ehowton: (Default)
2007-11-14 09:12 am
Entry tags:

Personal Workspaces - A History

As directed by [personal profile] melancthe:



1982 Dallas, TX - Home

My first "workstation" was in 1982; long before there were multiple color televisions in every room of the house. Ergo, I had to place my TI 99/4A adjacent my 13" B&W. I remember putting it all on a black trunk I created a desk from. My little brother hated watching television on it, but there was really no other choice. I think later my parents actually moved in a folding table for everything to go on.




1989 Rhome, TX - Home

By the time we moved into our second house in Rhome, I had a proper desk and spent most of my formative years writing apple basic programs. I was still very active on the computer as a Senior in 1988, doing most of my projects on it, while my classmates had moved on to things such as the IBM, Jr. *shiver* You can see the corner of the fancy color-monitor I hooked up as a dual-screen back in 1989 I got on sale at Dillard's for $200. What. A. Geek.




1991 Germany - Dorm

Yes, I brought the Apple IIe to Germany with me. A couple of things: There was no real room for it in the dormitory, and I discovered German bier. I don't recall ever using the computer during my tenure in Germany.




1992 England - Dorm

The computer got a lot more use in the UK as I was there quite a bit longer. I wrote volumes of letters to everyone I knew, running that old Okidata dot matrix ribbon dry. This was the beginning of the end, however, for the old Apple IIe. I moved it to Virginia and set it up in my bedroom, but I was roommates with [profile] photogoot and he had other ideas how to spend our time. When I wasn't deployed (and I was TDY a lot in Virginia) we were playing games on our Super Nintendo, or partying with hordes of lesbians.




1997 Maple Shade, NJ - Home

I purchased a new computer right before I left the Air Force, and used it to secure a job. When I arrived in New Jersey, I purchased what I was sure was The Ultimate Desk. We had a small one-room apartment at Fox Meadow and Feng shui be damned - there was a lot of thought and creativity that went into crafting a usable and livable space. It appears here that a rear-speaker is placed above the coffee mugs adjacent the couch.




1998 Irving, TX - Home

Turns out that desk didn't like being picked up and moved, even if you disassembled it first. Nonetheless, I must've done that three times or so before she finally just disintegrated. Here is the reassembled monster in the living room of our first house. Later, it was (disassembled, moved & reassembled) relocated to the "office" we made from the spare bedroom once we found we were going to have a baby.




1999 Irving, TX - Home Servers

1999 also marks the first year I got a unix server. My first was the behemoth HP9000/755. It was much heavier than it looks. And because they required their own keyboard mouse, monitor and external disks...I had to rethink the role of the workspace.




2000 Andover, MA - Hotel Stay

[profile] drax0r and I were sent to Massachusetts for six and three months respectively. There, we chose to simulate best we could, a working environment. Most of the furniture in my room we moved under the cover of darkness to his room, and set up a rudimentary network, complete with a fileserver, shared printer and scanner, and connected A/V equipment to rip and burn movies from VHS. It was a sight to behold. In fact, unbeknownst to us at the time, two managers were staying in the hotel as well, and had walked by the room when the maid was cleaning it. One said to the other, "See that? That's what we need!"




2001 Boyd, TX - Home + Servers

At my most expansive. Too many monitors, too many discrete boxes requiring their own peripherals. You can see "The Ultimate Desk." It finally gave up the ghost after I pulled all those heavy monitors off it. I traded in the IPX & Rack-mount SPARCstation-2 for my dual-proc SPARCstation-10 and that helped cut down some clutter.




2002 Wichita, KS - Home Server

I took a job in Kansas while living in Texas and commuted for 14-months. During this time I was in used-unix Mecca and finished building out my SPARCstation-10. A buddy in Kansas hung it off his broadband, and [profile] unixwolf hosted my DNS. This box was everything to me during this time, keeping me sane during an insane year that also coincided with the birth of my daughter. My Kansas workspace at work was the best ever! I had a Dell XP box, an Ultra-60, and an HP/UX box. I called [profile] danzigfried last night to try and scrape up something for this entry, alas, no pictures of that exist.




