The Empirical Manifesto

I feel as though a heavy weight has been lifted from me; I am light as air - best mood I've been in for months! In fact, looking back, I don't even know how she was able to pull off exerting such crippling control over me. It has all the tell-tale signs of an abusive relationship; I just didn't see it. It was so insidious I didn't even notice it happening and I swore to myself I'd never live like that again, yet here I was.

Please understand, I am not accusing anyone of purposely being abusive, simply that these things can sometimes occur in the background without either party being aware, but once identified, they lose their iron-grip of power immediately, which is where I now find myself. There are indicators of controlling relationships that I didn't think applied for obvious reasons - that being, falling in love with my wife's BFF - so they seemed reasonable until she was able to get a handle on them I think, as we all sometimes do. I now believe it was these perspectivally humble beginnings which caused me to be blinded to their escalation; being told when and when not to communicate, and jealousy which increases instead of subsides, that sort of thing. But it was the last two of these three which completely blindsided and ensnared me:

• A controlling partner will tell you what you are and are not allowed to do.


• A controlling partner twists your experience around.


• A controlling partner will always say that their emotions are your fault.

During one six-month period she demanded I stop texting BFF but allowed me one email per day. Because she wasn't making any attempt to offset the loss, I became withdrawn, and crawled into myself for six months. There was no physical affection, no emotional affection, and no interaction - for half a year. At the conclusion of her little experiment, and myself very nearly completely broken, she told the BFF that our marriage was, "the best it's ever been." After re-establishing communication with the BFF, she redoubled her efforts for me to cut all communication. That's a controlling partner telling you what you are and are not allowed to do.

As far as twisting experiences around, readers of this blog are probably bored with the many times I bring up endeavoring to practice, to the fullest extent, transparency, vulnerability, dialogue, and reciprocity. Gaslighting - if that's what this is - absolutely works, which is why it took me so long to see it. I wrote these words over a week ago:

When transparency is seen as betrayal, vulnerability is subject to judgment, reciprocity is nonexistent despite clear, unequivocal communication for it, intimacy no longer exists.

 
Her reaction to the most pure things I have to offer, were twisted into their dark, opposite meanings. I saw it, but didn't understand that's what was happening.

The last one has been the most difficult because I suggested therapy. And our Licensed Master Social Worker agreed with my wife that her emotions were indeed...my fault, and as she is speaking from a position of authority, is to be believed.

But on to a brighter future! Once I realized what had happened to my life over the last 12-months, I was immediately shed from (most, not all) fears and self-doubts. The behavior I was beholden to lost its control because this is absolutely NOT how mature, adult relationships are supposed to work. I remember wringing my hands thinking if my wife and BFF stopped being friends would I ever see her again? That was the controlling relationship reaction. As it stands now, I may drive out there and stay the weekend. My wife is welcome to join me if she likes, but never again will she tell me what I can and cannot do. Since she won't freely give me the same respect I give her, I'll simply operate under assumption of the same respect.

I started the session by recounting the key points in HEXAREQUISITE, Pt. IV - Isolation and that became the focus of our therapists' interaction. Sure enough she wanted to know specifically which needs of mine weren't being met - which I challenged (as I believe creating a process; framework for any needs far more important than focusing solely on whatever the need du jour may be, but I digress). She then asked how I justify my current behavior with not wanting to hurt my wife. "Easy, her being hurt has nothing to do with why she hurts, it's just an easy target. If I stopped and focused on someone else instead she'd feel the same, so something else is going on outside my control."

Most of the conversation addressed our daily life and ended up being about expectation management. When she asked my wife directly, "What are your expectations surrounding the BFF?" She mentioned how I'd been friend-zoned and I should just get over it like everyone else. But I wasn't going to let her off that easy, "So I should act/react exactly as you would? Seriously? And besides, your expectation alone doesn't change anything - how does it manifest in such a way that it interferes with our relationship??"

Then we did the communication exercise. We sat facing away from each other and I was given a pen and whiteboard, my wife was given a sheet of paper with a series of geometric objects arranged in a specific order. She had to describe the image in such a way I would be able to draw it, then we switched roles with a different series of geometric objects. When we completed the exercise the therapist wanted to know what, if anything, we learned. My wife told her she learned I trust her judgement and don't worry about mistakes. When it looked like that was the end of the therapists involvement we asked her simultaneously, "...but did YOU learn anything?"

