The micro.blog shelving is now permanent, as I canceled my account this morning. If it’s able to do what I want to do, I’m not smart enough to make it happen. Maybe I’ll revisit that project down the road. I like what Manton Reece and team are doing, and I’ll be keeping tabs on them.

As for the other “And so on…” I not only moved my travel site over the Statamic, I redid the whole front end as well. Now Scenic My Way has had not only a tune up, but a fresh coat of paint as well. I posted an abbreviated write-up and added a few of the 400+ pictures I took when I went to Edinburgh. I still have to upload photos and post about my trips to London, Amsterdamn, and Munich. Munich was a disaster, but I’m still going to post the pictures I took.

I bit the bullet and went and bought a new set of the AirPods 3 Pro. And discovered that if I want to take advantage of all the features, I have to upgrade the iOS on my iPhone 12 to iOS26. I’m currently on 18, and after seeing my wife’s phone after she upgraded, I have no desire to be on 26. I didn’t like Windows Vista’s Aero Glass, and I don’t like Apple’s Liquid Glass.

My old Airpods would show each individual AirPod’s battery status on my phone. Instead of showing the each AirPod, now my phone shows the icon for what looks to be the AirPods Max headphone 🎧. So I can’t tell if one of the AirPods didn’t get seated in its case and isn’t fully charged now.

Apple’s updates as of late have become a bit annoying for me. I inadvertently upgraded to Sequoia on my laptop, and discovered more annoyances; the rounded corners are waaay too rounded. If you want to resize a window you have to grab outside of the corner. The Preview app has signatures busted in places. For some odd reason, my wife’s phone is telling her that my AirPods were left behind at the gym. While they were sitting next to me on the table.

It’s getting a bit annoying, Apple.

So here’s to a Happy 2026. 🍾🎉

When I woke up that morning, I felt like I had razor burn on my neck. Checking in the mirror, there was definitely a small, dime-sized rash, and what looked like small whiteheads. Which was puzzling. The wife suggested it might have been friction burn from the strap of my duffle bag I was carrying cross-body style through the airport, and I thought she might be right.

After walking out of the rec center, and once back in the car, I realized that razor burn feeling was much stronger. And, worryingly, much larger. I checked the mirror, and sure enough, that rash was now easily the size of a quarter and disappeared below the neckline of my shirt. I pulled it aside and discovered it went down my neck to my shoulder. What’s more, those little whiteheads were now full blown blisters, some the size of peas.

Great.

The wife was convinced I’d picked up Ebola somehow (she tends to worry), so we immediately went straight to Urgent Care. After a short wait and even shorter examination, the doc asked if I’d ever had the Shingles vaccine. Which I have. But apparently the vaccination was no match for the stress of the vacation, as I had a full-blown eruption going down my neck and shoulder now.

We picked up my prescriptions (topical cream and if that didn’t work, steroids), and then decided to lay low the rest of the day.

And naturally, on top of that, I got one of my patented “End of year colds that always turns into bronchitis”. So we signed up for the gym, and I immediately got sick.

Thankfully, the topical cream worked wonderfully and I was all cleared up within a few short days. And the bronchitis never materialized.

You know what DID materialize? Malware. On ALL my websites (I host about a dozen sites for friends and family). So I’ve been working on cleaning that mess up for the past week. A pox on all malware creators.

Essentially, I got hit with a biological virus and a digital one in the same week. Go me.

We should’ve known better.

We have never had successful anniversary vacations. The wife and I have tried several times to plan things to celebrate the day, but something always seems to come up. We’ve had to cancel trips because my dad fell deathly ill and I had to fly back to AZ. Or my daughter gets diagnosed with cancer, and I temporarily move to the city she went to school in to be near her (yay remote work!). Or Covid.

The wife and I are convinced Covid was our fault because we had the audacity to not only plan a trip, but to put money down ahead of time. While our world shut down in March of 2020, we had made plans during our anniversary in 2019 for a trip in April 2020, when the weather wasn’t so crappy.

We’re so sorry.

The Germany trip was (mostly) a disaster before we even left.

It started with the wife trying to solidify plans with her friend in Germany. She was texting and receving very terse, one-word replies. Or “I don’t care” answers. It set a funny feeling in the pit of the wife’s stomach. One we should’ve listened to.

The seat I paid extra for (I’m a big guy, and enjoy a bit of extra legroom) was so narrow, it was more appropriate for a child.

When the friend picked us up at the Munich airport, there were no big hellos, no big smiles. Just a quick hug, throw the bags in the back and head to where she lived in Dachau. The ride was quiet, with just a few comments. Not typical for a friend you haven’t seen in 6 months. She kept the radio up and the bass in the back precluded me from really joining the conversation.

So, already uncomfortable.

But once at her house, she warmed up a bit, and seemed a bit chattier. Even gave us “real hugs” this time. We went out to dinner, and then joined the friend at her line dance class. Friend is very strict about keeping her schedule, so we went along. I even joined for the first line dance at the prompting from the women (and there were only women) in the class.

The next day we piled into the bass-thumping car for one of the few bright spots in the trip: we travelled to Aschau for the weekend, a town nestled in the Bavarian Alps and it was simply delightful. We took a ferry to the Fraueninsler Christkindlmarket (Women’s Island Christmas Market), and strolled around the island. The friend was intent on finding the fish sandwich she loved, and seemed a bit offended when I wouldn’t have any. I simply don’t like fish. And then she was doubly offended when I declined gluehwein. I don’t like wine either, preferring beer.

And this is where things started to feel off. We visited the monastery, got a sausage (and a beer for me), and visited the potties. And then the friend said we needed to leave.

We’d seen maybe a quarter of the market? Hadn’t even really stopped at the booths, having made a beeline to the fish sandwich stall.

Ok, so back to the ferry, back to the hotel. Next day we left, had a quick stop in Wasserburg, a walled town bordered by the river Inn. Then back to Dachau.

It became quickly obvious we were not welcome in the friend’s house. She kept making passive/aggressive remarks. Seemed upset that we wanted breakfast (she’s a one-a-meal day type of person). Obviously put out that we disrupted her routine. Small things that were quickly adding up.

The day after we came back from Aschau, we went to Munich to visit some of the larger Christmas Markets. When we popped out of the train station we were right in one of the downtown ones, surrounded by old buildings. It was very cool, but apparently it was “too touristy” for the friend. Well, I’m a tourist, I’m all for it.

Instead she led us through the market to the outskirts, and then asked if we wanted some coffee. I replied sure, and she walked off again… but seemingly nowhere in particular. Then she decided she needed a bathroom. After that was done, she asked what we wanted to do. The wife said maybe we should get some coffee and sit for a bit.

The friend literally gasped and said “you want to sit?!”

Well, pardon us for wanting to enjoy our coffee.

Instead the friend decided she wanted to go visit the Medieval Market. We said fine, nice to have a destination. She took us on another train, got lost three times along the way. Once found, we discovered it was quaint little Christmas market with a Medieval theme. The wife found a seller that had fountain pens and wax stamps. She was looking at buying one, but the friend snorted derisively and asked why?

Ok, nevermind.

Friend asked if we wanted to go see “the residence”. I said I had no idea what that was, and after another one of those “what’s even between your ears” looks, she said it was where monarchs lived. Turned out she was talking about the “Munich Residenz … the largest city palace in Germany, serving as the former royal palace of the Wittelsbach monarchs of Bavaria.” (thanks Wikipedia!).

After that, the friend decided we were going to Tollwood, a Christmas market on the site of Octoberfest. So another train ride and off to visit another Christmas market. “Visit” is a loose term here. We literally went in, saw one tent, the friend wanted gluehwein and to smoke, and then we left. wtf. Time to go home it seemed.

We took a train, and then bus, back to her house in silence. She wouldn’t respond to my smiles. When we got off the bus, she walked 10 yards in front of us, and didn’t say a word, trusting we would follow her in the dark back to her house. Once home, I thanked her for playing tour guide again, and was again met with silence.

I think that’s what did it for the wife. She was furious at this point.

Over the weekend, we had talked about getting a hotel, just to help defuse the situation, but the friend’s complete refusal to acknowledge a basic courtesy changed all that. We instead went for the nuclear option and decided to have her drive us to the airport the next morning.

The conversation that ensued was obviously terse. After berating us for 10 mins, the friend insisted she needed her coffee and smoke. Then she went upstairs to get dressed (she’d been out walking, but apparently couldn’t be seen dropping people off at the airport in her yoga pants). We stood with our bags in the foyer of her house for probably 30 minutes waiting.

During the five days we were there, I’d been talking with my brother who lives up in the Netherlands. He and his wife had been planning on coming down to visit and join us at the Christmas Markets. I’d been texting with him this entire time, detailing how uncomfortable things were. At this point, I told him to not bother, letting him know we were packing up and leaving. He suggested we come up and visit them instead. A life boat in the sea of strain.

When dropped off at the airport, the friend got out and hugged us. She genuinely seemed sad to see us go. Perhaps we should have started with — and definitely will next time (if there is a next time) — a hotel. We’re not going to put anyone out ever again.

So we’re off to the Netherlands, to visit my brother and his wife, and enjoy the rest of the vacation.

Or…so we thought.

After being dropped off, we made our way to the Lufthansa desk, and tried to get our tickets updated. We told the service agent we were wanting to fly to Amsterdam that day, and then fly from Amsterdam to the U.S. the coming Sunday, the day we were originally supposed to fly home from Munich. It seemed to take longer than it should have to explain what we wanted to the agent, who looked as if she had something smelly on her upper lip the entire time.

She said that changing our tickets would cost us money, and we said fine, naturally. We wanted to leave. Then she told us it was going cost over €2,000 to make the change. We definitely paused at that. The agent then said the only helpful thing; what if we were to book a round-trip flight from Munich to Amsterdam, come back early Sunday morning and catch our original flight from Munich to the U.S.? That would only cost about €500 for the two of us.

Seemed like a much better deal, so we book those flights, checked our bags and went and found our gate and some breakfast.

While waiting at the gate, the wife received an update on her Lufthansa app, showing our new flights:

• Two tickets from Munich to Amsterdam

• One ticket from Amsterdam to the U.S.

• One ticket from Munich to the U.S.

• No return tickets from Amsterdam to Munich.

oh, ffs.

We had already scanned our boarding passes and gone through security, so we couldn’t go back out. We decided to get it resolved once in the Netherlands.

To make an already long story somewhat shorter, we spent the next two days and a total of 5 hours on the phone between Lufthansa and United (United Airlines and Lufthansa are partnered through the Star Alliance, which is how we got to Amsterdam). We even took the bus back to the airport to try and straighten it out in person, but we were told by one of the six agents standing around doing nothing that they were unable to help us rebook and we would have to do that online. Trying to do it online resulted in messages about issues with our reservations (duh). So we were told to call.

The agent I spent the most time on the phone with was very helpful, and she managed to get us rebooked from Amsterdam to the U.S., for the fee of €190. No idea why the agent in Munich, who started this whole mess, charged us over €2,000 for the rebooking. The phone agent also managed to cancel the Amsterdam to Munich flights, and we received money back for that, which helped offset the rebooking cost. Awesome.

With all that taken care of (or so we thought. Foreshadowing!), we set out to enjoy the time with my brother and his wife. We took a train to Den Haag (The Hague) for their Christmas market. My brother and I spent time in Haarlem, while the wife and SIL went on a 20-mile bike ride to the coast (the wife’s leg muscles were SORE). My brother and I watched the Lions beat up the Cowboys (the day after the actual game).

It was a nice visit.

But then the day before we were due to fly home, I tried to check in.

“There was a problem with your reservation”

Queue much cursing.

This, thankfully, was the most minor of the issues we had with these flights. Counting on them being able to sort us at the airport, the next morning we said our good-byes (with large helpings of “thank you for rescuing us!”) to my brother and SIL, and hopped the bus earlier than planned. Getting our boarding passes and bags checked was painless. Not even a blip or concern at the check-in counter. Once through security, we both relaxed a bit.

You would think I would know better by now.

We found our gate, which, naturally, was at the very end of the wing in the terminal. Once we established where we were leaving from, we walked back the half-kilometer or so to the lounge area for coffee and breakfast.

Once back at the gate, we received a gate-change notice, to a gate in a completely different wing. Of course.

After about a 15-20 minute walk, we found the new gate. Which had KLM agents at the desk. Which…didn’t make sense. And sure enough, nearly the minute we arrived, we received another gate change. Back to the original gate.

Oh ffs. Again.

Sweaty and annoyed at having to walk back and forth across half the airport, we finally managed to board our flight. And once in our seats, the wife had herself a bit of a cry (not the first one of the trip, but certainly the most understandable).

I started writing a note on my phone, a bulleted list to keep track of all the major and minor things this trip entailed that went wrong or were just bad.

I had 93 bullet points when done.

When we finally got home, I went to pick up a pizza while the wife started laundry. When I got back, I locked the door, changed into jammies, and the wife and I decided to never, EVER go on a vacation for our anniversary again.

We’re also considering celebrating our anniversary on a completely different date. Ours is cursed.

But that idea of traveling to the UK, a country I’ve never been to before, set up residence in the back of my brain, and every so often sent out a reminder. Eventually I told myself that if I managed to sell my motorcycle I would use that money to go.

I sold the motorcycle in June.

Now that I had the money, I started wondering if I was actually going to go to the UK. The wife was all for it, saying it would do me good to go on vacation and see my brother (he lives in The Netherlands). I was still waffling about going, but to help maybe push me in the right direction, I purchased a ticket to the concert.

That idea that was in the back of the brain now started sending updates; what if I went to the UK, flying into London, and then take the train up to Edinburgh? Edinburgh has been a bucket list item for awhile, so why not? So I pulled the trigger and booked the flights.

It was a great trip, and I’m very happy my brother provided the impetus and the wife pushed me to go (she’s awesome). Edinburg was amazing, and London was pretty cool as well. In Edinburg I toured the castle and signed up for a Harry Potter tour. Other than those two scheduled things, I just followed whatever looked interesting. See a tall spire? Let’s go see what that’s all about. That pub looks cozy, let’s go inside and check it out.

I did the same with London. I toured St. Paul’s Cathedral and my brother and I went to Churchill’s War Rooms. Walked by Buckingham Palace and down to Piccadilly Circus. Essentially, I played tourist.

The last night of the trip was the concert, and I’m very glad I went. I’ve never seen Fields of the Nephilim before and they sound great live. It was a kick ass show, a kick ass trip, and quite a memory.

Next up: Germany!

I’m not a programmer, so a lot of this isn’t makingf much sense. But I’ll finish this course…eventually. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I am house/cat sitting next week, so should have a lot of free time in the evenings to hopefully completely this course.

It’s over three hours from my house in the ‘burbs and life definitely is slower and quieter down here. It’s been a nice change of pace. While I am looking forward to getting back to the wife and my own stuff, I’ll miss the solitude. Nothing like hanging out on the dock with a beer watching the sun go down. Could easily get used to it.

Typically.

Friday I received three back-to-back calls from a “No Caller ID number. On the third time, I figured I’d pick up, as typically the scam and charity calls just go to the next number in their list. When I picked it up, a person who identified himself as “Deputy Jerome Brown” asked for me. He said he was calling from Richmond, and given that I have family in Richmond, and, to be frank, the person calling had no accent, I thought I should listen.

To make a long story long (I was on the call for nearly an hour), this “deputy” informed me that I had missed a jury summons. I said I received no such summons and that he was mistaken. He said not only had I received it, but somone had actually signed the summons and sent it back. After explaining that I never received, nor signed, such a summons, he went into his spiel about me needing to come down to the Richmond Court House, bring two forms of state-approved ID, such as a passport and driver’s license, that included my signature. He even gave me directions once inside the court house of which room to go to, to talk to “Miss Debby” and get my signatures verified. Once it was verified that I was not the signator of the summons, I could then file a civil claim against whoever did sign it.

Early on in the call he had mentioned a fine on my account because I’d failed to show for jury duty. I said “Oh, and I suppose I need to give you my credit card to clear this up”. (My BS meter was still actually working at this point). But he said “Oh, no sir, we don’t take credit cards as lots of scams are perputated this way. Officers of the court will never ask for your credit card.”

And sometime shortly after that, the BS meter apparently ran out of battery. I was thinking, “oh, shit… this might be real. I need to get to Richmond!” As I was collecting my things, he said because of procedures, he needed to stay on the phone with me as a point of contact. At this point I said “What, I have to stay with you on the phone until I get to Richmond? That’s a minimum of two and a half-hours away. I need to tell my wife where I’m going and why.” When I said I needed to talk to my wife, he said “Sir, you can only tell your wife that you’re traveling to Richmond to take care of a legal matter. Not only becaue of the civil junctions against you, but the defendent in the case you were to be sat for has his rights to consider as well…” - not those exact words but similar.

This sounded…plausible? Like maybe it was a thing? Regardless, I let work know I needed to take a personal day, grabbed my shoes, my passport and wallet, as well as my coffee (I hadn’t had my coffee yet, which might explain how the brain was just not working), and got in my truck.

As I was discussing my travel time to Richmond, the scammer said “First, sir, I’ll need you to go to a Walmart Super Center or a CVS. They work with the Treasurer of the Court. The Treasuer of the Court will send you an email with a QR Code. There are two fines attached to the summons for failure to appear, one civil and one federal. Each fine carries a cost of $750, for a total of $1500”.

At this point I’m sitting in my truck, baking because I haven’t turned on the truck to get the AC going, and said “Wait, what? I need to go to Walmart and give them 1500 in cash?” And he gave me some song and dance about it not going to Walmart, but just to clear the fines so I could travel to Richmond without fear of being pulled over. Oh and in the conversation at some point, he even mentioned that I wouldn’t be arrested once on court house grounds due to my “Constitutional Rights”, or some other bullshit.

Of course, the BS meter at this point is not only at nearly 100%, but is slapping me upside the head, braying “SCAM! SCAM! SCAM!!” But…almost at 100%. There was still the smallest bit of doubt. So I asked “What if I just bring $1500 in cash? I have it on me, that way I don’t have to stop and waste time.” He had a response for that as well… “Sir, we don’t take cash, ever since Covid, we have gone completely cashless…”

At this poing I said I’m not sure this is legit, and he said I could certainly opt to decline, but that he would have to inform his superiors and that it would go on my record. I said “Yup, decline” and hung up.