2004 Boyd, TX - Home Servers

Then I hosted the MUD for about a year when I returned from Kansas. The MUD server had lost its home and was on its way to New Mexico with a 400% increase in hosting fees so I traded in my ADSL for SDSL and with a partnership with [personal profile] dentin and [profile] drax0r built-out its new home.




2004 Boyd, TX - Home + Servers

Hanging a head off the back of a rack is something I would turn to again in 2007 for simplicities sake.




2005 Boyd, TX - Home Servers & PC

We moved everything into the formal dining room for awhile. I don't remember why. I think my wife was re-doing the den. As this location had the greatest visibility in the house, she worked double-time on the den project. She hated that the house looked like a data center when you walked in.







2004 Allen, TX - Startup Business

Then [profile] drax0r and I became partners in the startup company Wild Damn Texan. Here's a shot where I spent six full months working instead of sleeping or being with my family. It was a hectic time. We later found out we had it easy...




2005 Arlington, TX - Startup Business

...as we later relocated to much tighter quarters! Here's a shot of [profile] squackle working some voo-doo for us in a rare Texas visit capture.




2005 Fort Worth, TX - Work PC & Workstation

One of my client sites. This is where I learned of the hell which is knows as Sun Blade 100/150. I heavily modified everything I could in that box to give something even close to performance.




2005 Fort Worth, TX - Temp Home setup at [profile] celtmanx's.

Then I sold my house and lived at the Arlington Data Center and with [profile] celtmanx as I awaited my new job in STL. Many, many hours playing Star Trek Elite Force here.




2005 Saint Louis, MO - Hotel Stay

I was in this hotel for six months. Thankfully, little mini there is a fully-functioning unix box and the hotel provided me an externally accessible private-IP. I still had my server quark in Dallas at WDT for everything else until that venture dissolved.




2005 Saint Louis, MO - Work

At work, I required a unix box for projects which never came to fruition outside my XP laptop. This was the "office" when I arrived.




2006 Saint Louis, MO - Work

Later, they moved [profile] galinda822 and I into our own hard-walled office during a reconfiguration move. Those who used to poke fun of me for running linux (like [profile] bigdog_etc) stopped doing so when my blocking tar solution was able to perform >2GB file feats their cut & paste could not.







2006 Saint Louis, MO - Home

My home computer in STL was set up, at one time or another, in every room of the house (or so it seemed). I have those examples, but they're all as equally boring as this, where it ended up: In a basement office my wife & [profile] galinda822 created for me while I was away on a business trip.




2007 Anna, TX - Temp Home + Servers at [profile] drax0r's.

Moving from STL back into the DFW metroplex three months ahead of my wife required that I travel with all the computers I would need. Here they are set up in [profile] drax0r's house, where he graciously hosted us until our house sold and we closed on ours.




2007 Anna, TX - Home Servers

My office today is painted Sun Microsystems colors, and I've culled my collection down to the basics.



2007 Anna, TX - Home Workspace

Simplicity. No visible boxes. Just keyboard, mouse, and speakers. The small size of my office led me to hang everything off the back of the rack, out of sight.



2008 Anna, TX - Home Workspace

Moved my wife in, replaced CRT's with widescreen LCD's, and zip tied all cables to the desk. Moved into the nook to free up wallspace and better utilize the small space in the turret.





2011 Newton, KS - Remote Home Office


Took my job 100% Remote (Work From Home) and moved into the basement of the rent house. (Servers here.)



2012 Wichita, KS - Remote Home Office

MOVED TO WICHITA.



(Click for FULL VIEW goodness)

2013 NEWTON, KS - Remote Home Office

MOVED BACK TO NEWTON.



(Click for FULL VIEW goodness)

2020 ELLINWOOD, KS - Remote Home Office



2020 ELLINWOOD, KS - Basement Server Room

Moved to Ellinwood.
ehowton: (Default)
2007-04-26 02:50 pm
Entry tags:

Adieu

So long farewell, auf weidersehen good-bye...