I don't remember what all she said except that based on my reactions waiting for the next instruction when I was drawing and how quickly I was firing off my own instructions when I wasn't, she could tell I processed information quickly or something to that effect, which reinforced my need for connection.

I'm just grateful my wife is such a brilliant, caring person because honestly - who else would put up with me under these circumstances?

The confluence of events which transpired are fairly simple - my wife had recently started watching the David Statham sci-fi series, Alphas and "that girl you like from Terminator" was guest starring. So we all sat and watched the episode where Summer Glau played Skylar, a super-genius single mom.

During the course of the episode, the leader-dude walks behind the counter of a missing co-worker's home, looking for clues. While the rest of us were focusing on the dialog and the leading man, my wife saw something entirely different in this frame:



She saw the knife block.

After a little digging I found it available for $160. Six months later I got it for half that on Amazon. But not before running across a blog which asks,

"CAN someone explain to me why anyone would buy the voodoo knifeman kitchen block? It is unfathomable why this sickening knife 'toy' (for adults, allegedly) is still on sale for use in the home."

My wife is fascinated by (she's named him, "Mojo") the artistic beauty of such a functional piece of equipment which has gone above and beyond the characteristically mundane. The flowing shape and vibrant color is certainly eye-catching, and she envisions the entire kitchen being a prelude to making him its focal point.

I replied to that blog above - screened, as it has not been published at the time of this writing - to the point that where some people see disgust, others see beauty. The only thing unfathomable to me, is how some people cannot comprehend that other people may see things differently than they do.

Happy anniversary, sweetheart:

catttitude dreamed that she and michelle1963 were abroad and had just purchased some peppermint candies at a shop in the outdoor souq/market district during a day of sightseeing and shopping. The candies had tasted horrible, so they spat them out - this particular shop was known for infusing narcotics in the candies to hide from the law, but tourists didn't know that - but it was too late! They were collected as evidence from a drug sting operation by the local authorities and the two girls were sentenced to prison!

michelle1963 went right to work in the dark prison library trying to prove that they were being held there illegally as she had figured out they were set up, but when the warden sent in bullies in to prevent her from doing so, my wife knew her only way out was her cousin's book-smart success, so she took the only course of action she could - she took the beatings for her. She took the beatings for her cousin so she could pour through the tomes of law seeking for proof. She took the beatings...and learned to fight back.

One day the warden had gotten wind that michelle1963 had been passing documents to an American lawyer, and to address this indiscretion he was going to punish her by caning. Because of her tiny stature and my wife's rationalization that she would be better equipped to internalize the pain, she talked the warden into having her caned instead, which he did, but at more cost than just the caning - so far, each time catttitude had interfered, each beating she had taken, and doled out, more time had been tacked onto her sentence. After the caning, she was sent to the infirmary to watch for infection, but her only worry was concerned with michelle1963 being unprotected.

Thankfully, she'd gotten word that her cousin was okay - no one had hurt her. The night she was released from the infirmary she and her cousin both were asleep in their cell when some guards came in and held down my wife while they bound michelle1963's hands and placed a bag over her head! My wife later discovered she had been sent back to America because she was too much of a threat within the prison walls.

Life afterwards was different; desolate without her cousin there to protect. But she'd gained the respect of the other inmates she had fought, and for something to do started checking their teeth. Soon, she was cleaning teeth and teaching them oral hygiene. Thereafter she started an exercise program with the inmates and started teaching them Taekwondo. All this positive reinforcement caught the attention of the guards who started asking her to look at their teeth too, and eventually asked her to teach them Twekwondo as well.

The warden was impressed with her work and mandated that she teach all his guards Taekwondo. Impressed again with her dental skills, he assigned her to medical to assist the resident dentist. She did this presumably for years, settling into a fairly comfortable routine, despite her incarceration.

