry, I'll be working late today (at the Sister's - adding & deleting user accounts), iTunes can't find my library due to a corrupted file...and I've had to reboot this thing three times before 1100! Perhaps it just feels slow since I've been using my uber-box at home?
So good to me
Dreamed last night that I was trying to get an audience with data10 who was running his business out of an abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere, but his two oldest sons (who were both middle-aged CEO's) kept blocking me from seeing him. I could get glimpses of him every now and again, and he always wore his political baby-kissing smile, and doing the Queen's wave.
I also dreamed I went to an interview for a unix admin position. This nice-looking lady was doing the interview, and had brought her entire staff with her. Two of them I had met before, but they didn't remember me. It was in a dark hotel room (what's with all the hotels?) and there were lots of drinks and laughing. I was assured the job. I didn't think twice about this short dream until I was asked for my resume today - wtf???
Then I dreamed that I was having a fight with my wife. But I'd look back up and it was
galinda822. So then we'd start arguing and it was my wife again. This went on and on. I woke up exhausted.Monday, Monday
Tickets, emails, and phone calls coming in back-to-back like crazy. astro just called, he's 30 miles out. I'm 10-minutes away. I'm bringing Carla with me to help pick which two kittens we want from the litter. How will my Maine Coon take to this? WE DON'T KNOW!
It was all I hoped it would be.
Yes, I know this song has been posted recently but only today am I feeling the ramifications of leading such a busy life...and a busy dreamlife after hours as it turns out. So much on my mind...all the time.
Oh Monday morning
( Encouragement )
Monday morning couldn't guarantee
Got a call from astro. He told me what highway he was on, I set a meeting place. Left work, drove to meeting point. They ended up on a parallel highway. Set a secondary meeting place. Tore-ass across town. Secondary meeting point had been razed. Made an impromptu thrid meeting place - he was three minutes behind me. It was nice seeing astro and his family again. They were travelling in a lumbering R.V., pulling a horsetrailer, preceded by the brother-in-law in a Jeep pulling a car. Only a lack of a rocking chair lashed to the top prevented it from looking straight out of The Beverly Hillbillies. Ok, that's not true, but it sounded funny. All the Bengal kittens were sleeping on the massive dash of the R.V. so I gave them and their mama's some lovin' and picked out two. My wife is naming the one with three legs, 'Trinity' and that being said, I'm thinking of naming the other one, 'Niobe.' I wish them a safe trip!
That Monday evening
Just heard from my daughter. She likes holding the kitties. I hope to game tonight.
You would still be here with me.
I once had a girl,
Or should I say, she once had me.
Wind Advisory today. Lights started flickering in the house so I shut down all my computers today and played Hot Wheels with my boy most of the day. Of course that didn't stop the wind from shutting down the entire grid around my work location. The entire building went dead, and an hour later, so did the data center.
She showed me her room,
Isn't it good?
Norwegian Wood.
It's been down since about 1700. Got a call from the operations center, power appears to be up as of 0230 or so. Too bad I gamed until nearly 0100. I stopped at the QT for a Bawls and other 'working overnight' necessities - and headed to work. What a quiet, spooky night on the drive in at 0300!
I sat on her rug,
Biding my time,
Drinking her wine.
The servers came up just fine, but we lost a switch. So I spent a couple of sweaty hours manually loading a Cisco IOS into running memory only to have the network guy determine that it's probably a hardware issue. I would have posted, or at least commented on everyone's entries I came across this weekend, but alas, I was one of the users the switch affected. It's actually MUCH better that it turned out this way, as had it not been the switch I was on (the only reason I knew we'd lost something) Monday undoubtedly would have been hell.
She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere.
So I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair.
A little coordination, a lot of miles, the two became one, and the new switch was installed at 1700 today. Everything should be operational for the executives Monday morning and they won't even know what happened. That's us, always slaving around in the background making sure everything goes smoothly. Sometimes, it's exhausting.
We talked until two,
And then she said
It's time for bed.
Carla, Lori and I watched the third disc of The Sopranos; only one more disc for Season Three. Didn't get anything done today that I wanted to get done. Wasn't in the mood. Started a headache around six, probably because I woke up after 1300 and didn't drink any coffee. Forgot to eat. What a mess.
She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh.
I told her I didn't and crawled off to sleep in the bath.
I felt I was making good ground on my game when I stopped last night for my hour-and-a-half nap. I tried to get out of bed early enough this afternoon to ensure that I was tired enough to go back to sleep this evening, but the two cups of coffee I had at 1830 to rid me of my headache (which didn't work, BTW) probably pushed that back a little.