The U-HAUL Sport Trailer is loaded. It was roomier than I anticipated. Not only did I get everything in which was earmarked to go, I got a lot of other stuff packed as well, including my daughter's bicycle and scooter. LOTS of room in that little trailer. I roll out in the morning.






Oh she move like the Diva do
I said "I'd love to dance like you."
She said "just take off my red shoes
Put them on and your dream'll come true
With no words, with no song
You can dance the dream with your body on
And this curve, is your smile
And this cross, is your heart
And this line, is your path...

--Kate Bush
ehowton: (Default)
2007-04-25 10:34 pm
Entry tags:

"One man's trash..."


People like my garbage. Often, when I'm getting rid of electronics & such, I set them gently aside where the trash is picked up in case anyone wants it. In the morning, the item is usually gone. Sometimes multiple items. Its a scheme which works well in this neighborhood. Yesterday, for example, I set out two VCR's. Both of them in perfect working order. Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough this time. We found that ALL OUR TRASH had been ripped opened on the side of the road and gone through, leaving us a mess to clean up and rebag. Nice. I really do hate people.

PHASE ONE: COMPLETE




Just missed [livejournal.com profile] prog_guy69 during his trip back. He thought he was coming down I-70 but ended up on I-44 :( We had a little chit-chat and with the worsening weather we said our hello's and goodbye's over the phone and they continued ahead of the storm. I'm behind him in two days and I feel certain we'll catch up then. Safe trip C!

[livejournal.com profile] galinda822 took three days of vacation this week so...it was really nice hanging out with her these past couple of days as we prepared the house for moving and went about our routine. Thank you! I'll see her one last time tomorrow night then *poof* I'm gone...




Parallels Update:

Finally got kubuntu 7.0.4 alternate to load & launch under Parallels Workstation by lowering the available RAM from 768MB to 512MB (The Jayson was right after all) and by pretending I was installing & launching Solaris 9. Weird, but true. So far the full-screen mode is flawless, but its not very quick. I've been turning off all the bells and whistles of KDE though, to keep the overhead down. Its an amazing thing - linux, without a reboot. Nice! (if I can ever get it to work). Networking is dodgy at best right now, sometimes working, sometimes not, and I cannot get it to see my USB drive or iPod yet. One of the main reasons for having a running verion of linux via Parallels is for Amarok to play my iPod at work! Well, that and X for work apps. Grrrrr.


Scratch that. I moved from Parallels to VMware Workstation and got kubuntu 7.0.4 up and running in under 15 minutes. Networking works flawlessly. They say Parallels is a godsend for OSX. Perhaps, but it just doesn't hold a candle to VMware under Windows. Plus, I was able to install and run with 768MB of RAM. Snappy too, runs with a quickness. I'm very happy with this combination. Now if I could only get the USB devices to be recognised...
ehowton: (Default)
2007-04-24 06:05 pm
Entry tags:

!SMACKAGE! Grows near...

Cancelled DSL.
Cancelled phone service.
Moved DirecTV to [livejournal.com profile] drax0r's house.
Bought my wife a cell phone.
Had the P.O.D.S. delivered.
Spent $700 on my car:


  • New brakes & rotors

  • Synthetic oil change

  • New wipers

  • New air filter

  • Repair exhaust leak



Packed up everything in the house.
Developed an ear infection.
Took antibiotics for the first time in 2.5 years.
Ate Chipotle for lunch.
ehowton: (Default)
2007-04-23 01:25 pm
Entry tags:

Offline

In preparation for moving, the_max0r, my mac mini, as well as quark, what you know as http://darkvoyager.com will be going offline today, until approximately the 1st week of April. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. My primary XP box is also going down, in preparation for !SMACKAGE! once I arrive in Texas.

No one, of course, is more affected by this than me. I'm losing my iTunes database (which I cannot connect to my laptop as the drive is HFS formatted), and my beloved Gallery. This will of course affect some of the entries on my livejournal, as well as other shares I have on outside forums. My DSL will be active, however until Friday, the 27th, as I will have my laptop up and running until then.