That is to say, until michelle1963 got word to her near her release date that I also had been imprisoned...and was soon to be executed for treason!

catttitude used her influence with the warden to request a meeting with me because she was worried about my being in solitary confinement all alone with my thoughts and with zero human interaction. When she finally got to me her worse fears had been realized, that it was destroying me. Once again, she put herself in harms way and was able to bargain for my release by accepting the remainder of my sentence, which they were thrilled to accept because she was such an asset to the prison. I was to give our children the message that their mother loved them very much and missed them and that their love kept her going all these long years. I was released and sent back to America where I joined forces with michelle1963 to help set catttitude free.

The dentist my wife worked for in the prison had an ailing doctor friend who had a young daughter and catttitude was sent to live with them to learn their culture as the last part of her sentence - an internship in place of my death sentence. After some years with the doctor and his daughter she'd nursed him back to health. She'd grown close with the family but the doctor had discovered that my wife had Stage IV cancer and it was on his recommendation that she be freed - sent home, do die. When she arrived in the states she was pleased to discover it was just a benign cyst in her intestines, easily removed by the American doctors - which meant only one thing - the doctor had set her free the only way he knew how, and at no danger to himself, as thanks for her efforts and concern.

We were all reunited, and she wanted to return the thanks somehow to the doctor without getting him in trouble, so she changed her Last Will and Testament to leave the doctor and his daughter money in the hopes that just a little bit of American dollars would give them more than enough for the rest of their days.

---

Prisons can often stand for a set of beliefs that limit the dreamer's personal development or progress. The dream may help us escape this limitation by forcing us to confront them and examine what triggered them. There may be a feelings of desire to break free from social convention.

If you are sentenced to prison or beaten up, this suggests strong feelings of regret and that you are going to change your life and make a new start.

Various types of prisons are common dream settings and they appear at times when something or someone if your life is restricting your sense of freedom. If you have such a dream, your dreaming mind is urging you to consider whether your loss of freedom is self-enforced; it is urging you to be honest with yourself about the causes and cost of being imprisoned. Such dreams may also symbolize a deep-rooted feeling that you are not able to fully express yourself.

When someone else is seen in prison, this refers to a part of yourself that you are unable to reveal to others and even to yourself.

When someone is released from prison in your dream, it signified changes that may have taken place within your life - its is also a sign that you will overcome obstacles that may be holding you back at the moment.

I dreamed several nights ago that I awoke in the morning like I always do, at the touch of my wife. Most unusually however, she was wearing an orange bodysuit. One of those long-sleeved, all-in-one jobs. Not only was I surprised (and a bit confused) I found the confounded thing a real chore to get into.

Orange has many associations, in particular with generosity and optimism. It is considered to be a color of warmth, thoughtfulness, wisdom and sociability, and it is connected with sunshine and light. Dreams in which orange features are often taken as signs of positive change within the dreamer's life, but it is also important to point out that orange also has associations with mistrust, uncertainty and doubt.

Glad we cleared that up!

Then again, it could just be the three large pumpkins sitting on my front porch, what I consider the official start of Autumn (Halloween) right around the corner, a monkey-pattered snuggie my wife purchased for an upcoming baby-shower, Denise Slaughter coming to mind (she used to wear them when I knew her) and this (NSFW) picture Scott Church posted.

I'm very complicated.

I'm in Newton, KS on an unscheduled trip. After resting all weekend recovering from my 72-hour week, I'll have been awake 28-hours prior to starting my 12-hour day.

Joy.

I was planning on working remotely the first part of this week, but it looks like I'll be converting my time to bereavement leave sometime in the next 12-24 hours.

My wife and her cousin are on watch, augmenting those who stood before us. It was a six-hour whirlwind trip of coffee. My wonderful parents drove to Anna to retrieve the children allowing my wife and her cousin the freedom of movement to focus on their paternal grandmother.

Mennonites abound.

To all the mom's and mom's mom's and mom's mom's mom's. My own mom got cards from the kids, and a call from me; my kid's mom got two dozen roses and tons of cards and kid's made cake. While I've been keeping the front yard a putting green, I haven't touched my back yard in a turn of the season, and the four-foot tall thistles were a testament to my words - were. For Mother's Day, I mowed them down. We've turned this "Mother's Day" into a "Mother's Weekend." And tomorrow, I'm making pancakes! I sure love that woman. More than words can express...

So we're re-watching Supernatural. Seasons 1-4. Again. And this time, we're going to watch Season 5 (which we've never seen). Very excited. Season six comes out 10-days before my birthday. I've already planted the seed...