It was embarrassing to admit to the wife that I’d almost been taken. I called her right after hanging up, started to explain what the reasoning behind my cryptic message was and she said “Let me stop you right there. Jury summons, right? This is a scam. I just got a police alerts in my email this very morning”. I should’ve just checked with her first. She’s a smart cookie.

So, yeah, embarrassing, but I let all my friends know. I’d rather I be embarrassed than someone else get scammed.

Oh, and Deputy Jerome? May a thousand angry hamsters infest your trousers, and every time you try to scam someone, a goose honks in your ear from an inter-dimensional void. Dick.

I’d also stated that I was going to jump into the Laravel course, but I’ve changed directions and instead, decided to follow The Laravel Path courses, in order. Currently I’m working through the Object-Oriented Principles in PHP and it’s definitely more of a challenge. I’m not a programmer (front end dev here, meaning I make things look ✨pretty ✨), so some of these concepts are having me watch the videos more than once.

I’m anxious to get to started on building the new website I have in mind, but I’ve been trying to be pragmatic and want to take the time to learn how to build it like I want to build it. I could probably create the new website with Wordpress, but there’s an odd desire to create it all, have the website be 100% of my creation. Not that I think it’ll be better, programmatically, than a site built with Wordpress, but still. I want it to be all me.

(title is alluding to learning to swim. Similar to what I did in the first post related to learning PHP. Let’s see how long I can make the swimming metaphor last.)

I’ve been going through the PHP for Beginners course to start, because I’d like to look at the code and have at least some idea of what’s going on. Get a good foundation as it were, because to be completely honest, I imagine I’ll rely a lot on AI when beginning to code the website I have in mind (a community-based site dedicated to all forms of electronic music). PHPStorm, the IDE I’m using to work through the tutorials, has an AI Assistant baked in that I might subscribe to. And work has us all using Github’s Copilot plugin in VS Code. Whether you like it or not, AI is here to stay it seems. Might as well get used to working with it.

(as an aside, I’ve had people who don’t work in the computer industry ask if I’m worried about AI taking over my job. And to be honest, yes… and no. I was on a Slack call with a backend Angular dev trying to work through an issue, and he suggest we use Copilot and ask the AI for help. He mentioned that he sometimes has a hard time getting Copilot to understand what he wants and it can take 3 or 4 times before Copilot gives an answer close to what he needs. While he was talking about this, I wrote out what I needed, and boom, I had the exact answer and code we were looking for. So, yes, AI can be worrisome, but a user will still need to know what to ask for. I feel like I’m good at explaining what the desired outcome I’m looking for is (mostly) and can get the AI to do what I need)

Once I’ve completed the PHP Beginner course, I plan on taking the “30 Days to Learn Laravel” course. Laravel is the PHP Frame work I plan on utilizing when building my site. Why? Again, why not?

If nothing else it’s always good to learn something new. Beats reloading Reddit for the umpteenth time this evening.

In truth, I’m pretty sure that my issues in getting Statamic to work the way I want is 95% my fault. It was one of those scenarios where I had it working, made a minor change, broke something, reverted my minor change, everything still broke, omg wtf, ask ChatGPT, and down that rabbit hole I went. I think I also relied on ChatGPT too often.

My “Breakthrough” in fixing my issue started with reading the Statamic Docs. Which… I would think ChatGPT would’ve read. The issue stemmed from something stupid simple: wanting to put images between paragraphs in the blog post. Something that’s pretty much default in any article-posting type of system. I’m not sure why originally it wasn’t working, but after several hours, I finally got things sorted between my Bard Field type, the Blueprint, and my content.

whew.

Now back to my semi-regularly posting drivel schedule.

And then my faithful 2015 MacBook Pro bit the dust. The laptop was starting to really slow down, and even after running the First Aid options in Disk Utilty, the laptop still struggled. I even did a full system wipe and reinstalled the OS. But still, I would type and the letters would appear about 1 to 2 seconds after the keystroke. And then I noticed there was a lot of heat coming from the keyboard. So, yeah.

I was building everything locally using Statamic and Herd, and thankfully I managed to store the work I’d done in Github (who’s a good developer!!). I’ve since been putting off buying a laptop, as I feel like I have a Mac Studio, so I don’t actually need a new laptop. But it is nice to not always be shut up in the office. It’s nice to hang out at the dining room table with the wife, even if we’re both plugged in.  So I’ve been going back and forth about buying a laptop... but man, those new MacBook Air M4s are a very tempting deal. I imagine I’ll pull the trigger on within the month.

But back to Statamic. I’ve been wanting to move the backend of my blog to Statamic for awhile. I really like the control panel and the way everything is setup just seems to make sense to me (mostly). There’s also some great tutorial videos on YouTube and also on Laracasts, which I purchased a subscription for (but the Statamic tutorials are free!). I’ve had an idea for a new website for some time now, and I didn’t want to build it in Wordpress. PHP, with Laravel, feels like a good fit, so I took some of my freelance money and purchased a lifetime subscription. I already feel like I’ve received my money’s worth with the Statamic tutorial, and the videos I’ve watched so far as an intro to Laravel have been instructional as well.

But before I get too far off topic, back to Statamic. As I’ve noted, I tend to jump around with various CMSs, always wanting to try the latest and greatest. But I’ve also been wanting to stick with the flat-file CMS approach. I like the simplicity of not needing a database, and it’s one less avenue for script kiddies to attack the blog. I’m also not super well-versed on databases in general, and though systems like Wordpress handle the heavy lifting, using Markdown files for the blog makes more sense. I do plan on utilizing a database when building the website I want to use Laravel for, so that’ll be a learning experience. 

I also prefer the control panel Statamic uses. It’s cleaner, and allows for greater customization than was apparent with Grav CMS. And, to be frank, maybe I was a bit bored. Plus, I really enjoy the way Jack McDade - the creator of Statamic - presents his tutorials on the Laracasts website. There’s something that I find very down to earth about them. It’s always a plus to be entertained while learning!

Health/Body

• Exercise more. Not necessarily to lose weight (though lord knows I have a lot of weight I could lose), but just to be more mobile. Less sitting in front of the devices and more moving the limbs.

• Break the habit of eating while watching sitcoms. I can finish a sandwich in 10 minutes, but I have 15 more minutes of sitcom to watch, so I feel the need to find something else to eat while finishing the show. Stop it.

• Get outside. I work from home and spend a lot of time indoors. I need more fresh air!

• Look into therapy. I believe my mental state deteriotated during the pandemic and never fully recovered. It might be beneficial to talk to someone about things

House

• Get at least one of the following projects done:

  • Redo upstairs bathroom

  • Paint main floor

  • New counters, backsplash, paint, and bar for the kitchen

  • De-junglefy the backyard

  • Replace driveway

Misc

(wasn't sure how to title this one)

• Become more of an "anti-capitalist".

  • Attempt to repair/upgrade before buying new.

  • Don't fall prey to needing the "latest and greatest"

  • If I do need to purchase something (big ticket items), research for reliability and longevity

• Ignore Social Media

  • deleted twitter

  • deleted tiktok (beat the gov't)

  • greatly reduced my facebook interactions, be it posting or even just visiting

  • greatly reduced my instagram interaction

  I'm sure there are many others I could (and should) reach for, but this is a start. I might revisit this post as I think of other things to add.

So, with that said, let me just say, I hope you have a happy, healthy, and positive year. Peace.

Ran into this bit of code today:

.p-noborder > .p-tabview .p-tabview-panels {
  border: 0 !important;
}

.p-noborder > .p-tabview .p-tabview-panels {
  border: 0 !important;
}

Exact same code, and right next to each other in the file. According to GitLens, one was from 2 years ago, the other 3 years.

Job security, am I right?

It was without a doubt, one of the most poorly planed projects I've been on. I won't go into details, but to put things in perspective, we had not one, but two post-mortems about what could have gone better. There might have been a third, but management threw in the towel.

There's finally light at the end of the tunnel... I'm down to less than twenty bugs, so yay. They would be easy enough to clear out but I have normal sprint work as well. So, they sit in the backlog and I get to them when caught up on work.

But yeah... that's where most of my focus as been. 60+ hour weeks, some weekends, too many meetings, and blah.

I think it's time to take some days off.

So I've signed up with StoryGraph, and I have downloaded Book Tracker and Reading List on my iPad and phone. After some consideration, I opted to pay for Reading List, and hope to make good use of its "pro" features such as iCloud syncing (I currently do most of my reading on my iPad), statistics, and I can share it with the wife if she desires. She recently purchased Book Tracker, so it might make for an interesting comparison. Though she does 95% of her reading via Audible books, so not sure how that'll go.

I also purchased a refurbished Kobo Forma eReader, as another way to remove myself from Amazon's greedy tendrils. The Forma has another draw for me over the Kindle I currently have: physical buttons. The Forma has buttons on the side for page turning, AND it can rotate the screen, so I can hold it with my left or right hand and click the buttons with out too much effort. I never really enjoyed having a touch screen to turn pages, because, well, I would often touch the screen and turn pages. I am a klutz so it happened often. And, most importantly, it accesses Libby, the app I use to access my Library. Which is why I don't visit bookstores nearly as often any longer. I love my library! And the other two I have cards for as well. If you don't have at least ONE library card, you really should take a look. They're so much more than books nowadays.

It was a bit surreal to be back in the office itself. And, I realized with a bit of a start, it was almost exactly four years to the day that we'd gone remote full-time. Most of the desks have been removed, along with some of the conference tables as well. Right before we'd all gone home for good, I'd been reassigned to a different office and desk (we have three suites in this particular building), but, to be quite frank, I didn't remember what desk was mine. Ended up sitting at a table in the kitchen area.

Some of my co-workers and I discussed coming back into the office, for one day a week, or month... not sure where everyone landed on that. But honestly, I would be ok with going back once a week. I do really enjoy my setup at home, but it's nice to get some face-time in with co-workers as well. It was great catching up at lunch, and more than one person thanked me personally for arranging for all of us to meet. Seems I'm not the only one who was grateful for a bit of social contact again.

After things opened back up and life started getting back to normal, I found I was just as happy staying at home and watching TV or playing on the computer. I don't go camping any longer (not having to sleep on the ground is ok by me!), and I'm no longer invloved with theater in any way. My pub formally shut its doors during Covid, though if rumors are true, Covid was just the nail in the coffin.

So this year -- four years on since the first days of Covid which feels crazy to say -- I've made more of an effort to get out. If I'm invited somewhere, I make the effort to join. Further, I've started hosting trivia at the winery the wife works at. I spend about four hours researching categories and questions and twice a month I drive with the wife out to the winery and host a two-hour trivia tournament. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm really enjoying having something to look forward to, that gets me out of the house.

Plus, I get paid, which is nice bonus! Helps me pay for those things I want but never get myself as alluded to in my last post.

I tell this because I, unfortunately, have some of the same tendencies. I have a hard time spending money on things not only do I deem not necessary, but things I actually want, but feel like I can either find alternatives to, or flat out don't deserve.

Recently, say over the past 6 months or so, I've made a conscious effort to not be so miserly. The wife has a subscription to a food delivery that shows up once a week, with all natural, organic, locally grown vegetables, eggs, butter, etc. I know that's not cheap, but I'm managing to not stress about it.

When shopping, I was buying the store brand flavored seltzers, even though I discovered I really liked the cherry version of Bubly water. I finally told myself it was ok to spend a little more for something I enjoy.

As a web developer, I've used VS Code as my IDE of choice for years, which we also use at work. It's free, and to be fair, it's a great editor. But as the saying goes, "There's no such thing as a free lunch". Microsoft, which owns and distributes VS Code, has a bunch of data collection in how their app is used. So, like Facebook and Twitter (yes, I'm deadnaming), if it's free, your data is how they make their money.

I've long admired Panic as a company and used Transmit back in the day. Sometime back, they released Nova, a native Mac code editor. I really liked it, but only used it as long as the trial lasted, because it was $100 bucks. This past week, I downloaded it again, and after just two days playing with it, paid for the license. It just feels good to support the smaller code shops. Kind of like shopping at local bookstores, as opposed to simply ordering something online.

The culmination of all this relaxing of the purse strings, was a new Mac Studio. I've had a 2015 MacBook Pro as my personal machine since, well, 2015. The Mac Studio is the first computer I've purchased for myself in nearly a decade. And while I hemmed and hawed about it for ages, I finally took myself over to the Apple Store and purchased the base model. There were arguments for getting the Mac Mini, but I'm hoping to do more video editing, and still am doing music, and after upgrading the RAM to 32gb in the Mac Mini, the couple of hundred dollars I would've saved weren't worth it to me. I want something that'll last me at least another 10 years. So yes, it was a big purchase, but I think I'm ok with it. At least I'm not feeling any buyer's remorse, and for me, that's an odd thing.

On to 2024. May yours be full of hope and love.

It was pretty much a perfect day.

My story isn't complete, and if I'm honest with myself, probably won't ever be. I might come back to it someday; as I said in my last post, I'm interested in seeing where it goes. I just have to find the discipline to sit and flesh it out. I've talked about the lack of discipline before. One of the things I've discovered recently is that if I'm given a deadline, I seem to strive to make that. I don't think it can be just me that sets the deadline: I had NaNoWriMo this time around, and last year about this time, I had LNA Does Audio Stuff's 12 Days of Creativity Challenge. It would seem I need an external source to get me motivated.

Maybe I can hire someone.

Some takeaways from NaNoWriMo:

• Sitting down and getting started is always the hardest part. Once I started writing, I often found that I was in the groove within a paragraph or two.

• Each night I would create a new chapter and write from a different person's perspective.

• I think a better approach would be to try and write a single character's view point up until a major plot point is achieved.

• Scrivener is the bee's knees for keeping my thoughts organized. I don't know how some people (e.g., my sister-in-law) can write in a single Word document.

• I tried writing in a coffee house but there simply too many distractions. I found that sitting at my dining room table, after the wife had gone off to bed, was my most productive time.

• I meant to try and write in the morning once, to see if my creative flow was any different, but never managed.

I might try it again in 2024. Maybe I'll need to blow the dust off the current story then and see if I can button it up.

I plan on continuing the story. There is still a bunch left to write. And it's been fun. I want to see how it ends.

I'll probably do a full write-up of the process later, but right now, I'm going to word work (I left the typo in, as I found it amusing) on some website stuff I've been putting off.

It's been a bit of a revelation. During prior attempts at writing stories, I would usually have a basic idea of the story I wanted to write, typically a beginning, a middle, and maybe an end. Not this time, baby. I have been completely reliant on the pantser side of my writing persona and I'm fully embracing it. It literally started with a single sentence: "One thing about the end of the world, Dave thought. It makes for a hell of a weight loss program" That was it. I started my story all based around that one sentence. To tell the truth, it's been a lot more fruitful (and a lot more fun), than I expected. It's both scary and freeing to not know where the hell I'm going. I currently have 7 different characters and I simply write a chapter from each of the points of view. I don't even think I'm writing them in order, and instead will be relying on the excellent Scrivener software to help the organization once my novel is more complete (I'm being positive here and inferring when and not if)

Here's some basic stats, courtesy of my NaNoWriMo Profile Page (have to be a registered member to see this):

• 25062 out of 50000 words

• I've written 14 days in row (every single day!)

• My least productive day was Nov 4th, with only 492 words

• My most productive day was Nov 5th, with 3,271 words. Guessing I felt the need to make up from the day before.

• My average word count is 1,790 words a day.

• And I apparently have an average writing speed of 15 words per minute.

That last point seems odd, but I guess it is just an average after all. I do stop and take breaks, or look up synonyms on thesaurus.com, or try to plot out the next section. Even guilty of stopping writing to play a game on my phone. Gotta stop that.

I've also written more than 11,000 words than the last time I attempted NaNoWriMo.

There have been a couple of nights over the past two weeks where I haven't felt as energized to write. But I find if I go over the previous chapter of the character I'm going to write from, then it helps the flow start moving. And once I'm moving, it's easier to get up to speed. It's all about keeping my eye on the end goal for now.

I was worried about not having a completely planned out story. I had a couple of characters and a couple of plot points. But nothing like a linear story line. And then I realized I don't necessarily need a complete story right now. I can write each chapter from a character's point of view, and then shuffle them around later. As an example, last night I wrote what I think will be the prelude or first chapter. Tonight I wrote what would likely be the fourth or fifth chapter. But that's OK. Thanks to Scrivener, I can shuffle things around with ease once I have a better idea of how the story is going to progress. I've never written this way before and it's strangely liberating. I'm just going to write these chapters out as the ideas come. I'll puzzle them all together later.

On a related note, I'm not going to update again until the middle of November at the earliest. I want to focus on the story for NaNoWriMo, and honestly who wants to read a simple "XXXX words today!" update everyday? I can use BlueSky or Mastodon for that.

But hey, if it was easy, everyone would do it. Not that I've done it.

Yet.

When I signed up with my email, I was a bit surprised to find that my email had already been used. Apparently I've already signed up. Once I recovered my password, I started the process of setting up a new project to keep track of. And wouldn't you know it, the novel I think I'm going to work on is one I setup when I first registered for NaNoWriMo, back in 2016. And it seems that after 13,699 words, I petered out.

I'm hoping my (apparently) second attempt at creating a novel out of this short story -- a story I wrote for a creative writing class waaay back in the early aughts -- makes it further along. Unlike most of the stories I've written, I have an ending in mind for this one, which is tentatively called "Split". There are parts of the original story I'm thinking of keeping, and many many parts that need filling in.

I tend to be more of a "Pantser vs. Plotter" type of writer, but this time around I'm going to setup an outline and see if I can't solidify some of the more important parts of the story and fit them into the timeline. Last year, when I started thinking about doing NaNoWriMo for 2022, I purchased the "NaNoWriMo Writing Bundle"(discontinued), from Humble Bundle. This included quite a few "How-to" books, including "Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success" by K.M. Weiland. I've read about half of the book, and plan on finishing it by this weekend. There were several other books included which give tips on structure and character development as well, which I hope to skim.