So far, I have three days to have my P.O.D.S. delivered and loaded, the hitch put on the Cav and the trailer attached, and the DSL and alarm system turned off. I have to have the phone turned off and get my wife a cell phone. I also require an oil change and a brake job. Lots yet do, in so little time. I pack the car Thursday evening, I'm off to Wichita Friday morning, and in Texas Saturday afternoon.




In other news [livejournal.com profile] danzigfried is sending me the DVD Box set of Hyperdrive. How cool is that? I know [livejournal.com profile] celtmanx will enjoy it, and I can't wait to unveil this to [livejournal.com profile] drax0r. Thanks danzig, that's an awesome surprise!

Little girl is ill. Based on her symptoms and the run-time the entire family experienced while she was gone, she'll be better tomorrow. Concerning, however, the maturity level of boys vs. girls, I can now definitively add this to my findings: My 7-year old boy held the 'barf bucket' in his hands as he vomited all over the floor. My 4-year old daughter, however, had a much shorter learning curve, using it immediately upon my explanation of what it was for, and how to use it. Far less mess.

I suppose I really ought to sign off now, and pull the plug on my servers.
ehowton: (Default)
2007-04-13 12:00 pm
Entry tags:

STL: A Retrospective

Time changes everything. Its inevitable and inarguable. Many things have changed since this entry...

The Sleeper has Awakened!



The top ten things I like about STL:


  1. [livejournal.com profile] galinda822

  2. IMO's Pizza

  3. Morgan Street Brewery

  4. PX Liquors

  5. Overland, MO

  6. I-70

  7. Gooey Butter Cake



  8. [livejournal.com profile] bigdog_etc







Thinning the pile

Rec'd a call from [livejournal.com profile] drax0r. Due to mitigating circumstances beyond his control (and for that case, my own, easily embodied in that of my wife) it was time to trim the fat. We took a long hard look at the pile of boxes which have been sitting in his garage for the last 18 months, and decided what to keep, and what to toss. I tell you, it wasn't easy. Ultimately, we chose to get rid of all the SPARC32 boxes (1xSPARCstation-5, 1xSPARCstation-10, 1xSPARCstation-20), both the Indigo's, and the B-series HP/9000. *sigh* Mr. [livejournal.com profile] drax0r is stripping the 18GB 10k SCSI drives & SCSI CD-ROMs from the departing boxes. From this pile we're keeping two HP/9000 model 712's (to create one good one - the shell of the other will be tossed; hey, they run 11i so leave me alone), the RAVE, the U30 (which I will use for parts when the U60 arrives, then likely toss that as well) and the Ultra-1 (I don't know why). Either way, my Octane will replace the lost Indigo's and if anyone wants the Ultra-1, just let me know. It's an Enterprise edition and in great shape.







IE & The GIMP
For those of you who have the notify option when "One of my friends uploads a new userpic" please accept my sincere apologies for my rash of 'iPod' attempts. Since uninstalling Adobe Photoshop CS2 from my work computer, I've had great difficulty creating high quality userpics. I needed the Shuffle avatar for The Worlds Smallest MP3 Player + kubuntu post, so I turned to GIS and found a source image, but the pre-loaded image manipulation package on my kubuntu box didn't appear to do transparencies. So...I bit the bullet and installed GIMP. This was issue #1. Because I'm not as familiar with the interface, it took me FOREVER to produce a cropped transparent PNG file (I adore recursive acronyms) Grrrrrr. Couple this with the fact that while I was cleaning up my work computer I also retardedly uninstalled Firefox. Ergo, every PNG file I made displayed with a 50% gradient background rather than a transparent one. I THOUGHT I WAS DOING SOMETHING WRONG. Later that evening, at home, it took me 45-seconds to create the image with Photoshop and it displayed accordingly in Mozilla.
ehowton: (Default)
2007-02-16 12:58 pm
Entry tags:

Life



I was driving into work this morning remembering when my children liked nothing more than being pulled around the acreage in Texas in their little red wagon. It was very boring for me to cart them around the house and around the backyard in their wagon, but they really enjoyed it, so that's what I did. Today, I really missed the simplicity of that. I never thought I'd be one of those parents who 'looked back' with fondness & longing. I guess I was wrong.