Here lately I've had a new recurring theme to my dreams - and frankly, it frightens me. I'm in my car, and for whatever reason, decide to start driving backwards. This is fine until the brakes don't work, and I cannot stop. I'm frantically trying to steer (not always effectively, as the car will often not respond to the wheel being turned) as I jump between attempting to drive via the rear-view mirror, and turning around to look out the back glass.

I have had this dream multiple times over the last several months, and according to The Element Encyclopedia of 20,000 Dreams there are multiple items at play here (bold words occur in the text of the book):

All vehicles symbolize a means for experience or the progress you are making in life...Your dreaming mind may be urging you to slow down - particularly if brakes feature in the dream. If the pedals were not working properly do you need more energy to make further progress in waking life? Car mirrors are clear symbols of looking at the past and seeing the effect of past events on your possible plans for the future and if you are reversing your car you may suffer from a sense of not getting anywhere.

Out of this I have to assume that I'm going nowhere, fast. Or at least that's how my unconscious mind feels, and let's face it, I can almost always find a direct correlation between it and my conscious mind, and here lately, that wouldn't be much of a stretch.

But it gets weirder!

Last night there was a twist - I was driving a motherfucking school bus. In the bus were only my wife and two children, and I was driving them to school. But I got stuck in traffic at a light so I put the bus in reverse and started backing up - you know what happens next of course - the brakes wouldn't work and I hit a police car. I finally made it to school but got lost walking the children through the maze-like hallways. And what this means (again according to the book) seems to fall lock-step with truth to the point its eerie:

If you are driving the bus this suggests a willingness to guide others. Pay attention to the people you are driving as this might suggest your feelings of responsibility toward them. If you are stuck in a dream traffic jam this reflects your frustrations in life whilst a police car will signify the need for discipline in life. School buildings symbolize lessons to be learned, that more growth is required and entering a labyrinth represents rapid change and a journey toward self-discovery.

Yep. That's me. Guiding my family as I work to re-discover myself completely frustrated and without discipline, and getting absolutely nowhere.

Speeding in reverse.

Clones do not balance. Its not their purpose. And in point of fact, with a clone who's base properties are so complementary to my own, it could very possibly destroy us both if left solely to our own desires.

My wife and I have been sitting even-keeled on the see-saw of life for over a decade now, unmoving. This is a good thing. I've been in relationships before where that board swung violently from lock-to-lock, and while initially thrilling, experience has taught me that the rush of the high simply does not justify the sickening feeling of the drop which occurs over time. But there's only one thing powerful enough to really teach you that: The love of a good woman.

With a clone sitting adjacent me on my side of the teeter-totter, things are currently unbalanced, and I'm seeking to regain that equilibrium. Only that which has kept us there can bring us back - the balance my wife brings to our marriage. But how is she going to overcome the added weight?

In a word, strength.

Sure she's impulsive where I'm cautious, but spontaneity lies within that impulse and because she's too selfless to wield it foolishly, she only brings it out to benefit the both of us and it has enriched my life. Too often, when things become rote, we tend to forget we're not immutable beings - I myself am such a creature of habit without my wife's flair for the dramatic I cannot imagine which hole I would have buried myself under by now without her. Our walls are blue our columns are orange - sure she hates it, but that never, ever stops her from trying, and for most of us walking this earth, that's the only way to discover true success.

My wife and I are very responsible people - often trading our own wants for the benefit of the family unit - and at times its GREAT FUN. Other times...not so much. Regardless, that's what I like to call, "life." Many people are surprised by "life" but when you've experienced so much of it as we have, you begin to be prepared for whatever it may throw at you, and it seems to ceaselessly find new ways to do just that.

My wife and I weren't attracted to each other through anything as fleeting as commonality in activities, rather through a ferocity of spirit we identified in each other early on - though it took many fun years to be able to articulate that to each other! Its the same spirit she shares with my clone. And she'll only grow stronger with my clone and I feeding her our particular brand of awesome, and that is going to be how she does it. Balance through strength.