While outlining can be accomplished using anything from pen and paper to MS Word/Google Docs, I've opted to use Plottr. As I've stated before, I tend to get myself tangled up in the tools used instead of just creating with what I have. More than a year ago, I purchased Plottr (they were having a wicked sale), and since, have used it sparingly. Less than sparingly actually. So rather than start looking around at other options, I'm forcing myself to use what I have. I have a very capable suite of tools at my disposal (will probably talk about those more in-depth in a later post), so there's no reason to go looking for alternatives. It's just a sublte way of procrastinating. Honestly, I was even looking at acquiring a new Macbook Air to take with me to a coffee shop to write with. The writer in my mind is camped in a cozy corner, drinking something yummy, while banging out his novel on hardware spec'd way above what's needed. I need to focus on the outlining and the writing, not the idealistic version of myself in that coffee shop.

The stupid thing is, I already have a laptop.

But I digress. Looking back over the past year, it would seem the only consistent posting I’ve done is when I did the 12 Days of Creativity Challenge. It was a creative challenge to create a more-or-less complete track. I stuck with it (mostly), documented my progress, and had a track to submit at the end of the challenge.

I’ve decided to do similar, so I’m going to start gearing up and taking a stab at NaNoWriMo. During the month of October I’m going to work on outlining a story idea. I have a few bobbing around in the wetware so I’m going to see if I can settle on one to flesh out a bit more. Then, come November, I’m going to attempt the goal of a story of 50,000 words within the month.

A daunting task to be sure, but hey... it’s time to set myself another creative challenge. Why not scratch that itch with something, well, challenging?

Wish me luck!

I'm currently reading A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon. My Kindle says I'm 61% of the way through the book and I'm thouroughly enjoying it. And while Ms. Shannon has given names to most of her characters that are acceptable and easy to grasp the sound of, there's one here that basically has me stumped: Jrhanyam.

I looked at that and read it as "Junior Han Yam" and now it's stuck in my head that way. I like unique names, but I like unique, pronounceable names, please and thank you.

Well, as far as rebrandings go, I think Twitter's X is about the bottom of the barrel in terms of innovation, design, messaging, etc. (7/24)

Instagram: Trying to get the photo off Instasgram and dropped here is annoying on my iPad, so I'll just leave a link.

To be frank, most of the posts are crap. A lot of the "Go Steelers!", or "Man, sure is nice outside today!" variety. But there are some important things in there I want to keep. When we found out my daughter had cancer. Some nice posts on anniversaries. Stuff like that.

To bring everything "in house" as it were, I'm going to start collecting those posts I've made on the various social media sites and posting them here on Sundays. I probably won't include replies, unless it's a thread I'll want to revisit later. I'll avoid duplicates as well, as I tend to copy things from Twitter to Mastodon in my attempt to move over to the latter more. I haven't decided if I'm going to post any media that might have been with the post either, outside of Instagram, obviously.

Overall it'll be mostly the (hopefully) poignant and (probably moreso) irrelavant thoughts I've had throughout the week.

So, to get started:

Twitter:

@USPS says my package will be here by 9. Also says it's still in Indiana. It's about a 9-hour drive from there to here. So... color me skeptical. (06/19)

Mastodon:

Wanted to check the demo of the Max Mega Menu plug-in for Wordpress. Clicking the demo link popped up a notification that the website wanted to open FaceTime. 
Nope. Guess which plug-in I won’t be using whatsoever. (06/17)

A pox on the people blowing off fireworks at midnight in the ‘hood. 4th was two weeks ago, you doorknobs. (06/16)

Facebook:

Currently deactivated

Instagram:

No posts

Threads:

Did I need yet another social media platform to stick my nose into? No. I'm here hoping it's less awful than the bird (06/09 - cheating a bit as this is outsde the 1 week roundup, but it is the very first post on Threads and if I start posting there more often, it'd be nice to have it recorded here)

I can't settle.

I have an idea for a website I want to build, based around a community. Similar to Goodreads, which is built on top of Ruby on Rails. So I figured I'd build my website on RoR. But I don't actually know RoR, so I decide I'll learn it.

And after a month and a bit of progress, I realize that learning RoR is hard. I'm not grasping some concepts that I feel like should be obvious.

Well... I'm always talking about needing to learn Javascript. Two of the three projects I'm on are using some form of JS, Angular and React (third project is using Salesforce which can go die in a fire). Maybe I should consider really getting into the weeds with Angular and/or React. That would be the smart, responsible thing to do. After all, I'm still learning Javascript, and they're used by projects I'm actively working on.

So, having said that, I've been delving into Svelte and SvelteKit this past week. Because, I'm constantly sabotaging myself and why not?

As I'm only a week in, I'm not going to talk much about either right now. Hopefully in a month or so I'll feel more comfortable and I can relate some of my experiences.

But knowing me, I'll have decided Svelte/SvelteKit is just not right and have moved on to Django, or Laravel or something equally as preposterous.

Try to learn Ruby on Rails, of course.

This is definitely outside of my wheelhouse. RoR is a full-stack framework, designed to power the backend of your application. I have in mind a website, sort of a mashup between Scribophile, and Goodreads, geared towards electronic music. I thought about trying the BuddyBoss plugin within Wordpress, but I feel like to really build the site like I want it, I'd need a plethora of plugins, and possibly some custom PHP work as well.

I'm starting with Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails tutorial. I've also been following along with Deanin's Intro Ruby on Rails 7 For Beginners Tutorial Series on YouTube. I actually started with the Deanin videos, but then stepped back and decided to start "from scratch" as it were, instead of just copying and pasting what was in the videos (although, to be fair, that's probably how 90% of programmers I know learned).

I've given myself to have something viable by the end of the year. Currently, I have a somewhat working login system. I think if I can get that and a profile that a user can update themselves, I'll call it a win.

Pre-Covid, I would typically go to Gina's house (Gail dislikes NYE, so she opts to stay home). Covid put a stop to that, and this year we ended going out to sushi with some friends. I don't like fish as a general rule (but I love tuna fish on crackers. Go figure), so I got the cashew chicken the place offered. The wife had something called a Steeler roll, which I tried. And liked. A lot. And then my buddy offered another couple of pieces of his.

Lemme tell you what... I might not like fish, but I think I'm changing that to "cooked" fish. Sushi is awesome. I can't wait to go back.

Otherwise, it's back to normal. Work has me figuring out some Salesforce stuff (yuck). We've been having some house work done, and are planning a re-plumb ($$$), and we're looking to head to AZ for the wife's and her dad's birthday.

Happy New Year!

Along with some personal family issues, I had two freelance clients decide that they wanted updates this week. That does put a crimp into the creativity time when it's needed to complete work for clients. I ended up completing that work early last night, and jumped back into my piece of music I've been building on with @LNADoesAudioStuff's 12 Days of Creativity Challenge. My previous blog entries were specific to the particular challenge I was working at that time, but this particular entry is going to wrap up the last few days all together. I'm writing this, having done (what I consider to be) steps 7 (vocal production), 8 (Arrangement), and 9 (Lifts, Drops, Swells, and Fills), and will publish this entry after completing 10 (Adding Life To Dry, Boring Production), 11 (Creative Automation), and 12 (How You Know When Your Track Is FINISHED!). I have to complete all of this tonight... after tending to some of the aforementioned family issues. Tomorrow is a friend's holiday party, and then it's Saturday, which is the last day of the challenge, and I need to submit my piece, for better or worse!

Day 7: Vocal Production Details

As stated in the previous entry, I've opted to go with a vocal sample from Loopcloud. I found a cheesy little vocal that has a nice hookey (hookie? hook?) poppy-vibe to it. I duplicated it, pitched it up by an octave and gave it some EQ to remove any lingering low harmonics. I also discovered in Loopcloud that you can adjust the timing of the clip. That was handy, as I spent way too long trying to get the 115bpm clip I'd found to sit nicely within a 128bpm tempo. Loopcloud took care of that for me.

I found a second "filler" vocal and chopped that a bit as well, and plopped it down in a couple of places.

Day 8: Arrangement

I've never been good at structuring a song, so this has been one of the more challenging parts of this, er, challenge. I did manage to take my original 8-bar loop, and structure it more like a song, with definitive sections. I have an intro, in which I add instruments, a middle section where most of the instruments are playing, drop some during the breakdown section, and then an outro, where I remove tracks until I have only three left. It seems to work.

Day 9: Lifts, Drops, and Fills

I found a finger pop sound (not a snap or a click, but you can definitely tell it's a finger noise) that I turned into a small 32nd-note run down in one part, and then reversed it and sent it up later. It adds a bit of "what was that?" to the song and keeps it from becoming monotonous. At least, that's the hope. I also have the typical reverse cymbal that rises into a --what else-- cymbal crash.

Day 10: Effects

I used Valhalla Supermassive in a couple different parts of my track, along with Bitwig's own Reverb and Convolution Reverb devices. I also added delay to specific instruments and I'm hoping I didn't go overboard. That seems easy to do when adding everything in, so hopefully I didn't make the track too muddy. I also attempted to add some panning in, specifically to the finger clicks I mentioned under Day 9, but either I was doing it wrong or the fills were just happening too fast; I couldn't get it to accomplish what was in my head. A challenge for my next project I suppose. There is panning on some of the percussion elements so hopefully that comes through.

Day 11: Automation

My automation starts right off the bat, with my swell at the beginning of my track. I use automation to cut the reverb in and out, adjusting the volume from ∞ to -4.8db. I'm sure there was a more efficient way to go about doing this, but it's how I accomplished what I wanted. I also added some automation to a cutoff filter on one of the synths during the break to give it more oomph, and get it towards the front of the mix.

Day 12: Finishing the Track

After spending some time adjusting the volume on various tracks, and spending even more time on various minor issues, I decided to call it done. Let's face it, I could have (and should have) spent a lot more time working on this, but the one and only goal I had here was to finish a track. I wanted it to be structured like a finished song might be, and have a definite beginning, middle, breakdown, and end. And that's what I got. Is is polished? No. Is it's mixed and mastered properly? No. Is it good? Hell no. But it's DONE. And that was my end goal.

As expected, I've learned a lot through this process. I've taken some notes, and even screen recorded my process as I was putting together the pieces of this track. I'm hoping to do a "postmortem" entry here later, and maybe I'll even manage to put together the screen recordings into a pared down video with some narration about my thoughts over it.

Big thanks go to Liina, from LNAMusic for creating this amazing challenge. It's purpose was the create a track, which is what I've managed to accomplish. Amazing.

This post should be a quickie; I'm working on Day 6, which are vocals. I started with the Emvoice One plugin, and after some trial and error, had a little vocal hook in place. It wasn't horrible... but it wasn't really doing it for me either. So I loaded Loopcloud, and after waiting for the update to install, and then having to go through and read the all the little tool tips that popped up regarding how to find and use the new features, I found a vocal track that fit in nicely (at least I think it fits in nicely) with my current little ditty.

Because I'm "behind" the challenge dates, I'm going to keep working and go right into Day 7. Which works well, as Day 7 is Vocal Processing. If I can complete Day 7's challenge, and Day 8's, I'll be caught up with the challenge. So... better get myself to it!

So, tomorrow, when Day 5 takes place, I'm going to challenge myself to complete that day's challenge. On time!!

That was written three days ago. So we can see how well that little challenge of mine went. I can make the usual excuses (work, chores around the house) and the not-so-usual excuses (holiday shopping, holiday parties), which are all true. But I could have found a half-hour here and there to complete - or at least work on - these challenges.

To that end, this morning, while still in my pajamas, I sat down with my coffee in hand, to work on the next challenge. I started working on a solo instrument, got a lick down, and then brought in the rest of the tracks to listen. And... something was off. Investigating what the discordance might be, I realized I'd recorded my lead in a different key. Whoops! Easy enough to fix. Then I took another listen, and while it was better, something was still off.

Turns out I had not one, but two other tracks in the wrong key. What the heck! So I fixed that up, made sure everything was in the right key, listened to my track and... wait. Why is the second note on my pluck bass not playing on the beat? And same with some other notes down the line?

After about 20 minutes or more, I finally realized I had STFU sitting on the Bass Group, which was ducking the pluck enough that it was very noticeable. Once that was removed and placed on the individual Glide Bass and Sub Bass tracks, everything sounded better!

Or did it? Everything sounded like it worked together, but now I didn't like my piano chords. Or my synth lead. Or... well, much of anything at all.

OK, well...

Shit.

At this point, I'd been working on all this for just over an hour. The wife and I had plans, so I went downstairs to get ready for the day. We were going to breakfast, and then a cute little town about 45 minutes away to do some holiday shopping. I told her I wanted to get moving, as I wanted to get back to my challenge (I've been telling her all about this, so she's aware of what I was referring to).

The day itself was cold and gloomy, with rain coming and going. And after breakfast, while we were sitting in the car, we decided we'd rather just stay home. The wife had some things she wanted to do, and, well, I wanted to get back to music.

Once I listened to the tracks again, I realized that I liked the bass line, and the percussion was OK. So I fixed up the pads and the pluck synth to be more inline with the bass. I removed one of the instruments and I think I'm slowly getting back on track. Originally this piece was in a minor key, and the notes I'd come up with worked within that minor key. Once I reworked the key signature, it was in a major key (B-flat major to be specific), but the old notes now didn't sound like the "correct" notes. So those were reconstructed and now the notes along with the rhythms are more upbeat and peppy, and much more keeping in step with the major key.

And now on to Day 6, which in reality, will be a continuation of Day 5. We're doing vocals now. And I don't sing. So thank goodness for the Liina-recommended Emvoice Virtual Singer. And if that doesn't work, I can maybe try to find something within Loopcloud for my vocal needs.

This is my progress so far. Purple is my synth color, and Will from EDM Tips would say "it's the natural color of Synths in the wild" Not sure about that, but it's my color today. As stated, I spent a lot of the time trying to get a Polymer synth to sound right, and I just wasn't getting it to dial in like I wanted. I was loosely following along with the video tutorial LNA did, but after grouping two Polymers together, fixing each with their own EQ, Reverb, Delay, even some compression (which, honestly, is still a mystery to me), I gave up. Copied the notes to a new track and decided on a different synth. Pigments by Arturia is an all-around beast of a synth, and does wavetables as well. And after about 5 minutes, I was getting a sound much closer to what I had in my head. Sometimes you just have to pick the right tools.

Then it was a matter of picking notes that fit better, adding a few effects - I have a short reverb and a tiny bit of delay - and then messing around with the notes again. It's definitely not anywhere close to good, but you know what? I don't care at this point. It's at least not a complete train wreck and I'm building towards something. As a bonus, I'm getting some ideas of what would be a neat bit here and there when it comes to arranging.

Tomorrow's challenge is leads. I'm thinking an epic saw might do the trick. We'll have to see how it goes!

While this entry won't have a video to go along with it, hopefully I'll manage to do that before this creativity challenge ends. Speaking of...

Day 3's challenge was chords. None of the sounds I picked resonated with me, so I followed along with Liina and loaded a piano sample to lay down the first attempt. I also used Bitwig's Polymer to load a wavetable to accompany the piano. This was supposed to be strictly chords, and for the piano, that's what I ended up with. The Polymer track turned more into a lead, or maybe something to accompany my plucky bass. Which, I discovered, isn't playing all the notes. Not exactly sure why, but I hope to come back to it. Delay offsetting, or LFO, or phasing, or...

This is the chain I have for the Polymer preset I picked, a pad called "Didgeripad". I mostly left it as is, though I did tweak a few parameters: The cutoff on the on the XP filter was raised a bit, boosted the input on the Compressor, and finally changed the delay from 4 right, 6 left, to 2 right, 6 left, and boosted the mix a bit. I have a feeling I'm going to come back to this and turn it into my lead, as opposed to accompanying chord instrument it originally set out to be. But music and creating is something that grows and flourishes and typically blossoms into more than what that seed of an idea expected to be. That's part of the beauty.

I imagine I'll be working this bass pattern a bit more, but the goal of following along with this challenge is to complete a track. I'll never get anything done if I spend all my creative energy tweaking sounds and trying different patterns. Yes, that's an important part of music, but I tend to get distracted rather easily. So I need to get these ideas down to where they're good enough in an expedient manner. They don't have to be perfect, or even great.

In somewhat related news, I now have no audio coming from my speakers. 🤦‍♂️

In trying to get my Screenflow software working properly so I could record my process, I somehow managed to bork the whole setup. I'm trying to record my screen along with computer audio, while monitoring the audio on my headphones (which are connected directly to my Mac). It seems I can either get sound through the headphones, but Screenflow doesn't capture the audio in the recording, OR I don't get sound through my headphones but the screen recording DOES have audio. And then, after about an hour of fussing with it (and several reboots), I discovered I have no sound what-so-ever.

At that point I just decided to take a break, write up this blog post and tackle it again in a couple of hours. Please send me some good vibes that I'll get this sorted!

One of the (many) challenges I've had when creating is getting lost in the myriad of sounds I've curated over the years. I've yet to really organize my drum hits, and if you were to look in my favorites, I have all of three, and all of them are kicks. So I started there. I auditioned the three kicks (didn't take long!) and then moved on. This is going to be my kick, this is what I'm going to work with, onto the next piece of the kit.

The only real pattern I had in mind, was an off-beat hi-hat. So that went in on the "and" of the "one-e-and-a" when counting. And after the kick and hat, what would you think is typically next? If you said snare, you'd be right! (I would've accepted clap as well 😉)

After the snare, I started filling in the spaces; added a shaker, an open hat, ride cymbal, and three different congas. I don't want to overwhelm myself, and I think it's fairly busy as it is. The thought process behind this is to add bits and pieces of this kit in, one at a time, until eventually they're all a part of the song. The whole composition won't be this busy. Hopefully!

Once I had a pattern that I was OK with, I started trying to give it a bit more life, so to speak. To make it sound less robotic, I've introduced various velocity levels on the congas, shakers, ride, and snare. The kick I left as is. After velocity, I played with the panning a bit, but tried not to go too crazy. Congas are where I spent most of that effort, and the shaker received a bit of the same treatment. I also nudged the midi notes off the grid in places.

And to get a bit weird and goofy, I did one last thing: In my snare effects chain, I have a distortion device. Bitwig (my DAW of choice. For the moment.) has wonderful modulators. I attached a random modulator to the Bell Filter Frequency and have it bouncing around the spectrum and it mixes up the sound quite nicely. Definitely makes it more interesting!