I was at work late yesterday, so for giggles I booted the UX280P with my external laptop drive installation of kubuntu via USB. It made my naughty-bits tingle logging in. How very cool. Of course with the tether to the external drive, its functionality becomes greatly limited (unless I were to install it directly to the device) but way fun anyway - ubuntu handles wireless very well, and it was just fun to play with it, despite that I had nothing really to do with it once it was up and running.





During [livejournal.com profile] photogoot's visit, he was on a quest to photograph the arch. I stumbled upon this photograph of me quite by accident on his pbase photography site. I was likely trying to photograph him shooting the arch. It was during this part of the trip we were actually standing on the top-deck of the Casino Queen in zero-degree weather on a very windy night, accentuated by being elevated right on on the water.


ehowton: (Default)
2007-02-12 06:25 pm
Entry tags:

Baby, It's Cold Outside...


THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ST LOUIS HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 4 PM CST TUESDAY. THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

RAIN WILL BEGIN TO MIX WITH SLEET TOWARD MIDNIGHT AND TRANSITION TO ALL SNOW TOWARD DAYBREAK. PERIODS OF SNOW WILL CONTINUE THROUGH THE MORNING AND EARLY AFTERNOON ON TUESDAY. SIGNIFICANT SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 OR MORE INCHES IS EXPECTED BY TUESDAY AFTERNOON.

A GUSTY NORTH WIND BEHIND THE STORM SYSTEM WILL LIKELY CAUSE CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF THE SNOW... LOCALLY REDUCING THE VISIBILITY TO LESS THAN A MILE DURING THE DAY ON TUESDAY.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS THAT A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF SNOW... SLEET AND/OR ICE IS EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.




"It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed." - U.S. Air Force Manual








"THE OFFICE WILL REMAIN OPEN IN SPITE OF TODAY'S INCLEMENT WEATHER. HOWEVER, ASSOCIATES MAY LEAVE BEGINNING AT NOON WITHOUT BEING REQUIRED TO TAKE PTO.

U.S. POSTAL OUTGOING MAIL MUST BE IN THE MAILROOM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE TODAY. BECAUSE THE RECEPTION DESK WILL NOT BE STAFFED, THE FRONT OFFICE DOORS WILL BE LOCKED AT 1 P.M."

That's everyone but myself, and my staff...half of whom didn't make it in today.


ehowton: (Default)
2007-01-21 02:15 pm
Entry tags:

Non-osmatic, semi-permiable, non-nutritive cereal varnish

Since the snow last month, my wife purchased some sleds for the kids when it snowed again. Today was that day. We broke them out and the children screamed with glee as they made their way down the gentle slope in our back yard. Received a call from my wife's cousin in Wichita telling stories of an inch of snow per hour. They ended up with eight-inches. We got two.


Niobe enjoys the fresh snowfall.

Later, we all had a snowball fight. I secured my defensive point, quickly assembled an arsenal, and owned! There's no snow in the 10-day forecast, but around here you never know.



My car makes a great fortification and keeps ammo at an easy reach.

The insurance adjuster showed up early Saturday morning, did his thing and left. I'm expecting a check in the mail for the damages.

Unsheathed the grill - there was no damage, so grilled chicken quesadilla's for dinner. That's not the first time I've grilled in the snow.

Spent the remainder of the day camped out on the couch.
ehowton: (Default)
2007-01-07 10:08 pm
Entry tags:

[livejournal.com profile] photogoot's Visit

Rec'd Terminal Velocity (I've listened to it twice now) and ordered The Pajama Game Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (thanks to [livejournal.com profile] 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.