When I was my son's age, I remember my father driving us to Corsicana from Dallas in my great-grandfather's 1963 Chevy stepside pickup. It was winter, and the truck had very little heat, and what heat it had, it didn't retain due to the drafty gaps around the doors and windows. I had to sit in the floorboard of the truck for heat. I tried to explain this to my son as he bitched about the sound quality coming from his headphones on the portable DVD player strapped to the back of my wife's headrest. Instead of visiting with each other during the long drive to Wichita, I put on my noise-canceling headphones as well, and slipped into silence as I drove seven hours North up the interstate. My wife watched movies on her Nano, and my daughter watched her DVD. A family of four, each with headphones, engrossed in their own world. It was not unlike the human's eventuality in Wall-E. The road noise in the cabin of my little sports car, allowed in from having removed the sound-buffer from the back hatch in trying to get the car packed sounded like sitting in an aircraft. The controls of the dash glowing an unnatural blue - and my seat moved forward in an uncomfortable crouch as I made room for my growing daughter's legs behind me made me feel as if I were piloting a very small, very fast plane. Darkness surrounded the vehicle and I got lost in Batman: The Animated Series and Millennium (both are fantastic) as we shot up the dark highway.

Only six hours sleep and we were on our way back home. Pulling out even as my wife's parents were still visiting with us. It was twenty degrees in Wichita, and seventy in Texas. We made serious tracks South. Stopped at my folks for a short visit before deciding on a late movie and dinner - because we could. I took her to see Twilight and ended up enjoying it more than she did. Had I not read the book, I would've thought her retarded though, as the motion picture was nothing more than a Cliff's Notes version of the novel. They touched all the right highlights, leaving out any semblance of structure as to how each milestone was reached. It was quite unbelievable and disjointed. Having read the book, however, I *squee'd* in all the right places along with the theater full of teenaged girls. Dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill, home by midnight.

Its only Tuesday, but it feels like weeks have passed. Time has no meaning when there is nothing by which to mark it, and it has been glorious. I listened to Carter Burwell's score on repeat whilst reading book three of the Twilight saga, and ordered it on CD after I saw the movie. It really is a delightful score. I'm not that familiar with Mr. Burwell, the only other score of his I own is Miller's Crossing of which I'm unsure I've ever even listened to. Sometimes we go out, and its daytime. Othertimes we go out and its night. I made a copy of T:SCC for the car so its with me wherever I go, whenever that may be. I have submerged myself into my scores nearly 24-hours a day, not stopping for either carnal knowledge nor sustenance. Everything is just so...peaceful. Except my dreams - which are fraught with danger, forbidden sex, and fear. Its a nice balance, and I can't wait to see what's in store for me when I close my eyes tonight. I look forward to sleeping for these subconscious escapades which play out overnight.

jesskd26 gave my wife the first season of HBO's True Blood when she and drax0r gifted us a DivX player. We watched the entire series back-to-back. My wife is hooked. It was good, clean, hokey fun. Other than that, I have several movies I'd like to watch between now and the 6th - the day I awake from this dreamstate and re-introduce myself to the world. I have plans for mr_dowg to join me one day next week to share a bottle of absinthe and help me with a post, and drax0r to come over another day so we can open and drain the 5-litre gravity tap keg of Bitburger I have chilling. It will be nice to spend time with friends one-on-one.

We chilled a bottle of German dornfelder (which neither of us have ever had) and it was like a red version of spatlese. Just incredible. We had it with some sharp Italian sheep cheese and some creamy brie atop wafer-thin sesame crackers and slices of jalapeno venison summer sausage unixwolf provided from a buck he felled earlier this year. It. Was. Divine. I don't have to tell you what happened next, but its been that kind of a week, what with no children in the house. I've died and gone to heaven.

Leave it to my wife to ask for things which no one else ever thinks of.

---

Seeing an ad for the all-new iPod Nano in a circular we received in the mail, catttitude began asking me questions about it, and completely unintentionally coined the phrase NanoPod at work.

catttitude: You said it was a Nano
ehowton: Its not called a NanoPod. Its an iPod Nano. Like the make and model of a car.
catttitude: Everyone at work knew what I meant.
ehowton: ...