That's about it. I have a nice four-bar loop, and I've completed Day 1. Huzzah! 🎉

12 Days of creativity is a production challenge, designed to help, guide, and inspire music makers to finish their songs. The intent is to challenge producers and musicians to finish a track in 12 - steps during December. It is based on creative workflows, proven to enhance confidence in the artists' skills and creativity, as well as limit insecurities during and after the process.

I'm going to give this a shot, and I'm going to (attempt to) track my progress here. I have too many DAWs, more VST plugins than I should, and a ton of samples along with a subscription to Loopcloud. For all that, I don't have a single complete song. I have a ton of ideas, four- and eight-bar loops, even a piece that's close to a minute long... but nothing that's actually complete.

I hope to change that with this challenge. I don't expect the finished piece I come up with to be any good. I just want something that actually sounds like a complete song: Intro, buildup, chorus, drop, outro... you get the idea.

So here we go, with fingers crossed (though that makes working the keyboard tricky). First up: Drums!

Or, in this case, old.

I'm back in Grav CMS, having grown tired of having weird issues happening with my domain on Github Pages. Sometimes it would just not load, other times I would get weird errors. I decided I wanted to move it more "in house" as it were.

My original idea behind moving to Jekyll was to have something I could use on my iPad, that was also a flat file system. Based on other bloggers I follow, I chose Jekyll after trying a few others (including Grav). After much swearing, configuring, and experimenting, I finally found something that worked with my iPad.

And then I realized my setup only worked with my iPad. What if I wanted to update from my laptop, or work computer? Sure, I could configure either to push to my Github repo that stored the jekyll files, and it wouldn't have been that difficult even. I don't have any good excuse for not setting those up, other than being lazy.

Plus, while I do consider myself a geek, I consider myself a creative geek; meaning I want more than just a command line or blank text file. I want the dashboard, I want the simplicity of the GUI, I want the pretty buttons.

So, I'm back to Grav CMS, and back to my own hosting provider. That's the plan at least. I've spent the better part of three days moving older posts out of Jekyll (and the Wayback Machine from an old domain I'd forgotten about) into Grav CMS and setting up the blog to look similar to what was already there (added a sidebar on the home page this time around. Gotta have some fancy widgets yanno). So, currently, I'm still only seeing pages served up by my localhost. But I think I'm pretty close to prime time with this new iteration of the blog.

But not tonight. Had to take my ma down to NC so she could get the title to her car in her name only, so she could register the car here in VA. But that'll be a story for another day.

Back in March, my stepdad passed away. He and my mom had been married for 35 years, so he'd been in my life more than out of it. After he died, once a month I would travel the 6 hours to my mom's house and stay with her for a week. It helped her from being too lonely and as I can work remotely, I didn't need to burn vacation. And then my mom decided she wanted to be closer to us.

So that led to the wife and I doing the house-hunting chores. My mom doesn't move around very well, and needs to get up and stand about every two hours. Three car crashes and two fused vertebra will do that. So it was up to us to find a house for her. Eventually we did, a cute 2-bedroom condo for her and her cat. And then the chore of getting her packed became my main focus.

No one likes to move. I get it. It's a pain in the ass. And, to be frank, it was quite the chore getting my mom to decide what to keep, what she was going to sell, what to donate, etc. She was renting the house she was in, and let the company that owned the home know that she was going to be leaving. So she had a deadline of the 18th of August to be out of there.

And then everything caught up to her and she decided that it was too much and wanted to push the move out. Of course she couldn't by then, as she'd received the Notice to Vacate letter (or whatever it was). Oh, and she also hired, and then cancel movers. She cancelled the movers 7 days before the move so she lost the deposit. I ended up scrambling to figure out how we were going to pack and move and get her and her cars (she had her Jeep and my stepdad's Corvette. Oh, anyone wanna buy a Corvette?), and all her stuff up here.

Thankfully I have some very good friends. One — Gina — drove down with me on my last trip there to help pack. And then Mary, Mike, and Meagan came down the Friday before the movers were to be there (We got a U-Haul and then I hired two movers to help load the truck down there, and two movers to help unload the truck up here. Best money I spent, as my mom had a piano, a huge buffet, big dressers, etc.) to help us pack. And I can't forget the wife! She was up here handling stuff in the new condo; getting new toilets in, a new hot water heater put in, getting the dishwasher mounted correctly, etc. Without all of them helping, I don't think we would've made it. But we managed to roll out on a Tuesday, unload on a Wednesday and get her (sorta) settled into her new place, which is a 10-minute drive from my house. Sure beats 6 hours!

Oh, and while this was all going on, I had a huge project at work that had a deadline that was almost the same as my mom's move date. I ended up working all of Fourth of July weekend while down there, along with late nights every week. We barely made it, but we made it.

To say it's been a bit chaotic would be an understatement. But the project is done, the move is done. Mom's still unpacking, but she can take all the time she wants for that. Though when I go over there, I do tend to open boxes and get something done. It makes me twitchy to have all that lying around undone. I have a long weekend in the middle of September planned with my poker boys, where there will be cards and bourbon and BBQ and boating and probably more cards.

I am very much looking forward to that.

Spotify 2021 Wrapped

As I mentioned Spotify, I might as well start with my 2021 Wrapped. According to their nifty little Wrapped presentation, I listened to 47,482 minutes of music. Which, while a lot (more than 92% of the rest of Spotify listeners in the United States) is about half of what I did last year. I attribute this to my turntable. I consciously listened to my LP collection more, if only because it forced me to stand up every 20-30 minutes to flip the record over.

Spotify says I listened to 102 different genres, with my top 5 being:

• New Age

• Soundtrack

• Classic Rock

• Electronica

• Ambient

I'm sensing a theme. Given I listen to music while trying to fall asleep, this is not a surprise. Nor is the fact that while I might have listened to 1944 different artists, the one I listened to the most this year was Enigma. They (he?) are one of my all time favorites. Along with Engima, the others in my top 5 are:

• Enigma

• Vangelis

• deadmau5

• Air

• Daft Punk

Goodreads

I also did a lot of reading. I like that Goodreads does a reading challenge each year that I can partipate in. When I first started a few years back I set a goal of 12 books to read for the year. This year I challenged myself to 26 books, and I'm currently at 33. I'm about a third of the way through Peril by Bob Woodward, and I should finish that before the end of the year, bringing my total to 34 books. Perhaps for 2022, I'll strive for 36 books. I have friends that read 100+ books a year, which is amazing. Most of my reading time tends to be before going to bed, so sometimes it's only 15 minutes of reading before my eyes start to droop. Here's Goodreads stats on my year:

• 33 books read

• 13,514 total pages

• Longest Book: Swan Song (956 pages)

• Shortest Book: To Be Taught If Fortunate (176 pages)

• Average Book Length: 409 pages

• Most Popular: Where The Crawdads Sing (2,625,939 people also shelved)

• Least Popular: The Salt Line (9,651 people also shelved)

• Highest Rated: A Court of Mist and Fury with 4.71 Stars

And the books I read, in order:

• Daisy Jones & the Six Taylor Jenkins Reid

• The Bone Season Samantha Shannon

• Recursion Blake Crouch

• The Collapsing Empire John Scalzi

• The Night Circus Erin Morgenstern

• Nomadland Jessica Bruder

• The Consuming Fire John Scalzi

• To be Taught, if Fortunate Becky Chambers

• The 5th Wave Rick Yancy

• If it Bleeds Stephen King

• The Last Emporer John Scalzi

• Full Throttle Joe Hill

• The Alice Network Kate Quinn

• A Memory Called Empire Arkady Martine

• The Color of Magic Terry Pratchett

• The Ghost Brigades John Scalzi

• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue V.E. Schwab

• The Glass Hotel Emily St. John Mandel

• The Lost Symbol Dan Brown

• Utopia Avenue David Mitchell

• A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles

• Swan Song Robert McCammon

• The Chosen and the Beautiful Nghi Vo

• A Court of Thorn and Roses Sarah J. Maas

• Later Stephen King

• The Lightest Object in the Universe Kimi Eisele

• Project Hail Mary Andy Weir

• Redshirts John Scalzi

• The Salt Line Holly Goddard Jones

• Alas, Babylon Pat Frank

• Where the Crawdads Sing Delia Owens

• A Court of Mist and Fury Sarah J. Maas

• The Midnight Library Matt Haig

I think my top three favorites would be:

• Project Hail Mary

• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

• Swan Song

I'm hoping to branch out a bit more next year, in terms of genres. We'll see if that happens. I do love my sci-fi and fantasy!

Reddit

To be frank, I spend way more time on Reddit than is probably healthy. It's probably my main source of news, politics, entertainment, etc. I mod a couple of communities (r/harley, r/loghomes, and r/reason), and spend more time there than any other site. According to reddit, here's my stats for the year:

• 13 new communities joined: /r/appleswap, /r/talesfromtechsupport, /r/thenandnow, and 10 others reddit isn't showing me apparently

• 328.7K Bananas Scrolled

• 8.4k Karma Gained (given the amount of time I have spend on reddit, it's obvious I'm more of a lurker)

• /r/todayilearned gave me the most karma

• My top post of the year was in /r/natureisfuckinglit 2.4K Karma

• Top voted comment had all of 141 upvotes (again, mostly a lurker)

• 22 awards given (I honestly never noticed)

• Spent the most time in /r/harley (23 hours) closed followed by /r/AskReddit (22 hours)

And there you have it. Hopefully 2022 is more about creating than consuming. As that's a vow I usually make, we'll see how well it holds up.

Here's to a better 2022 everyone!

Not so much, this time.

After a week of not hearing anything about my laptop, I logged into my account on apple.com and navigated my way to the service area. Turns out they hadn't started the repair yet because of an aftermarket drive I'd put in, and because it wasn't Apple, they needed my permission to replace the drive with an Apple approved drive.

For $1299.

So, let's break down how many ways this pissed me off:

• Apple never notified me that they were waiting for my permission to carry on with the repair

• Apple wouldn't move forward with the repair because of an aftermarket SSD, that'd been put in way after the warranty on the MacBook Pro had expired

• Apple wanted to charge me $1299 for replacing the drive. That's as much as a new 13" MacBook Pro with the M1 chip

• wtf

Needless to say, I refused the upgrade, and had them ship it back to me. Funny... when I took it in, the Apple Genius guy (who I had no problems with. Nice guy, helped me get my laptop on its way) said they would have to ship it ground instead of air because of the state of batteries. Made sense to me. Apple themselves shipped it back via FedEx air. Go figure.

Got my laptop back two days after declining services. The day I received it, I took it down to the local computer clinic (at this point I needed my laptop back and working, and I didn't want to have to hunt down the right battery, order it, wait for it to be delivered, watch a YouTube video or three on how to replace it, etc...), dropped it off and within an hour they called back saying it was ready. It's been fine ever since.

I've been an Apple fan boy (boi?) for at least the past 20 years, and this is literally the first time I've been annoyed enough to gripe about them in my personal space. I even tweeted about it. That's how huffy I was!

Turns out, it wasn't the table.

Saturday I was going to sit at the same dining table to do some freelance work, and when I sat the MacBook down, the rocking was much more noticeable. Odd, I thought. So I flipped it over, and noticed a small gap between the back cover and the body itself.

Fearing the worse, I broke out my tools and started removing the (very tiny!) screws. Once the first one was loose, it damn near popped out of there. I took off the rest, with a couple of them popping as the first did. Once all the screws were removed, I lifted the cover.

Yup. Swollen batteries. VERY swollen batteries. Yikes. I gently placed the cover back on, put only three or four of the screws back in, stuck the rest in a small baggie that I taped to the back, and setup an appointment at the Apple store.

My MacBook has since been shipped off to their repair center, and even though it's only been two days, I'm missing it. All my big programs are on there. True, my iPad Pro is a viable replacement (I pretty much update this website and the templates from it), but the music programs that I've been working with (namely Bitwig) are all on my MacBook. I have some music stuff on my iPad, but it's just not the same.

Come home soon MacBook! You're missed!

I feel stopped up. I tried creating some music last night an managed to accomplish a bit of a tune that I didn't hate. I haven't listened to it again yet, so we'll see if I still don't hate it next time.

I've been wanting to write as well. But I sit down and just blank out.

I need a creative-inducing laxative or something.

It was a small-ish gathering, with ten vaccinated friends in total, and we had a marvelous time. It was amazing just being able to see everyone’s smiles, welcome people to our house with hugs instead of elbow-bumps, and just being able to feel relaxed about being around people in general. We had the grill going, and given the chill in the air, the chiminea as well. Eventually the chill and damp motivated us to move inside, but our spirits weren’t dampened in the least. We ate, played games, drank, ate some more, and laughed our asses off.

It just felt very, very welcome.

Little did I know, I’d be packing it all right back up within minutes.

The email stated that management had decided to err on the side of caution, and was sending everyone home to work remotely for two weeks.

The two weeks became a month.

The month stretch out to three.

By June, it was very much a “play it by ear” situation. I don’t think anyone realized how quickly Covid-19 would spread. When I read the news that there were 10,000 deaths attributed to the illness, it was sobering.

As I type this, we’re sitting at just over 530K deaths. At this point, I’m nearly numb. The 10K was followed by the 50K, and then 100. And it just kept getting worse.

Thankfully, there’s a vaccine. A few, actually. And they’re slamming people through the process. The government stated they were hoping to have everyone vaccinated by the end of July. Now it’s been moved up to the end of May. Something like 2 million people are being vaccinated a day.

I don’t want to consider what it might’ve been like if he had been re-elected.

I consider myself lucky, given that I’m able to work remotely full-time. Because of this, and the generosity of a very good friend, I was able to emerge from the gray walls and tiny window of my basement, and setup house on the shores of Lake Winnipesauke. The tiny basement window has been replaced by nearly floor to ceiling windows that look out at the currently frozen lake. I spend the days pretending to work while staring out at that frozen landscape, watching snowmobiles and ATVs trundle across the ice. While my friend’s office -- which I’m working out of -- is in his basement, the basement itself is warm and inviting, full of natural light. Pretty much the whole north wall of his house is windows, facing the lake.

It’s made for a very nice change.

There’s no hard timeline for when I’m going back to my own house. Probably when I get to missing the wife, or, fingers crossed, I get a notification that my vaccination appointment has been set. Of those two reasons, I imagine the latter will happen much later. I’m in the C class, which they haven’t even started scheduling for.

But there’s a vaccine. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. There’s (hopefully) a summer of gatherings with friends and good times ahead.

There’s hope.

Fucking unreal. There’s so much that can be said about the how and the why. But I’m going to leave those three sentences above to stand on their own.

Because really, they say it all.

One of the feeds I look forward to reading the most is from Uses This. Their typical interviewee is usually in the tech sector, but there have been several artists, writers, and performers. I’m drawn to their tools of choice, be it Windows, or Mac. The peripherals they use, and the hardware and software they can’t live without. Some list cameras, and even games they play.

Uses This recently featured Kris Howard, and she offered up a lengthy interview. Which I loved of course. In the Who are you, and what do you do? section, I learned in one quick paragraph that she’s working for Amazon in Germany (which she and her partner relocated to in August 2020 from Sydney Australia), that she’s a huge Roald Dahl fan, and that she’s an award-winning knitter. She’s also been blogging for 20+ years at https://www.web-goddess.org. So, naturally, I went down that path and discovered she’s posed naked (along with 5000 other people) for Spencer Tunick. Some people really put it all out there.

But back to the tools. For me, it’s a captivating look into what is typically a non-conversation piece. At work, there’ll be tools that are suggested, and workflows to follow... but that’s about as far as the conversation goes. Someone will ask what my hobbies are, and I’ll say music. But I don’t typically say, “Oh, I love playing around in Logic Pro X or sometimes Bitwig, while other times I’ll grab my PRS SE 24 and plug it into my Fender Mustang amp and then play along to some Blues backing tracks on YouTube”. It’s not a typical every day conversational topic.

By the way, there are some really smart and hella-creative people out there. Call it a side benefit to being glued to the Uses This feed. I’ve learned about various conferences, and podcasts, and hobby projects (one person is a member of of the WesterosCraft project team that is slowly recreating the entire world of Game of Thrones in Minecraft) that I didn’t even have a clue existed.

Heck, one gal is even into group hugging. I mean, how cool is that?

And then, perhaps, I’ll actually publish that piece.

If it’s a website, that wouldn’t be a big deal; I’ve done several. The one I’m currently contemplating is an overhaul of an existing freelance project. Up until I came onboard, they were using full pages for each section. Meaning that if I made a change on the menu, I had to make that change on each page, as each page had their own menu. So very much in dire need of an overhaul. The tricky part is that the owner has no interest in updating. I don’t think he knows what he’s missing, so my goal, if I go that route, will be to make a site the he likes enough to pay me for it.

I have an embarrassing amount of music clips in my project folders. I can’t even call them unfinished songs, as I think the longest of them comes in a 32 bars or something. Mostly they’re just loops.

Similarly for my writing folder. Mostly short stories, some longer pieces, some are just a sentence or two of an idea. Fleshing them into something I think worth publishing (or, at the very least, posting here) would be a worthwhile goal.

Another option that I considered after writing this (And am editing the next day after originally posting), is fixing up my bass and/or guitar. I have an old hollow body guitar, as well as a bass down in my workshop, both in pieces. The guitar (I’d have to look to see what brand) is a hand-me-down from my dad, a guitar he purchased after remarrying. His second wife played guitar, and he decided to take a stab at it. Thankfully that marriage didn’t last, nor did his desire to learn to play. I’ve had the guitar ever since. I’d taken it apart as a kid (dumbass kid) to paint it, but never got much beyond sanding the neck a bit. I even still have all the parts in a box somewhere.

The bass guitar, which I believe is an old Carvin bass, came into my possession via an old college roommate who skipped out owing rent. He left behind the bass, I guess as some sort of payment. The bass I actually did manage to dismantle and sand down to wood. I’m not sure I have the parts, but of the two, I’d rather have the bass functioning, more so than the guitar.

It might be a tough goal to meet. Much like everything else in my life right now, the desire to accomplish something is there, but the drive is practically nil. I find that during the day, I’m more energized to work on something. However, I’m kinda supposed to be doing actual work during the day. Not screwing around trying to create something I can take a bit of pride in. And by the time the evening rolls around and the evening “chores” have been done (go for a walk, figure out dinner, clean the kitchen, etc.), any energy I had for creative pursuits has faded.