[livejournal.com profile] 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, [livejournal.com profile] 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 [livejournal.com profile] bigdog_etc, aka, Mr. Cluck!

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
ehowton: (Default)
2006-12-16 12:15 am
Entry tags:

Christmas Party

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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!
  3. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN:
  4. 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 [livejournal.com profile] galinda822 and [livejournal.com profile] 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.


ehowton: (Default)
2006-11-26 09:43 pm
Entry tags:

Unix Day

Went to the park and took pics of the kids:



Relocated and booted the Octane. Could not get it to init a display. Set it aside.
Dusted off and powered on quark, my Solaris 9 box.
Tried to remember how to use unix, managed to mount the CDROM and patched it.
Removed stupid webmin & communigate, changed registrar entry to reflect new addy.
Rebuilt my XP box from scratch, though the Lexmark website was down all day, so I couldn't install the printer driver, the largest of the reasons I went back to XP.
Smoked a cigar (or two) with neighbors outside as we're enjoying low 60's here and new lady neighbor was out.
Met another lady who worked on mainframes in the Air Force, and who was stationed in England.
My wife spied glühwein at Whole Foods and we picked up four bottles. I also found this little gem, a Wizen Icebock. It was as rich as port, and made my tummy happy.



Watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith until bedtime, where I played with routing all evening, after disabling
my modem from too much tweaking. Hense, I was offline most of the day. What a pain in my balls. My
boy and I enjoyed some Playstation together, and with XP back online I was able to reload my daughter's
princess games, so she was thrilled. My wife was in and out most of the day, so I really don't know
what she was doing - I saw her only intermittently throughout the day.
ehowton: (Default)
2006-10-25 12:11 pm
Entry tags:

Go Cards

Today was 'Cardinals' day at work. We could wear jeans in today if we wore Cardinals attire. Now, I'm not into sports. And as a Texan, I certainly have no Cardinals raiment. But since wearing jeans here is such a damn rare thing, and I've been travelling during all the previous 'jeans days' over the last year, I was jumping at this chance. My mission? Find a Cardinals shirt.

It was much tougher than I anticipated. EVERYONE carried t-shirts, but not only was I not going to wear a t-shirt, I had even sent out a communication to all my folks reminding them that as contractors, we were to set the example and I strictly limited what they could wear. What I was hoping to find was either a red button-down oxford with the Cardinals logo on it, or a similar shirt in a polo. Alas, nothing. As we were checking out of Target my wife asked the lady in front of her where she'd picked up her Cardinals jersey. "Value City." Hmmmm. Not exactly my type of store. Nonetheless, we stopped by. Not only was the staff very pleasant, they had something other than just t-shirts. A lady helped me pick out a white jersey in my size, and suggested a blue turtleneck to 'dress it up' for work, which they also carried. My mission was a success!





(2:35:26 PM) drax0r: I almost didn't recognize you in a STL baseball jersey.

Funny thing about turtlenecks, I used to wear them quite a bit. Each winter I'd get a L.L. Bean catalog and "Ooh" and "Aah" over the 99 colors of turtlenecks they sold. Then I'd end up buying only one white, and one black.
ehowton: (Default)
2006-09-15 10:19 am
Entry tags:

(no subject)

My wife accidentally bought a bag of chicken thighs (she usually purchases boneless chicken breasts). I haven't grilled anything on the bone in a long time. I threw them down on the grill once it was ready and decided almost at once I wouldn't grill them, I would barbecue them. With the flame set oh so low, I tossed a packet of Jack Daniel's smoking pellets on one of the burners and smoked them for 20 minutes or so prior to dumping an entire bottle of BBQ sauce on the thighs and slow-cooking them for about half an hour while the wife and I sat adjacent the grill smoking cigars and drinking red wine. I tossed on another smoking packet just for good measure at that point, and 20 minutes later, removed them from the grill. It was the most tender, most flavorful chicken I've cooked in quite a while.