And when I awoke,
I was alone.
This bird has flown.
That being said, I may game just a little tonight since I'll probably be wide-friggin-awake. Still, I have my alarm set for my normal time so I can make it into work as usual. Carla and I are going to see the sisters (whom are doing it for themselves) tomorrow evening as they've had the shakedown and need some computer accounts deleted and created. Fun with nuns never stops! Also, I find the Logitech Marble Mouse (Yes Tony, the one in the same I purchased in Mass in 2000) works far better with my mini than my Microsoft uber-mouse. I was reading the side of the Logitech box at work this morning and it had the Mac badge on it which gave me the idea; saving me countless hours of frustration with the other.
So, I lit the fire.
Isn't it good?
Norwegian wood.
My large, declawed cat, Daisy brought my wife a present this morning. Two of them, actually. Bunnies. How she managed them both, no one knows. She's slowing down these last few years, doesn't have quite the energy she once had. But brought us two bunnies nonetheless. At least we now know she still loves us.
Monday and Tuesday have been unusually slow in the office. And we've had much cooler weather. This combination has put me in a very good mood. My days have only been marred by the lack ofdrax0r's online presence. He's been having his own issues at work. Today, however, my conference call schedule is from 0800-1200; 1330-1500. Damn!
Do it.
The Cluck comes out at night,
The Cluck comes out at night...
I like my BSG toys. At first, the Viper was my favorite, as it is the most highly and accurately detailed. But the Galactica is just so awesome - so imposing. I think it my be my favorite now.galinda822 likes the Raider. I can't wait until October!
In a surprising move from my buddy with the head issues a few posts back will soon be joining me on lj! Hooray! Welcomephotogoot.
And lastly, we'd like to tip our hat toprofessortom for this enlighting entry:
The most amusing part to all of this, is how instead of enriching the quality of his comments to further our own intellectual debates with each other and ourselves, he's been denegrated to village-idiot status. Hey, whatever works - and he's much funnier this way regardless.
Monday and Tuesday have been unusually slow in the office. And we've had much cooler weather. This combination has put me in a very good mood. My days have only been marred by the lack of
drax0r's online presence. He's been having his own issues at work. Today, however, my conference call schedule is from 0800-1200; 1330-1500. Damn!Do it.
The Cluck comes out at night,
The Cluck comes out at night...
I like my BSG toys. At first, the Viper was my favorite, as it is the most highly and accurately detailed. But the Galactica is just so awesome - so imposing. I think it my be my favorite now.
galinda822 likes the Raider. I can't wait until October!In a surprising move from my buddy with the head issues a few posts back will soon be joining me on lj! Hooray! Welcome
photogoot.And lastly, we'd like to tip our hat to
professortom for this enlighting entry:The most amusing part to all of this, is how instead of enriching the quality of his comments to further our own intellectual debates with each other and ourselves, he's been denegrated to village-idiot status. Hey, whatever works - and he's much funnier this way regardless.
Tomorrow is my anniversary. We've settled on eight years based on the age of our first child and the year I left the Air Force. We're not 100% on the actual year we were married. That's not what this is about, however. It's about how galinda822 saved my marriage...
( Read more... )
So I was working on the neighbor kid's computer, and could not hit google. Odd. I brought up my own browser and, to ensure it wasn't cached, searched for a word I've not searched for before: asshat.danzigfried, thought you might like the results of that search, as it is your favorite catch-phrase.
galinda822 saved my marriage...( Read more... )
So I was working on the neighbor kid's computer, and could not hit google. Odd. I brought up my own browser and, to ensure it wasn't cached, searched for a word I've not searched for before: asshat.
danzigfried, thought you might like the results of that search, as it is your favorite catch-phrase.I have to be at my secondary work location at 0600. I have NO IDEA what I am still doing up.
I have too many programs open on my mac mini. It is sluggish.
I need to buildgalinda822 a computer for her home office. I am still short a CPU, mobo & case.
I need to rebuild my father's computer, and replace my mother-in-law's.
I'm anticipating an ass-chewing from my boss sometime tomorrow.
I haven't written a haiku in a long, long time.
I have not provided a Higgleosaurous update in many months.
I've been listening to some great music.
I am on the second disc of the second season of The Sopranos.
I need to do a little soft-shoe in the office tomorrow.
I may walk to my office tomorrow morning doing Christopher Walken's choreography from his Weapon of Choice video.
Then again, I may not.