Every week feels more and more like Groundhog Day.

On March 12th, which was a Thursday, I arrived at work and started my morning routine; put my lunch in the fridge, poured some coffee out of my thermos, setup the laptop, and launched the necessary programs I typically use during the day. Opening my inbox, I saw an email from HR stating the growing concerns about COVID-19. They asked that everyone work from home until the following Friday. I remember thinking “sweet... work from home for a whole week!”

What a naive thought that was.

You know the rest of the story, unless you’ve been under a rock. Businesses, the economy, people’s livelihoods, all took a major hit. Every day I’m thankful that I have a job I can do remotely full-time. A lot of people weren’t as lucky.

Having done full-time remote work before, I had an idea of what to expect. This time, however, there was COVID-19 to also deal with. I work in my basement, and there’s one small window that lets in light. It’s the quintessential man cave. Previously, after working several days in a row and not leaving the house, the wife could tell I was getting a bit squirrelly and would take me to our local pub and meetup with friends and talk over a pint or three. This “mini-reset” always helped and the next couple of weeks would be fine.

I don’t have that outlet now thanks to the pandemic, and the worst of it, it seems like my pub has gone under and will not be opening again. That hurt more than I expected, honestly. The wife and I have been going there for at least 10 years. We’ve become friends with the crew. We’ve introduced our friends to the pub, and several of them became regulars. We were always invited to the “Regulars” Christmas party, where they shut down the bar to patrons and had insane drink specials ($2 for a pint that normally cost $5? I’ll take three please!). It was our “Cheers”.

That’s gone. Nearly everything else is closed, though some restaurants are opening patio seating now. But it’s not the same. I don’t have that outlet to turn to when my brain is slowly turning to tapioca after working too many hours, with the gray walls of my basement and whatever is on the turntable playing in the background (lately, it’s been the classical station on the radio).

So we walk the neighborhood. I go to the grocery store. Clean the house and do yard work. Stuff I used to do because it needed to be done is now stuff I do because I’m bored. Today is Saturday, and my big plan is to sweep and Swiffer our wood floors. Life in the fast lane baby.

The routine is slowly getting to me. Parts of it I very much look forward to; my morning coffee and yogurt with granola (banana on the side, please) at 10:00am. Poker Friday nights with the boys (more on that in a bit). Sitting on our recently completed deck, talking about the day’s highlights and lowlights with the wife over a beer and glass of wine. But the sameness can be maddening all the same. The problem with this forced routine is the lack of spontaneity. Aside from messaging my group of friends and asking who’s wanting to meet up at the pub after work, I’m also missing having lunch with co-workers. Realizing that what I packed just isn’t going to do it, and deciding I want to go out for lunch instead.

Getting on the motorcycle and heading west to wherever is still an option... but stopping in at a local watering hole, or visiting a touristy spot, or seeing some live music isn’t. Riding is still nice, but it’s not the same.

One bright spot is the poker games on Friday nights. I’ve been playing with this same group of guys for many years, some for more than 15. We’ve done White Elephant poker parties, have yearly trips planned that have seen us go from a cabin on Lake Anna, to camping along the Shenandoah River (both in Virginia), to a house along the shores of Lake Winnisekape in New Hampshire, and celebrated birthdays by renting casino equipment, hiring dealers, and dressing up in tuxedos. This is a great group of guys and one of the brighter sparks in the dull existence of my world as of late.

While not the same as getting around the poker table and handling cards and chips, we’ve managed to make it work, via Amazon Chime and pokernow.club. We’ve tried various poker apps with varying degrees of success, but for the past 6 weeks or so, we’ve been using Poker Now, and it’s been great. And the frequency with which we play has increased fourfold. Previously, we would try to get in a game once a month. Now it’s weekly, and occasionally twice a week.

Sometimes I think having the poker game at the end of the week is the only thing keeping me sane.

Getting out in the fresh air, and walking the neighborhood helps too. That can get a bit boring, but recently the wife purchased two different types of trash picker-uppers. One the “stab it” kind, and the other a “grab it” kind. We’ve gotten in the habit of grabbing a trash bag, our trash picker-uppers and collecting trash throughout the neighborhood. Makes the walk a bit more interesting and it make the ‘hood a bit nicer.

Now that the weather is starting to turn, I wonder how the lack of walking will affect the mood. Exercise is important; I know I don’t do near the amount I need to. When it gets cold, it gets harder to convince ourselves to bundle up and go walking.

I’m more than ready for this pandemic to be under control. Completely tired of the selfish and stupid people who want to have their parties and their weddings and not wear masks and live life normally. I get it. I want that too, but the only way we’re going to get there is if we get it under control. Congregating in large groups without masks is not the way to do it.

God dammit, I’m so sick and tired of the people who have their heads buried in the sand.

But I went and got all pigheaded about this.

I like trying new things, and as I’ve stated before, wanted to simplify the site as much as possible. Just my words, and not much else. With this in mind, I chose Jekyll. Jekyll doesn’t have a handy admin backend from which I can submit my entries. Each page, whether it’s a post such as this one, or a page like my About page, is written in Markdown. Which is fairly straight forward once you get the hang of it. What I didn’t want was a bloated and confusing admin area that I had to navigate to create just a simple blog post. Don’t get me wrong, those kinds of CMSs have their place; Two of my other sites both use CraftCMS, and I’ve built a couple of other sites on Wordpress. They’re great tools when you have a beefy website to build.

Jekyll is a static site generator, meaning there’s no database that I need to configure. Just flat files, utilizing the Liquid templating language. And after weeks of trial and error, I finally have a workflow I’m comfortable with, with tools I enjoy using (that’s always a big plus), all from my iPad Pro, which is a great piece of technology. Here’s the breakdown:

Hosting: GitHub Pages. Quite frankly, this was the most difficult part of getting i-am.ski up and running. I have a hosting service that I’ve been using for more than 10 years now. But after a lot of research and trial and error (mostly error), I decided to move the i-am.ski domain off of my hosting, and put it on GitHub Pages. The beauty of this is that Jekyll has built-in support for GitHub Pages. When I make changes to the layout, or I submit a new post, GitHub Pages runs the required updates to spit out my changes. Simple to use and, amazingly, free as well.

Version Control: Working Copy. Working Copy is a git client for iOS that does everything you would expect a desktop git client to do. There was a bit of a learning curve, but, like most things, once I started using it often to update the site, it became a lot easier to check-in files to GitHub Pages’s repositories.

Editor: Textastic. I’m forever tweaking the site, and while I (think I) can update the files from Working Copy, Textastic is just a neat little text editor. Again, it’s for iOS, and supports syntax highlighting, SSH and FTP connections, and sports a host of other features.

Writing: iA Writer. Here’s the thing: I like apps and programs that are well designed, and get out of my way. I could, with minimal fuss, update not just the layout and code of i-am.ski with Textastic, but the blog posts as well. Textastic is fully capable of working with Markdown and would have been a viable solution when it came time to deciding what I wanted to use to actually write my posts. Cheaper, too.

I am, however, a sucker for a well-designed app. And I liked the look of iA writer. At $29.99, it’s certainly one of the more expensive apps I’ve purchased. I went back and forth for a couple of weeks before finally pulling the trigger and purchasing it. Quite risky for me, given there’s not even a free trial for iOS. But I’ve not had a single moment of buyer’s remorse since.

So there you have it; GitHub Pages hosts my site. I use Working Copy to checkout and check in the files I want to work on. Textastic for when I want to make changes to the layout or style sheet. And iA Writer for writing the content.

That’s the current state of i-am.ski. Next post, I hope to talk about the current state of SKI, as in, me, myself, and I. Stay tuned.

The key, missing bit in having people who visit i-am.ski was setting the A records for my domain on my hosting provider. I’d set the CNAME record as described in the Github Pages docs, but I had completely missed the step where it described how to setup the ALIAS, ANAME, or A record. I thankfully found a medium.com article that outlined the 2 key steps needed. Once I read through that, everything clicked into place.

Now I have no excuse to write more often. Everything is working smoothly.

• Transfer the host name i-am.ski to Github Pages

• Fix the templates so I'm as close to the original Ghost theme I had going (there was a ton of CSS I wasn't using, started with a different base theme this time)

• Work on integrating iA Writer (strictly for aesthetic purposes.)

• Categories! Need to create or import the current category template pages.

And I'm sure there's more to do that I'll think of down the road.

But holy hell, I'm finally updating my site from the iPad. That's pretty amazing in my book. This little iPad Pro 11" is a pretty amazing little machine, and being able to utilize even more of its awesomeness it just...well, awesome.

Oh well. Take 424235!

edit

Whoa. Holy crap, did I actually get this working? Did I find a solution that actually works?

If I smoked, I'd go have a cigarette. This has been a long process in getting this all setup. I'd rather have used iA Writer, and that's strictly because it's just a more elegant program for writing, but honestly, right now, Textastic is bombastic.

I'll worry about iA Writer later. For now, let's get comfortable with Textastic and Working Copy.

The fallout took place when trying to update Ghost and basically things did not go well. I wasn't in the mood to troubleshoot (again!) after that first go round, so I figured I'd revisit later. Later became days, which turned into weeks... before I knew it, five months had gone by and I was still looking at the "I broke it again" html page I'd thrown up.

I decided to move on from Ghost, and opted instead for Jekyll, a static site generator. The big benefit here is there's no need for a database. No database means less maintenance, less overhead, fewer options for script kiddies to try to take over my site (who'd want to??). It also uses Markdown which is something I've been wanting to get more familiar with.

I'm also going to collect all my previous posts (at least those that I can find) and import them here. There are posts from Wordpress and Blogger that date back quite some years. I plan on dating them when they were originally posted, so there will be posts back from the early 2000's. I won't be posting items that were simple one liners ("It's snowing!" for example) and would've been better off as tweets.

Now on to the fun of importing entries and ripping out all the extraneous markup that some of these tools add. Joy.

I’m intending to write most my posts on my iPad. I know there are various Markdown editors available, but currently I’m using the iOS version of Scrivener. I’ve setup a project where I’ll write my posts, that is currently synced to Dropbox. Currently I’m using iA Writer, and will hopefully get this to sync with Dropbox, or similar. This isn’t something that’ll be completely fool proof anytime soon. After all, I’m quite the fool and excel and breaking stuff. I’ve also finally uploaded the site to the domain, so I’m not just talking to myself on my local machine. Now I’m talking to myself in the great wide open digital domain.

There are still a few things to button up before I’m completely happy:

• Being able to creat a post and seamlessly upload it to i-am.ski

• I haven’t tested how images will look yet

• Still need to setup RSS Feeds (not that I’m at all popular, but you never know and it’d be nice to have them setup in advance. Besides, once they’re in place, they’re low-maintenance)

• Fix the icon in the footer

• Get descriptions for each category in place

• Code refactoring; I suspect there’s a lot of unused CSS that I could remove

• Setup a /now page

Otherwise, I feel pretty good about the state of the site. Good enough to currently show it to the public at least. The list above can be worked on in my spare time.

Another option which I think I'll explore is utilizing Github Pages, and point the i-am.ski domain there. Assuming I can get it working (Github Pages has built-in support for Jekyll right out of the box), there will be the added benefit of becoming more comfortable with Git. I use Git daily at work, and while I'm not near as gun-shy as I used to be, if anything goes awry and I need to use some other git commands, then I tend to get a bit nervous. Particularly when I end up having merge conflicts, or similar issues.

Otherwise, isolation goes on. Given the time I've been spending in my basement where my home office is, I've been wondering how hard it'd be to add another window. Probably more money than I want to spend on this house.

one of my bigger shortcomings -- at least in my eyes ( and if you think there are other, bigger ones, please keep it to yourself, thank you very much) -- is my lack of digging deeper and really getting to know how to work with, and learn what it is I'm tinkering with. So lately I've been trying to focus on just one Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). I've been working with Bitwig, because it's still fairly new (v3.0.3 as of this writing), and somewhere down the road I'd like to be someone other people turn to to learn this software. Then I can brag about how I've been using Bitwig since v1.0. I even have the badge to prove it. A bit childish and maybe narcissistic, sure... but it's the small things.

Like any piece of creative software, whether it be Affinity's Photo or Designer, Scrivener, or Ableton Live (Bitwig's main competitor in the DAW field), they're all easy enough to do something basic up front, but the real power comes from digging deeper, and learning the ins-and-outs of the software. And of course, the more one digs, the more complicated the software can become. Bitwig is no different, so I've been trying to break it down into smaller bits, making the knowledge easier to digest. The smaller bits also help with trying to keep focus, an issue I'm constantly struggling with.

I'm not, however, taking a very practical approach. It would make sense to start at a high level, learning the basic interface to an expert level. I know the basics well enough to feel comfortable working through the project.

So yeah, that looks complicated and crazy, but I feel comfortable enough with it that I don't need to focus on it. Instead, I've chosen to start my deep dive with one of the synths that Bitwig provides. Phase-4 is a four oscillator, phase-manipulation synth. Each oscillator is identical in purpose, and differentiated by color: red, blue, yellow, and magenta (why they just didn't call it purple...). The four oscillators are fed into a global filter area, and there's also a global area to the left of the filters that house the pitch, glide, shape and mod.

Breaking it down to just the one of the oscillators, the primary control for each is the Shape knob, which affects the overall amount of phase distortion applied. Right above the Shape knob is a menu which you can click and drag to change the oscillator setting. These will be familiar settings, with Sine, Saw, Pulse Width, etc. This changes the algorithm for the phase distortion.

As an aside, there's a great video from Dave Linnenbank that talks about Phase Synthesis. In the video he's using Bitwig, but the principles apply to other DAWs and even analog synths. Watch it if you're at all confused about this particular form of synthesis. I certainly was/am/will be.

The Mod knob (heh) next to the Shape knob sets the maximum amount of phase modulation allowed from any source. And the four smaller knobs to the right of the Mod are setting the individual levels of modulation, each associated with their oscillator based on their color.

Now multiply that all by four. Four oscillators each with four ways to modulate the other oscillators and you have a tool for creating some very rich sounds. There's much more to say about the Phase-4 synth, and I've barely scratched the surface. I'm hoping to play with this more in the future, and update this post (or even create a new one) with some examples of the sort of sounds you can create using the Phase-4 Synth.

I mean... BUSY.

For a few months there I didn't have much to do. Mostly bug fixes here and there. And then we had a new project start and I was given the Bootstrap/UI duties for that team. And then a second project spun up, and it was decided I could be a "shared resource", and I was given the Bootstrap/UI duties for that project.

And then third project came about.

And a fourth.

Currently, I am on five scrum teams. Yes. Five. Now, I don't always have work or bugs for all teams at any given time, but there are days when I'm heads down for a solid 8-10 hours.

It shouldn't (hopefully) be for long. If it is, I'll burn out. Thankfully I have a good scrum master who's always checking my point totals and making sure I'm not going batshit crazy. Two sprints ago I was given a total of 13 points. A full sprint's effort is typically 8. That was a crazy week.

But hey, at least I'm not bored.

I get that it's supposed to foster creativity and collaboration. That productivity is supposed to increase. A worker in an open office is more approachable and communication increases.

Perhaps that's all true. Personally, I don't buy into it. I think rather than fostering collaboration it's fomenting animosity towards fellow co-workers. Case in point: my desk is maybe 4' x 2'. I have a side divider that's probably 16" inches tall, and a divider on the back of my desk that's maybe 2, 2 1/2 feet. Before I switched from sitting on the left side of my desk to the right, I was literally about a foot away from my co-worker (thankfully, no one sits to my right). The person who sit across from me is at least 6'2" and likes to stretch his legs out under the desk. I don't blame him at all. We end up kicking each other a lot, as I like to do the same.

Distractions

The noise is another factor. Several times one or more people will be on a conference call, and while most of my co-workers use headphones, some don't. So I get to listen to their calls (and yes, they've been told headphones should be used). I don't even like having to attend my own conference call meetings, now I'm listening to others as well. Double aggravation points when two people are on the same call, one is on headphones, one isn't, and there is a nice echo and occasional feedback. Along those same lines are the habitual knuckle-cracker and the guy who really likes to masticate his food. I'm not sure what he's eating but he does it loudly, wetly, and way too often.

"The Open Office concept fosters communication!" Ok, maybe. But it also inhibits my ability to go heads down and get some work done. As a web developer, I like to "Get in the zone" as it were and have no distractions as I work on building out a new page or component. Not possible if I'm getting stopped every five minutes for questions, or getting distracted by the guy who is, even as I type this (yes, I'm blogging at work), chewing mightily on a bag of chips. They're only chips dude, not old beef jerky.

How about the guy who likes to shoot his trash into the bin about 12 feet away? He's no NBA candidate - he misses probably 75% of his shots. Which means he then gets up, walks over and throws it away like he should. More distractions.

Findings

They have found that open plan offices create unwanted activity in the brains of workers that can get in the way of them doing the task at hand. Studies have shown that there's a 15% decrease in productivity in an open office environment. One subject wore a cap that measured his brain waves while trying to work in an open plan office. The results revealed intense bursts of distraction. Another study found that 76 percent of Americans “hate open offices.” 76%. That's a huge number of your employees to be hating their work environment.

I get that it's cost-prohibitive for everyone to have an office. But if companies are going to stick with the open office concept, there needs to be some changes. Bigger desks, so I don't feel like I'm sitting on top of my neighbor. As a bonus, I could actually fit a picture of the family if I so desired. How about some spaces where there's an abundance of natural light? One of the saving graces for myself is that I'm close to a window. I have lots of natural light. People at the other end of the room, not so much.

And headphones. Perhaps because companies are saving money on offices, they should invest in some headphones for everyone. Honestly, same days having my music playing is my only saving grace.

I don't think the open office concept is going away anytime soon, but it's almost like there needs to be a course on how to be a considerate open office co-worker.

I'm looking at you, Mr. I-eat-my-stinky-eggs-every-day-at-10:30.

This annoys me.. I really don't care about the history. Does a mechanic open a manual on how to fix an engine and the first chapter is "The history of the internal combustion engine"? While I haven't checked any manuals lately, I would bet not. So why does it seem every JavaScript book needs to delve into the history of the language? The syntax and structure of JavaScript is nothing like it was back in 1995, much like a modern engine only slightly resembles an engine from 100 years ago. Maybe that's a bad analogy, as they're still using combustion to force pistons to turn a crankshaft to power a drivetrain (man, why hasn't the engine developed past that?), but you get the idea. I want to get to the practicality of the language, I don't believe I need to know it was originally called Mocha, then Livescript then blah blah blah.