Putting my little girl to bed last night, she was showing me she could whistle. I showed her how she could make songs by changing the pitch and duration of her notes. As an example, I whistled the theme to SpongeBob Squarepants. She was fascinated. She began picking out books for me to whistle about. For a book on butterflies, I chose Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee for lack of anything more appropriate in this impromptu recital. When she pulled out Sleeping Beauty I immediately began Tchaikovsky's ballet of the same name. When I left, I went looking for my CD. I've been neglecting some of my classical music here lately, and decided I wanted to listen to it while I was working on the pics of my kitties last night. Much to my surprise, I found that I didn't own it! So...I'm now in the process of downloading it in the interim, and researching which conductor/orchestra/label I should purchase. I also found that I don't actually own Swan Lake either. As many classical music CD's as I have, and I don't have those staples (and I really thought I had Sleeping Beauty on a cheap label disc). Well, researching the perfect album is half the fun!

Speaking of music, I revisited my TELARC discs this morning, and chose for the drive in, my introduction to the label, the 1984 "Time Warp." It made me wish I had something (anything really) in the car other than the stock stereo. What a great disc.




MY wife read in a magazine that "The Game of Life" was an excellent tool in which to help teach children to read. Because the children want to play "Star Wars Monopoly", and I'd rather swallow my own tongue than to do that again - she bought "SpongeBob Squarepants The Game of Life" today. And that, my friends, is what [livejournal.com profile] galinda822 and I are doing for movie night tonight. This is also the reason I'm picking up a 12-pack of Pilsner Urquell after work.






Nine days in NY. Lots of eggs and such for breakfast at the various hotels we stayed in. There was only one thing I wanted with my bacon and biscuits and eggs: Gravy. Thick, sausage, white cream gravy. Bill and my boss laughed and laughed at my 'forgetting' what part of the nation I was in that I expected gravy with my breakfast. Alas, on the Tuesday before I left, the Hampton Inn had an entire vat of sausage gravy! Looking back, I don't recall if I actually ate anything with my gravy, or if I consumed the gravy as a standalone item...




I'm booked for D.C. Friday the 6th through Saturday the 14th. I have lots going on that week. On my flight to NY I picked up John Irving's newst book, Until I Find You. Now, this is no small undertaking (and George Eliot's Middlemarch is going to have to take a backseat to this one) because this is a rather lengthy composition. As is his usual style, he's running the gamut of epic proportions by encompassing (what appears to me at 1/3 through the book) the majority of the lead characters lifespan. So far, so good (if you're into John Irving) but I've forbidden my wife to read it as it contains quite a bit of unsettling graphic material that I know she won't care for. Most of the John Irving books I've read have had a great impact on my life (though admittedly I did read the majority of them as an impressionable young man) but I really don't expect this one to be any different. I'll let you know what I think, and I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on the matter if you're a fan.



Low and behold, as I was reading this entry to my wife, she mentions, "You have Swan Lake. I put it in our daughters room." She found it in her bureau. I thought I had that one! She said Sleeping Beauty was in there too.
ehowton: (Default)
2006-06-13 08:35 pm
Entry tags:

UNBELIVABLE!

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:











  1. [livejournal.com profile] galinda822


ehowton: (Default)
2006-06-13 05:57 am
Entry tags:

Zero-Dark-What?

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 have [livejournal.com profile] 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.
ehowton: (Default)
2006-04-24 11:18 am
Entry tags:

It Is A Good Day to Die

Fantastic, wonderful weather we're having here in Saint Louis. Almost Texas weather. Makes me smile. I've been itching to play Dungeon Siege II but two things are stopping me. The first, I have no time to play. With two small children which require my constant attention when I get home from work, there is never any opportunity to play video games. The second, is that I really prefer to play as a LAN game. For me it's like, 1000-times more fun than sitting alone at a computer playing, or playing some unknown jerk-off online. I like the noise and excitement and raw energy of a LAN game. And I just don't have that here.

Still, I may purchase it just to play an hour or so each evening. I only have one Windows box left, and it's frame buffer leaves something to be desired. I may even upgrade my video card *sigh*.