I have the 3rd Gen 2GB Shuffle and my wife has my old 1GB. I maintain both playlists from my master iTunes Library, and because my wife doesn't get to listen to hers daily, she always wants all the songs she already has on her device, all the time. As one can imagine, given a 240-song limit, this makes it difficult when she finds something new she wants added, and only after I explained that I could keep a list of her favorite songs on the computer in a playlist was she satisfied. Well, partially at least. I've gone through so many computers and operating systems that she is always suspect of data integrity. Either way, the 8GB storage capacity pleased her unnaturally. I've never seen my wife's eyes sparkle at storage space before, and it was simultaneously arousing and unsettling.

Being fascinated with the ability to watch tiny, high-res full-screen movies on the Nano appeals to her, as does solving once and for all the children's hyperactive inattention on long road trips. She's considering getting each of us our own Nano for Christmas. Ever the pragmatist, she asked me a series of questions designed, I assumed, to either support or dismiss her theories of practicality.

catttitude: I'll be able to use this to watch movies when I'm working on projects?
ehowton: Yes.
catttitude: And they make a stand for it, with speakers?
ehowton: Of course. Many to choose from.
catttitude: One that mounts it sideways, so you can watch the movies full-size?
ehowton: ...

One of the features of this new Nano is the inclusion of the iPhone's accelerometer. Simply put, tilt your device, and the orientation changes to match. Unfortunately, I can't find a dock with speakers which allows this device to mount in such a manner to take full advantage of this technology.

Yeah, she's a lot of fun.

Welcome to my world.

Now if I could only get a MacBook Pro in which to attach it to...

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 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

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 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 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 dentin and 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 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 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 celtmanx's.

Then I sold my house and lived at the Arlington Data Center and with 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 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 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 & galinda822 created for me while I was away on a business trip.




2007 Anna, TX - Temp Home + Servers at 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 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.

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.

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^{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.}

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."

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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*

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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...

The Last Castle is, to me, a drama. It's about people. It's the plot which tells the story. But on the back cover of the DVD, they show the three scenes in which there was 'action.' You see James Gandolfini holding a gun, Robert Redford ducking for cover with an exploding helicopter in the background, and one other explosion still. Not really indicative of the movie, mind you but if some casual passerby were to glance at it, they might think it was an action-packed movie, and that's just gay.

My wife rec'd Munich as a Mother's Day gift. She had expressed interest in seeing it. Why? Because the commerical spots linked the few 'action' shots back-to-back and made it look like a Robert Ludlum movie come to film. Boy was she disapointed. Screw those people trying to make a buck off a lie. I hope to hell that comes back and bites them in the ass - i.e. they would have sold more to those interested in a docu-drama than an action film, but didn't purchase it because of the crap they released as a trailer. "Piracy is STEALING" the new ad's on DVD's say. Guess what else is stealing? Misrepresenting a movie to get people to buy it!

When I bought The Professional on laserdisc, the tagline from a recent review read, "Makes [the movie] Speed look like a walk to grandmother's house." Well, although I enjoyed The Professional much more than Speed, I felt that not only was that an inaccurate assessment of the movie, it was also misleading to those who watched it based on that. Asses.

Watched six P&T:BS episodes today on and off. Nearly caught up. Only six more to go! Yes, I've been hoarding them.

Most non-Texans don't know the difference between grilling, and BBQ'ing. What I do, is grill. I am the grill master! I fire up the grill, turn the heat way up, to say, 700 degrees, slap some meat on it, sear the everlivingshit out of it, close the lid, and lower the temperature, turning usually only once. It comes out, well, perfect. BBQ'ing on the other hand - usually involves some sort of sauce, and very low heat, requiring ceaseless turning of meat, and generous basting. Now, that's not to say I don't BBQ, I just usually prefer grilling. Today, I did both, which was the first time I've BBQ'd at the new place. It was quite an exciting smell, walking out on the back deck and smelling the sauce dripping onto the flash plates. It was a good day for it, as it's been unseasonably cool this past week and into the weekend. High 50's. Could'nt ask for anything better. The wife loved it.

So on my 'friends' page, I subscribe to the BSG RSS feed, which, though a little spammy, has been invaluable in providing me the information I need to know, when I need to know it. For example, those little die-cast toys on my desk? I bought them the day the feed told me they were at Target, and I haven't seen them since! Furthermore, and astro, pay attention, they just told me that Amazon is accepting pre-orders for the Season Two soundtrack! w00t!