Another annoyance: I've been going through the freecodecamp Basic JavaScript lessons, and completed the "Use Bracket Notation to Find the First Character in a String" chapter. Not that difficult really, especially if you follow the example:

var firstLetterOfFirstName = "";
var firstName = "Ada";

firstLetterOfFirstName = firstName[0];

In the case, the first letter (identified by the [0]) is A. OK, great, fairly simple.

Now what I want to see is a real-world example. When would I need to use something like that? How can that be a benefit to myself, as a front-end developer? I feel like there are two levels of JavaScript: those front end devs like myself, who just want to use JavaScript to add some basic functionality, and the more experienced programmers who can use it to launch rockets to the moon. Give me some real world examples after each lesson, and I think the lesson would stick better.

While I did like the flat-file structure of Grav, I was getting annoyed by several minor things, which added up to me deciding to just say "Screw it!", and install Ghost as my CMS of choice. The install of Ghost was a bit trickier, due to my host, but I found a good guide to get me through and within the hour, I had it setup and running. I only had six entries from my Grav install, and I had copied those to a text file previously. So it was a fairly painless process to post them in Ghost and get them tagged as I saw fit. Then I zipped up the theme I was using on my localhost (mnml, with some changes specific to me. Again, I found another how-to to accomplish that), uploaded it, and I'm happy with the result.

So far.

Hopefully, I will leave well enough alone. I'm sure I'll have some small changes here and there I want to fix, but overall, I should be good to go for the most part. Now it's time to get back to learning. Javascript will be my main focus. Or at least, should be. I did just upgrade to Bitwig 3. That's been a lot of fun to play with.

In the quest to learn (insert subject here), it's important to practice a bit every day. At least for me. Some days, however, are quite the challenge for me. I want to get better at Javascript, but I find myself bouncing around topics. Three days ago I was going back through the freecodecamp.org Basic Javascript curriculum and making my way (again) through their tutorials. Yesterday, for some reason, I started watching a React tutorial on Youtube. I keep telling myself I need to learn to walk before running, but my scatterbrained self gets distracted easily. And then some days I don't want to practice coding at all and instead want to play within Logic Pro, or Ableton, or Reason.

Maybe I need to practice focusing on one particular project. Perhaps there's a YouTube video about that... oh, look, "The Office" bloopers!

I even went so far as to install Ghost on my local machine to start playing with that particular CMS to see if I wanted to install it on my site. Why? Mostly because... why not? I like to tinker and get a feel for something, but one of my bigger shortcomings -- at least in my eyes ( and if you think there are other, bigger ones, please keep it to yourself, thank you very much) -- is my lack of digging deeper and really getting to know how to work with, and learn what it is I'm tinkering with.

I have four different DAWs. FOUR! Who needs four? I just like to poke around and see what's different about each one and dick around with them all. I do that for not only a lot of software, but kind of my life in general. I have several guitars, but can only play passing well. Why several guitars? Because I can! I figure out what I need to do to get what I want accomplished, and then either get bored or am not that excited about learning more about (insert whatever here).

I want to write more, and get better at it. I enjoy writing short stories and want to take a stab at something bigger. What tools does one need to write? Paper and pen at the very basic level. I have horrible handwriting so I would rather type something out. All computers nowadays come with some sort of basic editor preinstalled (TextEdit on Mac for example), and if you need something fancier, Google Docs is free. But I want to write literature. So I need some fancy piece of software designed specifically for someone to write novels with.

At least, that's how I tend to normally think.

Some years back, my wife gave me Scrivener for Christmas, and I was all set to sit down and write The Novel with it. While that hasn't even come close to happening, I have written several smaller pieces, from short stories and poems to journal entries. And recently I purchased an iPad (that's a whole other journal entry waiting to happen), and because I have the iPad, I just needed the iOS version of Scrivener.

Or did I?

I started looking around at other writing apps for iOS. The one that seemed like the one to get was Ulysses, and to be quite frank, the reason I zeroed in on that particular piece of software was because one of the bloggers I follow, a fellow by the name of Matt Gemmell, uses it on his iPad. He had been a Scrivener user and then switched to Ulysses. And I figured if Matt went that route, maybe I should too.

Before I plunked down the cash though, I managed to take a step back and reconsider. I'm not a writer. I'm a dabbler. Or a wannabe, as I stated in my About page. I have perfectly good software in Scrivener. Better than good, in fact. It's consistently rated as one of the best apps specifically aimed at writers. And while I might not know all the ins and outs of it, I am fairly comfortable with it. The end goal, which is writing a story, is still the same. I'm just wanting to use different tools. In this particular case, it's like using Indeed or LinkedIn to find a job - both have plenty of jobs listings, but it's the end goal of find the job one should be concerned with.

And if I'm completely honest here (and after all, isn't that what part of journaling is all about?), there's also an aspect of avoidance. I tell myself I need to get better with the software to write/compose/create, or that I need to checkout all the options because I might miss the best software available, but that's an excuse. Because writing, playing music, photography, whatever it is I'm into currently is hard. It takes discipline, which I lack in droves. It takes commitment, which I'm lacking in as well. As an example, just in writing this entry, I've stopped once already to go play on slither.io. At times, I wonder if it's a medical issue - maybe like a sort of ADD. I do tend to get distracted easily, so it's possible I suppose. I doubt I'll ever go to a doctor to find out for sure though. So I'll try to focus on recognizing when I'm procrastinating and avoiding.

Ulysses is also subscription based. I want to pay for my software once and own it. I hate feeling like the program I'm using will suddenly stop working if I don't want to pay year-after-year. So another positive for Scrivener.

In short, it's time to be appreciative of what I have, and focus on the what I want to accomplish. I'm going to make myself a promise to write something tonight, something aimed at getting my story (be it a novella, novel, short story, or hell, maybe an epic poem, who knows) started.

It's time for me to listen to Nike. I need to...

While looking over some of the examples to try and understand things better, I found that in latest version of Javascript -- ES6 -- there's now a for...of statement that loops over "iterable objects". Quite frankly, I wasn't sure what "iterable" meant (I figured it had to do with counting objects), so I looked that up.

Boy, I wish I hadn't.

I did a simple right-click -> lookup on the word "iterable" to see what Apple says the definition is. Their definition came from Wikipedia which says:

In mathematics, an iterable cardinal is a type of large cardinal introduced by Gitman, and Sharpe and Welch, and further studiedby Gitman and Welch. Sharpe and Welch defined a cardinal κ to be iterable if every subset of κ is contained in a weak κ-model M for which there exists an M-ultrafilter on κ which allows for wellfounded iterations by ultrapowers of arbitrary length.

ಠ_ಠ

I'm not a mathematician, and now I know why. That's a bunch of gobbly-gook right there.

But onto trying to figure out what the for...of loop accomplishes and how it works.

At first, the syntax seems fairly straight forward: for (variable of iterable) { statement} But once I combined that with the reverse string example:

function reverse(str) {
  let reversed = "";
  for (let char of str) {
    reversed = char + reversed;
  }
  return reversed;
}

I started getting confused. At first glance upon looking at the syntax, it seems simple enough: for a variable of the iterable, do something. But looking at the reverse string example, it first sets reversed to an empty string, and in the for...of loop, it does a let char of str. OK, so, let the character of the str parameter we pass as an argument to the reverse function be reversed by adding the char to the reversed variable.

And then return that variable.

I am so confused. I try talking (or, in this case, writing) the logic out-loud in hopes that it'll stick to some part of my brain, but this time, not so much. How is it deciding the reverse the string? This is a big part of why Javascript (and really, programming in general) doesn't make sense to me. There seems to be something going on that a lot of more practiced developers take for granted that I'm just not getting.

I'll keep plugging away and report back later if I have anything of value or makes sense.

Meanwhile maybe I should write about butterflies or something. They're pretty.

Which was stupid. I'm familiar enough with child-themes, having built a few with Wordpress. But my brain apparently checked out, and I went and heavily modifed the bootstrap-blog theme I was using. And then the next day, Grav notified me of updates that needed to be done. Being a good little web developer (ha), I always try to get updates in as soon as possible. Gotta keep those files up-to-date so the site stays secure, right?

So I updated Grav, as well as the theme, and everything just went to shit, to put it bluntly. It took me the better part of the day to figure what I'd done, and quite frankly, I'm still not sure I'm 100% certain what happened. On top of that, I don't even know why the new page I added -- once I had everything back to looking 90% of how it was -- won't show. It was a simple About page, but if I try to visit it, it just leads to the default home page (which is just my blog listings).

So back to the drawing board. Part of the reason I stopped debugging to write this out is sort of as a test. I want to make sure at least the blog posts show up. I can work on the individual pages seperately, just as long as the blog posts continue.

Fingers crossed!

There are dozens and dozens of resources out there, both free and paid. I think I'll start with some basics on YouTube and work my way over to freecodecamp. Or maybe vice-versa. Who knows. I'm also going to show what I'm learning here, and present it as if I were teaching you to code. I think that will help my overall learning process.

I'm going to start by trying to solve a question I was asked in an interview some months back, and see if I can work through that: Reverse a string. Let's go!

One of the best sources on finding how to do, well, anything in this world is Google. Doing a search for "Reverse a string in Javascript" returns over 22 million hits. I definitely should be able to find something to answer this question then!

The first site returned talks about using Javascript's built-in functions. Namely, split(), reverse(), and join(). If you read those functions by themselves, they make sense: Split, we're going to split the string, then we'll Reverse their order, and then we'll Join them back together.

The actual function looks like this

function reverseString(string) {  
    return string.split("").reverse().join("");  
    }  

reverseString("I can learn this!");

Utilizing Chrome's Developer Tools, I used the console, copied that in, and "!siht nrael nac I" was returned. Here's a breakdown of what's happening:

First, we use split() to take the string "I can learn this!" and turn it into an array: i.e., ["I", " ", "c","a","n"," ","l","e",...] Notice that the spaces are included in that split. Next, reverse() takes that new array created by split() and reverses it. ["!", "s", "i", "h", "t", " ", "n", "r", "a", "e", "l", ...] Finally, join() is used to join the letters in the new array back together.

Fairly simple once you break it down. Really, my biggest issue with this apparent mental block about learning Javascript (aside from the fact that I just don't seem to use it enough in everyday work), is the syntax. Parenthesis () vs. Curly braces {}. When to use them, and when to add a closing semi-colon. This really just comes down to practice for me, and hopefully doing something like this blog post on a daily, even weekly basis, will help with that.

There are other ways to reverse strings. That's something that's true a great deal of the time in programming (and in life really); there's always another way to do something. One of those ways is using a For Loop. Because loops are an important part of programming in general, I'm going to tackle that in my next post.

I like to write, when the mood strikes, and having a place to write about whatever I feel like writing about will be nice. As stated on the homepage, there's not really going to be any sort of focus; whatever strikes my fancy I suppose. There'll be talk of tech/geeky stuff, and music as well. Might be some photography plus the occasional photograph. Babbling mostly.

As this is the inaugural post, let me introduce myself. I'm Shad (my initials are SKI, hence the i-am.ski domain), an Arizona native currently living in Northern Virginia. I've lived here with my family for over twenty years now, and man does time fly. I work as a front end developer, but mostly I fix what the back end developers don't want to bother with. Which is mostly OK. I'm your typical suburbanite, with two kids (both grown), a house in the 'burbs, a truck, a motorcycle, and a wife who wishes I was was handier at fixing things. I'm one of those guys who can turn a two hour job into something that lasts all day with two or three trips to Home Depot or the auto parts store.

This website itself is pretty bare bones, and I plan on keeping it that way for the foreseeable future. Hopefully this helps me focus on the content rather than the presentation of said content. But I will give some of the geeky details: As of June of 2019, I'm using Grav to run it, as I a) like playing around with new CMS's and b) didn't feel like I need a database for anything. I'm running it with the Admin plugin to just make things a bit easier. It's running the Bootstrap Blog theme by Ayoze Hernández Díaz.

And that's about it. Like I said, trying to keep it bare bones.

Sharing this, so you all get a sense of what Sarah is going through, and how she's handling things. This is what she posted today:

I wanted to send a massive thank you to everyone who has sent me a care basket, or has reached out over the last couple of weeks, as well as today. My parents are free to share this if they would like, so their friends can see as well, that I really do appreciate everything people are doing, and want to do for, me and my family.

Now that my thank you's have been said, I'm going to talk a little about how today, I found a reason to really hate what it is I'm about to go through over the next couple months. I'm being 100% honest when I say that up until now, this hasn't bothered me too much. The doctor appointments were inconvenient, and it has really prevented me from doing my best in class. But still, I had no beef with this cancer. Of all the cancers I could have gotten, this is easily one of the best, and we have found it early enough that if everything goes smoothly, I should be all done by Christmas. So everything was going perfectly well until about eight o'clock this evening, just four hours after getting home from my first session of chemo. At eight is when I found the real reason to hate having to do chemo every other week, and it wasn't the fact that It still hurts when they stab my port, or that the anti-nausea drugs they fill me up with make me light headed, or that it takes so damn long, or even the chemicals leaving a gross taste in my mouth. No, it wasn't any of that. It was that when I got home I decided to take a nap, and when I woke up from that nap four hours later, right then, at the very moment of peak "after-nap" grogginess, is when the ice-cream truck decided to drive by my house. And I was too tired to chase after it and get myself a dang ice cream.

So I would like you all to take advantage of the next time you see an ice cream truck and have an ice cream or two. In honor of the day I watched one go by through my window, and couldn't find the effort to go get my sweet treat.

Treat yo' selves.

Because a lot of people have reached out asking questions, and as Sarah has made her own post, I guess it's ok to explain what's going on. I'm not one to usually talk about private matters on Facebook, but it does seem to be the quickest way to get info to the masses.

Monday night, Gail and I went to Richmond, as Sarah was in the ER. After a million lab samples and tests, we finally got a firm diagnosis of Hodgkin's Lymphoma. As far as cancers go, this is one of the easier ones to treat, with a 97% survival rate.

The outpouring of support and well wishers has made this incredibly stressful and emotional week a bit easier to bear. So, many thanks to you all. We have a plan now and can move forward. Not only is Sarah determined to kick cancer's ass, she's a bit put out that it picked now to appear. She has a plan for her life and this certainly wasn't part of it. But she's super determined and her strength this past week has been a rock for Gail and I.

All the positive thoughts and prayers are welcomed and appreciated. I have no doubt Sarah will beat this. She's one of the most determined kids I've ever met. This is nothing more than a speed bump.

In sort, I find ways to defeat myself. I recognize that about myself, I know the key to fixing it is to do like Nike says and “Just Do It”.

Easier said than done I guess. I’m still stuck.

What’ll make this fun/frustrating is that I’m horrible with time management, and I can be seriously lazy. So we’ll see where this gets me. I’ve been thinking about this for the better part of two weeks, so I’m hoping when my 40th birthday rolls around (23rd of December for those keeping track at home and want to buy me something), that I’ll have a basic list of the things I want to accomplish, and a basic schedule of how I’m going to accomplish it.

Wish me luck.

Pretty much, life is the same. Work is work, but at least I have a job. I’ve been wrestling off and on (again, more off than actually on) with Drupal in trying to get it to work the way I want it to work with a new site I’m attempting to create. Kids are back in school and seem to be adapting well. The oldest is keeping on top of things, which is good, and the youngest is enjoying middle school and all that entails.

I bought a truck back in August. She’s a 2006 Tacoma Double Cab 4WD Long Bed. I named her Rosie.

I have plans for her, new equipment, new wheels and tires, etc. Naturally those all cost money, which I don’t have enough of at the moment ’cause I just bought a new truck. Vicious circle.

Gail’s off to Ireland this Friday. Assuming she can kick this cough-bug-flu-bronchitis thing she has. Whatever it is. She doesn’t know, doctors don’t know. Hopefully she’ll be OK to travel, ’cause she’ll kick herself if she doesn’t get to go with her ghost hunting group to Ireland to visit the castles and such.

Soccer’s back in season, but I’m not coaching this year. Had originally planned on going back to school, but can’t afford that so now I’m looking at getting a part-time job to get on top of these bills so I can go back. We shall see.

And that’s how my world is turning, in a nutshell. Exciting, no?

As many of you (all three of my readers) probably know, I’ve been in the market for a new/used truck. I’ve been doing a lot of research and have settled on a very specific model. So this past Sunday I went to test drive one. They had the short bed version in stock, but not the long bed. I figured the ride wouldn’t be a whole lot different, so I took it out for a spin. I was rather pleased. It has a stiff ride, which is to be expected as it is a truck, but at highway speeds of 65mph or more, it was a quiet, smooth ride. The dealership would have to order one for me if I wanted it in the green they have (Gail thinks red is too flashy, I detest silver, so green is a nice compromise). The Cash for Clunkers rebates kick in on the 24th, which means I’ll have to purchase a brand new truck if I want to take advantage of the rebates. I’ll have to seriously massage some numbers to see if I can get it in the price range I want. And that’s the part I hate. I like test driving, I like searching tons of car sites, reading Auto Trader, and walking car lots. I hate the negotiation part. That’s part of why Carmax appeals to me – no hassle pricing. If the Carmax dealer by me sold new Toyotas instead of Mitsubishis, it’d make life much easier.

Aside from that, we had a busy weekend. Gail and I took the kids to see the new Harry Potter movie, which we all thought was excellent. Looking forward to seeing last movie. I think the movies themselves have just gotten better as they go along, which makes sense; the kids are better actors, they’re growing up and filling out their roles.

After the movie, Gail asked if I wanted to go to the Apple store, as it was in the same mall as the theater. I said “I can’t go in, I’ll have to buy something. I can only go in there so often and come out empty handed!” She said “So...let’s go.”

I took that as permission.

We went, and man was that place crowded. Gail remarked that you couldn’t tell there was a recession going on judging by the crowd in there. She was right. Wall-to-wall people. Gail found the iPhones and started playing, and then watched a guy who was giving a class on the iPhone. She has been wanting one almost as much as I have. I leaned over and said “If you go and ask if they have the 3Gs in stock, I’ll buy you one.” I don’t think I’d finished expelling breath from that sentence before she was gone from my side. Five minutes later, Sarah came up and said, “Mom’s looking for you.” Gail was at one of the laptops, and was half-way through the process of upgrading to the iPhone. She looked at me quizzically, to see if I really meant it. She’d filled out all but the last four digits of my social security code on the upgrade form. I punched those in, and hit next.