It's Monday and the alcoholic haze of the weekend has cleared and the ache from working around the house dulls as I settle into my sedentary job once more. The phone calls and emails and tickets have been manageable this morning, but all I want to do is game. I have the itch. There have been few occasions in which I have been able to game to my heart's content:

Read more... )

Furthermore, I just discovered that my title is one I used on 8/31/05.

Taking the wife out for Indian food (her choice) tonight for our anniversary. This is possible because [livejournal.com profile] galinda822 has offered to watch this children this evening. That reminds me, I need to see to reservations...
ehowton: (Default)
2006-04-23 08:33 pm
Entry tags:

How Galinda Saved My Marriage

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 [livejournal.com profile] 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. [livejournal.com profile] danzigfried, thought you might like the results of that search, as it is your favorite catch-phrase.
ehowton: (Default)
2006-02-28 03:09 pm
Entry tags:

(no subject)


My boy discovered one of his friends at school lives next door. They played outside yesterday. Each of the boys brought out some trucks. My daughter brought out some dolls. They didn't want to play with her and her dolls. She came back in and asked, "Will you find me some girl friends daddy?" So we walked around the block last night looking for girl friends for my daughter. We were unsuccessful :(

The American release of the Japanese MagiRanger premiered last week. I Tivo'd it for my son and finally got a chance to watch most of it last night. Mystic Force Power Rangers. It's amazing how they can change the entire story, and still use the Japanese fight scenes. Its also amazing how bad this is comparatively.

Looking into a console DVD recorder now that I have a Tivo. Found an off-brand on target.com for $119 that also has a USB port on it. Sweet!

Set up my CentOS/RaQ 550 box. The update URL is a non-working address, but a co-worker of mine managed to fine a mirror of sorts which works with the software update just fine. There is of course a lot more to this than meets the eye, so I'll be playing with my test box in scripting updates automatically and locking down the system before I deploy it at home (on my new anemic 384kbps connection).

In other news, they've just released a new mac mini with an optional dual-core Intel chip and other fantastic updates that makes mine suddenly feel like an old first-gen Macintosh :=)



ehowton: (Default)
2006-02-21 11:40 am
Entry tags:

It's really never a day off...

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...

It was 70 degrees when I left St. Louis. The weather in Wichita was supposed to be 30. I packed accordingly. Turns out, it was three (3). Three degrees. Ouch.

We're so glad you could attend, Come inside! Come inside!

I ordered a 10' truck from U-Haul. What I picked up was a 1989 Toyota with a 3.0 litre V6 and no radio. On long slopes up, I couldn't get above 45mph. Once I got through Kansas City on the way back, however, I was able to hit 75mph on the downhill slopes. I had my son in the truck with me the first five hours, and my daughter the last five hours. You heard right, the 6-hour trip took me 10.

There behind a glass is a real blade of grass...

Applebee's. I hate Applebee's. So somehow we end up with us 4 adults on one side of the table and the three kids on the other side. Myself and my wife's cousins on the outside, the two women in the middle. The waiter stands next to me and asks how we want the check divided. I tell him, "I'll take it, just bring it to me." He leaves. My wife's cousin said, "What did you say?"
"Don't worry about it. He was standing next to me. I win." He didn't look happy. I had my debit card in the little holder on the edge of the table for the waiter to pick up when he came back around, when all of a sudden, his daughter - who had been low-crawling behind the adults, popped up, snatched the bill from the edge of the table, and ran! She gave her father the bill and walked my card back to me with the air of success. I had to admit defeat. That was the most creative way I've seen to take the bill.

Be careful as you pass, Move along! Move along!

Two days worth of email. Two days worth of voice mail. Everything is an emergency. Interviewed a new person today. She can start immediately. I wish she could start sooner. My wife is on my ass to get my expense reports in. My boss is on my ass for the same reason. I'm staying late tonight to accomplish just that. My wife made some wicked-fantastic chili yesterday. I'm looking forward to eating that again tonight.