I am so very thankful that I have exciting days filled with lots of various activities, and that my wonderful wife and fantastic children are there when I arrive home. My son had me read him, "The Grinch That Stole Christmas" as his bedtime book this evening. I tried to do my best Boris Karloff impression. I don't know if he noticed or cared. Then little girl fell asleep in my arms as I layed with her after mommy read her book to her. My wife is reading in bed, and I will join her shortly. Life is good.
Goodnight.
I have too many programs open on my mac mini. It is sluggish.
I need to build
galinda822 a computer for her home office. I am still short a CPU, mobo & case.I need to rebuild my father's computer, and replace my mother-in-law's.
I'm anticipating an ass-chewing from my boss sometime tomorrow.
I haven't written a haiku in a long, long time.
I have not provided a Higgleosaurous update in many months.
I've been listening to some great music.
I am on the second disc of the second season of The Sopranos.
I need to do a little soft-shoe in the office tomorrow.
I may walk to my office tomorrow morning doing Christopher Walken's choreography from his Weapon of Choice video.
Then again, I may not.
I am so very thankful that I have exciting days filled with lots of various activities, and that my wonderful wife and fantastic children are there when I arrive home. My son had me read him, "The Grinch That Stole Christmas" as his bedtime book this evening. I tried to do my best Boris Karloff impression. I don't know if he noticed or cared. Then little girl fell asleep in my arms as I layed with her after mommy read her book to her. My wife is reading in bed, and I will join her shortly. Life is good.
Goodnight.
The day after my post detailing that my day is repeatedly identical, everything changes.
Yesterday, I had to rearrange schedules for projects coming up. This left two people in my office normally staffed by five. Myself and one other. I was called on my cell phone this morning before I even got to work. Apparently, one of clients was backing her car in this morning and the accelerator stuck, causing her to crash into the building! Trying to shift into 'Park' she managed 'Drive' instead, and crashed through a wrought-iron fence destroying a parked car on the other side. She was not seriously injured. This caused me to have to move one user this morning from his current office to a new, temporary location, with another move in the works to repair the damage. And as there are only the two of us today, it's very busy...
In a surprising move bygalinda822 she not only was the first non-Brit I've ever heard utter the word 'peckish' but she also identified The Wizard of Oz playing in the background on a Sopranos episode before I did. Wow.
So we record this show, "Honey We're Killing the Kids," about the eating habits of today's youths. They take this couple, and using software, 'age' the children to 40-years old, showing what they could possibly look like if they continue their evil eating ways. After the hour show, they 'age' the children once again to show what they may look like if they stick to eating healthy. While this was all very illuminating, I did notice just a couple of things during the transformation video's of the children in their 40's which was rather disturbing, and far from objective. For example, not only were the 'heavy' (pre-change in eating habits) children well, fat...but they were all generated with balding and/or thin hair, frowns on their faces, and looking downwards. Really, they looked pathetic. However, at the end of the show, when they aged them post-change, not only were they thin (to be expected) but they had happy expressions, all their hair, and were not looking downwards. How sad that what could have been an informational, interesting show pandered to cheap effects to get the desired results.
Posting early for Tony to read...may edit later.
Yesterday, I had to rearrange schedules for projects coming up. This left two people in my office normally staffed by five. Myself and one other. I was called on my cell phone this morning before I even got to work. Apparently, one of clients was backing her car in this morning and the accelerator stuck, causing her to crash into the building! Trying to shift into 'Park' she managed 'Drive' instead, and crashed through a wrought-iron fence destroying a parked car on the other side. She was not seriously injured. This caused me to have to move one user this morning from his current office to a new, temporary location, with another move in the works to repair the damage. And as there are only the two of us today, it's very busy...
In a surprising move by
galinda822 she not only was the first non-Brit I've ever heard utter the word 'peckish' but she also identified The Wizard of Oz playing in the background on a Sopranos episode before I did. Wow.So we record this show, "Honey We're Killing the Kids," about the eating habits of today's youths. They take this couple, and using software, 'age' the children to 40-years old, showing what they could possibly look like if they continue their evil eating ways. After the hour show, they 'age' the children once again to show what they may look like if they stick to eating healthy. While this was all very illuminating, I did notice just a couple of things during the transformation video's of the children in their 40's which was rather disturbing, and far from objective. For example, not only were the 'heavy' (pre-change in eating habits) children well, fat...but they were all generated with balding and/or thin hair, frowns on their faces, and looking downwards. Really, they looked pathetic. However, at the end of the show, when they aged them post-change, not only were they thin (to be expected) but they had happy expressions, all their hair, and were not looking downwards. How sad that what could have been an informational, interesting show pandered to cheap effects to get the desired results.
Posting early for Tony to read...may edit later.