We got in line, and about 20 mins later we were walking out of the store with her new iPhone. She was very happy, and for those that are wondering why I didn’t buy the iPhone for myself, as much as I’ve been talking about it lately, well – her smiles are always worth it. And her phone was starting to go into the crapper anyway. I’ll get one soon, and it’ll be easier to justify it now as well. See, aside from the cheese-factor of making my wife happy, there was also a bit of psychology behind it; Gail played with her phone all weekend, loving how easy it was, how she was able to navigate to the app store and download stuff (great example of that in a moment), and just the general overall coolness of it. When I start complaining how my phone sucks, or I’m jealous, she won’t hesitate to drag me over to the Apple store and get one. Hopefully.

Sunday Gail and I got up to go walking along the W&OD Trail. We had walked all of about 30 yards down the trail when Gail said “oh, we should get my phone! It has a pedometer application!” We had left it in the car as she had no pockets and I didn’t want to be stuck carrying it. So we turned around and got her phone out of the car. When she said the phone had a pedometer application, I thought she meant already installed. Nope – but she knew the App Store had one, and even thought to look for a free one (which she found). And that’s part of the beauty of the iPhone, and Apple products in general; ease of use. Gail’s by no means a super computer user, but she had figured out how to get the iPhone to hook to the App Store and search for a application and download it. It took all of about 30 seconds, and then we were on our way, her phone sitting in my pocket counting our steps. Pretty damn cool. And I was surprised by the lightness, it didn’t feel heavy in my pocket at all.

Finished up the weekend by wiping Gail’s laptop and re-installing Vista. One way or another it managed to get a bunch of trojans and virii on it. Frustrating when the programs I tried (Spy Doctor, Norton, McAffee) couldn’t get rid of it. I figured it was due, so I told Gail the previous week to back up what she wanted, and last night I started the wiping process. I started by muttering how I wouldn’t have had to do this with an iMac (referring to my idiotic purchase of the Sony Vaio instead of an iMac) and Gail said, “Want to go to the Apple Store?”

Sunday they decided to take the kids to an all-you-can-eat ice-cream festival. Figuring I didn’t need to be party to such debauchery (as I would probably partake to a degree that would leave the sponsors of the event wondering what they were thinking in having an all-you-can-eat event), I hopped on the Harley and went down through the countryside towards Culpepper. Ended up putting about 125 miles on the odometer. It was a great day for a ride and I enjoyed the heck out of it. I have the ‘biker’s tan’ now: white hands (from the gloves), burnt forearm, and white biceps. Gonna look like a barber pole at the end of the summer.

With the one website out of the way, I’m going to try and keep the momentum going and finish my writing critique site. My friend Treva said she’d help, as she has more experience with Drupal than I, so here’s to hoping we can actually accomplish something. I don’t have a layout, but I want to get the back end working properly and site flow to make sense before throwing it into a layout. That’s probably doing it ass-backwards, but I’ve never been accused of making sense to begin with.

July has been odd. Yesterday the temps were only in the upper 70s and the humidity has been very tolerable. Today we’re in the low to mid 80s. I should be on my bike heading west, into the twisty curves of the some nice roads along the Appalachians, or down into West Virginia. It’s simply gorgeous outside.

My poor dog Annie has been having a hell of a skin infection/rash lately. Since March she’s been scratching. I literally mean that. Since March it seems like all she does is scratch. And lick. And scratch and lick and scratch and lick and oh my god I’m ready to go insane. She’s usually worn out by about 10:30 and we get some sleep. But about 5am she starts up again with the scratching, and by now she’s snuck into our bedroom and is scratching (or licking) right at the foot of our bed. Some nights she is scratching so vigorously she shakes the entire bed, waking us up in the process. On a good morning Gail isn’t the most pleasant, add being forcibly awaken in such a manner and she’s just grouchy as hell. At about 5:30 this morning she threw the covers off and stormed out of the bedroom muttering something I’m sure was vulgar and probably involved some sort of evil way to get rid of the dog. Poor Annie, it’s not like it’s her fault. I’ve been trying to remember that when she won’t stop and it’s frustrating me. We’ve spent a ton of money at the vet so far and right now she’s eating kangaroo dogfood to try and get her on a different protein. We’ve done the steroid shots and sprays, baths galore, even aloe vera and coconut oil. Hopefully we find something that works soon.

Gail’s mother is coming into town tomorrow and so this past weekend, rather than cruising around on the motorcycle, was spent cleaning and finishing up projects that’d been sitting around. The hallway is painted, along with Sarah’s room. It was 3/5ths done, and we finally got the other two walls painted the purple she picked out. It really is quite cool. Dark, but cool. I also replaced toilet seats, intake vents and put new outlets in Sarah’s room, replacing the old ones. The previous owners just took the paint roller and went over the socket and faceplate in one swoop. Now it’s nice and white instead of that mauve they had. There was power washing, floor scrubbing, kitchen scrubbing (including the top of the refrigerator), dusting, vacuuming. I imagine tonight will involve some steam cleaning. Wee.

I’ve been looking at trucks lately. It seems the one I want – a Toyota Tacoma Double Cab Long Bed 4×4 in something other than silver – is difficult to come by. At least for the price I want. I can go to buyatoyota.com and build my own to the tune of 30K, but that’s out of my price range. Gail and I stopped by Carmax yesterday and they had one that was almost exactly what I wanted on the lot: 4×4, double cab, red… but the short box. If I get a truck, I want to be able to lie down in the back and close the tailgate. Can’t do that when the bed is all of 5′6″. I guess I’ll keep looking. Maybe if I save a bit more and take advantage of the Cash for Clunkers government program, I can get a new one. I’ve never had a new car before. I know people say you lose a good chunk of the value of the car as soon as you drive it off the lot, but that’s OK. I tend to drive my cars into the ground, putting 100K or more in miles on it, so it makes sense to get a new one. At least to me.

Let’s see... what else can I babble about? Cody’s in summer school again, for failing biology. He’ll probably get an A in the class. He’s not dumb, he’s just lazy. Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in that case. Because of the F he can’t go see the Green Day concert which we bought him tickets to, as sort of a bribe (pass the class and you can go!). He didn’t, so Sarah and I will probably go, and sell (or give away) the other two tickets. In August my friend Scott and I are going to go see Silversun Pickups, which is just about my favorite band right now. They have a Sonic Youth/90s sound that I really like. That’s it for shows I believe.

And I guess I’ll stop babbling for now as well.

But I digress in what I really wanted to talk about.

I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a grammar Nazi. Not that I’m perfect; I’ve made stupid mistakes as I’m sure many of you have, and I’d be completely unsurprised if there weren’t a couple in this post (double negative!). But I have a healthy respect for the language, and it drives me insane when I see ‘your’ or ‘there’ instead of ‘you’re’ or ‘their’. And it’s scary because I’m seeing college-aged kids who don’t seem to know the difference as well.

There’s another word that’s been driving me nuts in the way it’s being used lately, especially now that I coach soccer; the word is ‘verses’. The girls all seem to think that saying “who are we versing today” is acceptable. I’m constantly correcting them. And it was really driven home when I overheard one of the other parents ask the All-Star coach who the team was ‘versing’. The way she said it sounded almost mocking, as if she was fully aware that she was using it completely wrong (and I really hope she was). But how long before she stops mocking herself and using it naturally? I understand language is fluid and dynamic and is constantly evolving, but this is driving me up the wall.

Why do I let it bother me so much? Good question.

One of those distractions is back – soccer season has swung into full gear. Our team had its first game of the season this past Saturday, which we won, 1-0. It was a great game, and we had some great plays by our keeper. After the whistle blew sounding the end of the game, we were all giving each other high-fives and congratulations and lining up to go shake the other teams’ hands when I noticed Sarah was in tears. I asked what was wrong and she said she couldn’t breathe. Turns out she’d been trying to get my attention the last part of the game because she needed a break and was having a hard time catching her breath. I asked why she didn’t just run over and tell me or the other coach that she needed to come out and she replied with “I was worried the ball would come my way and get past me and they’d score.”

Talk about making dad feel like a heel!

After being able to rest for about 10 minutes, she was back to her normal bouncy self and was happy they’d won. It didn’t seem like asthma or anything, she was just wiped out.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing the normal weekend-suburbanite chores. I did manage to wipe out the front page of a website I’d been working on. That was lots of fun. Thankfully because I had the page still loaded in a browser, I was able to create it with minimal fuss and had it back online within 20 mins. Hopefully the owner of the page didn’t notice.

And hopefully this will make me start doing backups more often!

• It’s FREE as in beer (ExpressionEngine costs $99 for a personal license)

• It supports members

• I like learning new things

• It seems to have a strong developer and user community behind it

• Never hurts to have ‘experience developing with Drupal’ on a resume

It’s been a long, slow learning curve. I should throw steep in there as well. I’m sure like Expression Engine, I’ll have an ‘a-ha!’ moment or two. The problem I’ve had lately is trying to sit down for a quite hour or three and dig into it.

I had some time last night so I was playing around with it. If you’re new to Drupal, one of the first modules I suggest installing is CCK (Content Construction Kit). This module allows you to insert fields of any type where you want them. I’m creating a site for writers, which will allow them to post short stories for review. Rather than a typical Title field and Body field, I wanted a place for a summary. This is where the CCK module comes in. Now when someone submits a story, they have three fields: The Title of Your Story, Summary and Your Story. I will probably change these fields to sound better, but you get the idea the flexibility the CCK module gives. There’s so much to this module that I’ve only barely scratched the surface of it.

Otherwise, it’s been trial and error, trial and breaking, breaking and fixing, getting frustrated and giving up, and then having a thought and going back to it. It’s a long process, but I’m starting to feel like I’m making a bit of headway. Once I have the fields in place, and the comments working, then it’ll be putting it into a layout I want. And THAT will be a serious challenge.

But this morning, as I traveled down the road and the fog grew increasingly thicker, I was being anything but wistful about the ride. The weather reports were promising a beautiful afternoon with highs near 70, blue skies and a slight breeze. Completely perfect riding weather. As it’s been a nearly two months since I had been out on the bike, I figured it’d be a great day to ride to work. It was a great day to ride HOME from work, but certainly not to.

When I got on the 6-lane that I take to work, the already thick fog grew even thicker, and I couldn’t see twenty yards in front of my bike. Combine that with the condensation that was collecting rapidly on my face shield and the traffic coming up quickly behind me and probably not seeing my puny tail light, I decided it was time to get off the road. I pulled off at the next exit, and found a Chik-fil-a for some breakfast. I couldn’t even see the buildings across the parking lot, so I figured I’d stay until I could. Luckily I had a book of short stories in my saddle bag, so I had quite the pleasant morning sitting and reading.

I do love foggy mornings. Just not so much when I’m riding in them.

Yes, you heard me right. My wife was taken away in the back seat of a county sheriff's cruiser.

And that's about as dramatic as I can make it. No, she wasn't being arrested or anything like that. No spousal abuse, no domestic disturbance, and no, she didn't short circuit after having finally finished her mid-term and term paper. Let me tell you the story...

Right about supper time last night, I happened to notice a kid walking through the neighbor's yard. At first I thought it was a neighborhood kid and made the comment about how I couldn't believe he'd have the brass to walk through their yard, as they have some rather large dogs who can be over-enthusiastic. A couple of minutes later, I saw he was in the back yard of Debbie's house, a different neighbor. It was obvious this wasn't who I thought it was, and even more obvious that he was mentally challenged in some way.

I walked out to keep an eye on him while Gail left to start combing the neighborhood to see if anyone was out looking for him. The poor kid was in a pair of sweats and long sleeved shirt, but that was it. No socks, no shoes, not even a coat. And it was cold and drizzly. From my admittedly uninitiated observation, it appeared he was autistic: he had a stuffed cat that he had by the tail and was twirling it around non-stop. I tried approaching him once to see if he wanted to come into my house to get warm, but as soon as he saw me, he turned and went around the backside of Debbie's house.

Not wanting to lose sight of him, I walked around the front and then just kept him in sight. He went to another house and tried to get in the front door, which was locked. Then he went around the back, tried the basement door, then climbed the deck and tried the door there. Both were locked and he found a swinging chair to sit in.

Gail showed back up at this time and said that she thought his name was Andrew. I called up to him and he did seem to react to his name. Gail, having experience with these types of kids, walked up the deck and simply picked him up. He held on to her willingly so she brought him back out to the street. About this time the sheriff's deputy had arrived.

Gail had found where he was from, so she and Andrew hopped in the back of the cruiser and the deputy took Andrew home. Turns out he'd wandered away from his sitter, and they were all out looking for him. Luckily, Gail had found one of the people searching, who in turn told her what house to go to.

So all's well that ends well. Andrew was home safe, hopefully with some socks on to warm his feet, and we now have his parents phone numbers, as well as his sitters.

I just wish I'd had my camera when the deputy left with Gail in the back of the cruiser.

• I actually managed to get up early Saturday and go into DC to take pictures of the memorials.

• Busy!

• Among other things (a wonderful potluck dinner given by a co-worker, and getting Sarah to a bday party), I managed to get Gail's Birthday Present.

• Yes, Birthday Present is capitalized. It was expensive, it gets to be capitalized.

• If you're wondering, it's a pottery wheel. Expensive and damn heavy

• Damn near gave myself a hernia carrying it up the stairs.

Superbowl

• Was it just me, or were 90% of the commercial's boring?

• Was it just me, or was 90% of Paul McCartney's half-time show boring?

• Good game, or at least the bit I saw. I was beat, went home at the beginning of the 4th Quarter. Got up too early Saturday (see above

Monday

• It can't be all bad, I won a free song from the iTunes Music Store.

• Plus I have poker tonight. Poker=Happy Helbnt!

• But work sucks. No matter what day of the week it is

• I'll be damned impressed if all these list bullets come out on the first try

12:32:48 cardinalcheer123: hey
21:46:08 cardinalcheer123: hey
21:46:15 cardinalcheer123: aslo
21:46:22 cardinalcheer123: lol

And then the next day, I answered:

17:18:33 cardinalcheer123: hey
17:18:43 shad: why do you keep IM'ing me?
17:19:04 cardinalcheer123: name please
17:19:14 shad: No
17:19:29 cardinalcheer123: asl
17:19:47 shad: Nope
17:20:09 cardinalcheer123: r u a boy
17:20:29 shad: I'm not giving you any information. :)
17:20:38 cardinalcheer123: what
17:20:49 shad: Good bye, and have a nice evening.
17:20:57 cardinalcheer123: hey
17:21:03 cardinalcheer123: r u a boy
17:21:45 cardinalcheer123: asl please
17:22:47 cardinalcheer123: r u a boy
17:23:03 cardinalcheer123: name please
17:23:54 shad: What part of "No", "Nope", and "I'm not giving you any information" did you not understand?
17:24:49 cardinalcheer123: k
17:25:11 cardinalcheer123: i'm 19/f/ar
17:34:36 cardinalcheer123: hey
17:34:55 cardinalcheer123: i'm sry for askin u a kind of stuff
17:36:07 cardinalcheer123: all kinds of stuff
18:53:44 cardinalcheer123: hey
18:53:57 cardinalcheer123: asl please
18:55:38 cardinalcheer123: hey
18:55:46 cardinalcheer123: hey
18:55:49 cardinalcheer123: hey
18:55:50 cardinalcheer123: hey
18:55:52 cardinalcheer123: hey
18:55:53 cardinalcheer123: hey
18:55:56 cardinalcheer123: hey

And then I tried being rude:

16:38:57 cardinalcheer123: hey
16:39:30 shad: what
20:44:51 cardinalcheer123: hey
20:45:46 cardinalcheer123: r u goin to talk to me
20:45:52 cardinalcheer123: hello
20:45:57 cardinalcheer123: age please
20:46:02 cardinalcheer123: i'm 19
20:46:04 cardinalcheer123: f
20:46:05 cardinalcheer123: ar
20:46:30 shad: No, I'm not going to talk to you. I've told you no several times now. There's not REASON for me to talk to you...
20:46:32 cardinalcheer123: hey *** hole
20:46:48 shad: Oh, so you call me names, and expect me to place nice and stuff?
20:46:49 cardinalcheer123: why
20:47:04 cardinalcheer123: ya *****
20:47:13 cardinalcheer123: age
20:47:17 shad: Tell ya what...why don't you just go to hell :-D
20:47:26 cardinalcheer123: why
20:47:31 cardinalcheer123: *** hole
20:47:53 shad: I am so offended. I mean, really...I've NEVER been called that before
20:47:56 shad: /sarcasm
20:48:38 shad: Anyways, grow a brain, I've said no a few times now, I have no interest in talking to you. So, have a nice evening, and go find some other poor schlep to bother.
20:48:59 cardinalcheer123: hey guess what u r the ugly is't thing in the world i hate u u r mean and a *** hole k
20:49:02 cardinalcheer123: no
20:49:05 cardinalcheer123: k
20:49:20 cardinalcheer123: all i want to do is be ur friend
20:49:21 cardinalcheer123: k
20:49:59 cardinalcheer123: so u go to hell k
20:50:07 cardinalcheer123: :-)
20:50:10 cardinalcheer123: :-D
20:50:20 shad: Why do you want to be my friend?
20:50:22 shad: Do you know me?
20:50:23 shad: no
20:50:25 shad: Do I know you?
20:50:26 shad: no
20:50:40 cardinalcheer123: all i want to do is be ur friend k
20:50:40 shad: so...why do you want to be my friend? You don't KNOW me...
20:50:56 cardinalcheer123: so i cane start knowing u k
20:51:04 shad: why?
20:51:10 shad: I mean, why'd you pick me?
20:51:25 shad: you just randomly type in some name and decide you wanted to be friends?
20:51:36 cardinalcheer123: because thats how nice i am to others k
20:51:40 cardinalcheer123: no
20:52:11 cardinalcheer123: i put my boy friends name in here and its not him and all i want to do is be ur friend k
20:52:17 cardinalcheer123: :'(
20:52:40 cardinalcheer123: not like u k
20:52:58 cardinalcheer123: i'm cryin because u want be my friend k
20:53:20 shad: You know, for someone who claims to be 19, you sure talk and type like you're 12
20:53:30 cardinalcheer123: no
20:53:41 cardinalcheer123: i'm typen fast k
20:53:45 cardinalcheer123: and cryin
20:53:58 shad: You're obviously full of crap
20:53:59 cardinalcheer123: just because u want be my friend
20:54:07 shad: I DON'T want to be your friend
20:54:08 cardinalcheer123: no i'm not k
20:54:12 cardinalcheer123: why
20:54:17 shad: Why should I?
20:54:39 cardinalcheer123: we can now each other and be friens for now on
20:55:25 cardinalcheer123: and tomorrow is my birthday k
20:55:32 cardinalcheer123: so i will be 20
20:56:22 cardinalcheer123: so give me the answer at cardinalcheer123@wmconnct k
20:57:50 shad: I can give you an answer now. No :)

So she(?) came back two days later...

16:45:41 cardinalcheer123: hey
16:46:31 shad: back again. You're some kind of freaky masochist, aren't you...
16:46:43 cardinalcheer123: no
16:46:48 cardinalcheer123: brb
16:47:52 cardinalcheer123: k
16:48:50 cardinalcheer123: r u goin to talk to me yes or no
16:48:55 shad: no
16:49:21 cardinalcheer123: k bye

And strangely enough, she seems to think we're buddy-buddy...

16:35:20 cardinalcheer123: hey dawg whats up
16:35:45 shad: No
16:36:07 cardinalcheer123: no what i thought we was friends now
16:36:42 shad: You always ask if I'm going to talk to you, and I always say "no", so I figured I'd save you the trouble of asking and just say no to begin with
16:37:02 cardinalcheer123: why
16:37:09 cardinalcheer123: i'
16:37:14 cardinalcheer123: i'm hot
16:38:02 cardinalcheer123: i have alot of people likein me k
16:38:19 shad: Good for you
16:38:28 cardinalcheer123: hey
16:39:46 cardinalcheer123: k peace out dawg

Shortly after, her "sister" IM'd me...

16:40:15 mb112976: hey
16:41:08 mb112976: who is this
16:42:49 mb112976: my name is megan
16:42:56 mb112976: i'm 21
16:44:08 mb112976: hello
16:44:17 mb112976: hello
16:44:19 mb112976: hello
16:44:21 mb112976: hello
16:44:23 mb112976: hello
16:44:42 shad: bored, are we?
16:44:51 mb112976: ya
16:45:05 mb112976: whats ur name
16:45:23 mb112976: is ur name shad
16:45:24 shad: Shad
16:45:31 mb112976: oh
16:45:37 mb112976: how old r u
16:46:24 mb112976: is there a 19 year old try to talk to u
16:46:40 mb112976: r u still there
16:47:05 shad: Not any more, and yes I am...
16:47:27 mb112976: k
16:47:38 mb112976: what do they say
16:47:53 mb112976: how old r u
16:48:32 mb112976: asl
16:48:52 mb112976: f/21/ar
16:49:28 mb112976: thats my sister k that keeps talkin to u
16:49:37 mb112976: is it cardinalcheer123
16:49:45 mb112976: was it i mean
16:50:01 mb112976: age please
16:50:12 mb112976: r u goin to talk to me
16:50:31 mb112976: hello
16:51:20 shad: No, I won't give my age...and, in case you haven't figured it out, I'm not into talking to complete strangers who IM me. Have a nice day...

And then her "DAD" got into the picture, threatening to call the cops and everything!!

17:03:01 oakexpressman: hey
17:07:06 oakexpressman: hey man
17:07:19 oakexpressman: whats goin on here
17:07:41 oakexpressman: u ryin to tell my kids to not talk to u
17:07:45 oakexpressman: ?
17:07:46 oakexpressman: ?
17:07:49 oakexpressman: ?
17:07:54 shad: LOL...
17:07:57 oakexpressman: man how old r u
17:07:59 shad: screen name #4
17:08:03 shad: what a twit you are
17:08:06 shad: "My kids"
17:08:08 shad: nice touch
17:08:16 oakexpressman: no i'm not jokin
17:08:26 shad: Like I care if you are or not
17:08:26 oakexpressman: why r u tell me kids to go to hell
17:08:34 oakexpressman: ?
17:08:35 oakexpressman: ?
17:08:36 oakexpressman: ?
17:08:37 oakexpressman: ?
17:08:38 oakexpressman: ?
17:08:53 oakexpressman: r u gettin smart with me
17:09:01 oakexpressman: man how old r u now
17:10:13 oakexpressman: i will calll the cops on u here i dont care where u live why
17:10:21 shad: Go for it...
17:10:23 shad: Call away
17:10:40 oakexpressman: how old r u man
17:10:41 shad: I'm sure they'd look at you and just roll their eyes
17:10:50 shad: Perhaps even laugh
17:10:58 oakexpressman: so i can tell them
17:11:01 shad: So be my guest, give them a rign
17:11:03 shad: ring even
17:11:12 oakexpressman: i'm not jokin
17:11:15 shad: Nor am I
17:11:41 oakexpressman: then why did u tell my kids to go to hel;l
17:11:43 oakexpressman: ?
17:11:44 oakexpressman: ?
17:11:44 shad: What are you going to say to them? "Oh, officer, this person on the Instant Message won't tell me how old he is!!! Arrest him immediately!
17:11:45 oakexpressman: ?
17:11:46 oakexpressman: ?
17:11:50 shad: waaa waa wa
17:12:21 oakexpressman: no because they will need ur age
17:12:29 oakexpressman: and whetre u live k
17:12:59 oakexpressman: my wife is mad to even me
17:13:11 oakexpressman: for callin my kids that
17:13:23 shad: Ooooh, ok, I'm 132, and I live on a tiny little remote island in the South Pacific where I live in a palm frond hut that I made myself using only my pocket knife and a wad of chewed up bubble gum.
17:14:05 oakexpressman: what ever
17:14:10 shad: So you think the cops would arrest me for telling you kids to go to hell?
17:14:22 oakexpressman: ur not 132
17:14:28 shad: geezus, what country do YOU live in? Call them up and tell them that, they'd probably tell YOU to go to hell :D
17:14:29 oakexpressman: i'm not a kid k
17:14:32 shad: yes you are
17:14:48 oakexpressman: no i'm not k
17:15:10 oakexpressman: and u know what u r a lier because u r not 132 k
17:15:34 oakexpressman: do u have a pic so i can print out and show them
17:15:37 shad: And you're a liar 'cause a) you're not a dad, b) you're not 25, c) you're not 21, and d) you're not 19...
17:15:45 shad: but you are a twit and quite amusing if I do say so myself
17:16:21 oakexpressman: do u have a pic man
17:16:43 shad: I'll definitely have to make sure I post these conversations to my journal, all my readers will get a kick
17:17:07 oakexpressman: do u have a pic
17:17:27 shad: Lots of them...pictures of nature, of auto's, of animals...
17:17:36 shad: And yes, I'm a smartass! :-D
17:18:05 oakexpressman: k then show me 1 of u
17:18:09 oakexpressman: !
17:18:10 oakexpressman: !
17:18:11 oakexpressman: !
17:18:12 oakexpressman: !
17:18:13 oakexpressman: !
17:18:44 oakexpressman: e-mail me at oakexpressman@wmconnect.com
17:19:18 oakexpressman: hey the cops r here and they want to see ur pic
17:19:24 oakexpressman: now
17:19:26 oakexpressman: !
17:19:27 oakexpressman: !
17:19:28 oakexpressman: !
17:19:38 oakexpressman: !
17:19:39 oakexpressman: !
17:19:40 oakexpressman: !
17:19:41 oakexpressman: !
17:20:05 shad: Hahahahahaha
17:20:13 oakexpressman: who all lives with u
17:20:20 oakexpressman: i'm a cop
17:20:20 shad: You REALLY expect me to believe the cops are there with you
17:20:21 oakexpressman: !
17:20:23 oakexpressman: !
17:20:29 oakexpressman: ya
17:20:31 oakexpressman: they r
17:20:33 shad: I don't say this to many people who IM me
17:20:39 shad: but you are quite full of shit
17:20:45 oakexpressman: !
17:20:48 oakexpressman: !
17:20:51 oakexpressman: !
17:20:56 oakexpressman: u r to k
17:21:04 oakexpressman: and they want to see a pic of u
17:21:05 shad: Well of course I am
17:21:24 oakexpressman: i just founded that out
17:21:26 oakexpressman: !
17:21:28 oakexpressman: !
17:21:29 oakexpressman: !
17:21:29 oakexpressman: !
17:21:30 oakexpressman: 1
17:21:32 oakexpressman: !
17:21:40 oakexpressman: THEY WANT TO SEE A PIC NOW
17:22:23 shad: Well, goody for them
17:22:32 shad: you think I'm going to actually send you my picture?
17:22:42 oakexpressman: so e-mail it to me so they can see it
17:22:43 oakexpressman: ya
17:22:44 shad: you're even dumber than I originally thought
17:22:54 oakexpressman: they need it now
17:23:03 shad: I'm surprised you can successfully operate a computer
17:23:30 oakexpressman: i work on the computers alot k
17:24:05 shad: Jacking off to porn doesn't count as "work"....
17:24:14 shad: unless you have a lot of trouble figuring that out as well
17:24:28 oakexpressman: so send ur pic to me so they can see it
17:24:30 oakexpressman: no
17:24:36 shad: nope :-D
17:24:41 oakexpressman: ya
17:25:13 oakexpressman: or i will call the stat torpper right know
17:25:54 oakexpressman: asl please
17:25:56 shad: I thought they were there
17:26:12 shad: Shouldn't they have all the info needed by now?
17:26:55 oakexpressman: no the cops r here but not the state tropper
17:26:59 oakexpressman: asl please
17:27:01 oakexpressman: now
17:27:15 shad: So what's a State Trooper going to do that the cops aren't?
17:27:45 oakexpressman: he will find u
17:27:50 oakexpressman: asl please
17:27:53 oakexpressman: now
17:28:13 shad: Why? Let him earn his pay! Make him find out all that info!
17:33:25 shad: Awww...did you leave me? Mommy make you get off the computer and take the trash out? Or did you take the cops out for donuts? :-D

She even talks when I'm not answering!

21:57:08 cardinalcheer123: hey dawg
22:02:35 cardinalcheer123: r u goin to talk
22:03:07 cardinalcheer123: hello
22:03:30 cardinalcheer123: hello
22:03:32 cardinalcheer123: hello
22:03:34 cardinalcheer123: hello
22:03:37 cardinalcheer123: hello
22:03:39 cardinalcheer123: hello
22:03:41 cardinalcheer123: hello
22:04:00 cardinalcheer123: hello
22:04:09 cardinalcheer123: talk say somethin
22:04:34 cardinalcheer123: k bye loser
22:04:38 cardinalcheer123: brat
22:05:05 cardinalcheer123: hey brat
22:05:10 cardinalcheer123: talk to me
22:06:47 cardinalcheer123: hey brat

And finally, last night, she caught me as I was doing homework. Trying to interpret Marquez put me in a whacked mood...

Cardinalcheer123 [9:22 PM]: hey jerk
Shad [9:22 PM]: If I'm such a jerk, why do you keep im'ing me?
Cardinalcheer123 [9:22 PM]: asl please
Shad [9:22 PM]: You'd think you'd blow me off and forget about me. At least, that's what I keep hoping
Cardinalcheer123 [9:23 PM]: no but asl please
Cardinalcheer123 [9:23 PM]: now
Shad [9:23 PM]: Haha...
Shad [9:23 PM]: Like I'm really inclined to give you that information...
Cardinalcheer123 [9:23 PM]: hahaha back at u
Cardinalcheer123 [9:24 PM]: ya i want to know now
Shad [9:24 PM]: Well, get used to that feeling then :)
Cardinalcheer123 [9:24 PM]: i will
Cardinalcheer123 [9:24 PM]: asl
Shad [9:25 PM]: Oh...yes, by typing it a much bigger font, I'm that much more inclined to tell you...
Cardinalcheer123 [9:25 PM]: asl
Cardinalcheer123 [9:25 PM]: asl
Cardinalcheer123 [9:25 PM]: asl
Shad [9:25 PM]: The color is a nice touch as well
Cardinalcheer123 [9:25 PM]: ur makein me mad here
Shad [9:26 PM]: oh, well, geez, I don't wanna do that. After all, you might doing something really bad...like call me a **** in 24pt BOLD in PINK!!!!
Shad [9:26 PM]: How horrible!
Cardinalcheer123 [9:27 PM]: asl
Cardinalcheer123 [9:27 PM]: asl
Cardinalcheer123 [9:27 PM]: asl
Cardinalcheer123 [9:27 PM]: asl
Cardinalcheer123 [9:27 PM]: aaaaaaaaassssssssssslllllllllllll
Cardinalcheer123 [9:27 PM]: now
Cardinalcheer123 [9:27 PM]: nnnnnnnnnoooooowwwwww
Cardinalcheer123 [9:28 PM]: f-u-r-i
Cardinalcheer123 [9:28 PM]: do u now what asl means
Cardinalcheer123 [9:28 PM]: or not
Cardinalcheer123 [9:28 PM]: oh i forgot u dont
Cardinalcheer123 [9:28 PM]: do u now what f-u-r-i means
Cardinalcheer123 [9:28 PM]: no u dont do u
Cardinalcheer123 [9:28 PM]: no
Shad [9:28 PM]: It means you are A Sore Loser!
Cardinalcheer123 [9:29 PM]: no
Shad [9:29 PM]: That means Forgetful Umpires Really Irritate...
Cardinalcheer123 [9:29 PM]: i know what it means k
Cardinalcheer123 [9:29 PM]: no i know what that means to
Cardinalcheer123 [9:30 PM]: what does asl mean
Cardinalcheer123 [9:31 PM]: hello
Shad [9:31 PM]: Accumilating Student Loans!
Cardinalcheer123 [9:31 PM]: no what does it mean
Shad [9:31 PM]: Adam's Shotguns and Laundry
Cardinalcheer123 [9:32 PM]: no
Cardinalcheer123 [9:32 PM]: what does it mean
Cardinalcheer123 [9:32 PM]: no
Shad [9:32 PM]: Apples Still Leak
Cardinalcheer123 [9:32 PM]: no
Shad [9:32 PM]: A Silly Loon!
Cardinalcheer123 [9:32 PM]: i know what it means k
Cardinalcheer123 [9:32 PM]: no
Cardinalcheer123 [9:32 PM]: i know what it means
Cardinalcheer123 [9:32 PM]: k
Shad [9:32 PM]: Awesomely Sexy Lamposts
Cardinalcheer123 [9:33 PM]: no
Cardinalcheer123 [9:33 PM]: did u here me i said i know what it means k
Shad [9:33 PM]: Aww..Stop Lying
Shad [9:33 PM]: :-D
Cardinalcheer123 [9:33 PM]: no i'm not k
Shad [9:33 PM]: No, that's what ASL means...Aww, Stop Lying!
Shad [9:34 PM]: I am quite clever, aren't I?
Cardinalcheer123 [9:34 PM]: do i knoe what f-u-r-i means
Cardinalcheer123 [9:35 PM]: hello
Cardinalcheer123 [9:35 PM]: i do
Cardinalcheer123 [9:35 PM]: do u
Cardinalcheer123 [9:36 PM]: i guess thats a no
Shad [9:36 PM]: Furry Unicorns Row Indignatly?
Cardinalcheer123 [9:36 PM]: no
Cardinalcheer123 [9:36 PM]: for ur inforrmation
Shad [9:36 PM]: Fun Uncles Ride Icecles?
Cardinalcheer123 [9:37 PM]: and asl means
Shad [9:37 PM]: Fortunate Umbrellas Row Inland?
Cardinalcheer123 [9:37 PM]: no
Cardinalcheer123 [9:37 PM]: stop
Shad [9:37 PM]: Armpits Stink Loudly!
Shad [9:38 PM]: Armadillos Stomp Ladybugs
Cardinalcheer123 [9:38 PM]: what is ur age
Cardinalcheer123 [9:38 PM]: no
Shad [9:38 PM]: Anchors Stop Lichen?
Cardinalcheer123 [9:39 PM]: what is ur age
Shad [9:39 PM]: Atomic Scottish Lawyers!
Cardinalcheer123 [9:39 PM]: no
Cardinalcheer123 [9:39 PM]: what is ur age
Cardinalcheer123 [9:39 PM]: tell me now
Shad [9:40 PM]: Agonizingly Slow Lumbago
Shad [9:40 PM]: That'd be a cool name for a band...
Cardinalcheer123 [9:40 PM]: what did i say
Shad [9:40 PM]: "And now, fresh from their Antarctic tour...it's AGONIZINGLY SLOW LUMBAGO!!!!"
Cardinalcheer123 [9:40 PM]: litens
Cardinalcheer123 [9:41 PM]: what is ur age
Shad [9:41 PM]: And then they'd come up on stage and say "Thank you! This first song goes out to our number one fan, CardinalCheer, and it's called "GET A LIFE!" One, two, a-one two three four!"
Cardinalcheer123 [9:41 PM]: r u 36
Shad [9:42 PM]: "You sit on your computer,
Bugging people you don't know well,
Asking stupid things like "ASL"
While they tell you to go to hell.."
Shad [9:42 PM]: "You haven't got a clue,
Shad [9:42 PM]: and you don't seem to care
Shad [9:42 PM]: that people don't want to listen
Shad [9:42 PM]: and they don't want you there!
Shad [9:43 PM]: Singing.. "Get a life, get a life, get a life while you can....'cause if you don't soon, you'll lose all your fans..." GUITAR SOLO!!!
Cardinalcheer123 [9:44 PM]: and u know what shad is a name of a fish for u k i did not know a fish can type i thought they swim not on computers in the river or lake what ever they r in k not on computers like u so that means u r a fish that is typen on computers
Cardinalcheer123 [9:45 PM]: fish
Cardinalcheer123 [9:45 PM]: fish
Cardinalcheer123 [9:45 PM]: fish
Cardinalcheer123 [9:45 PM]: fish
Cardinalcheer123 [9:45 PM]: fish
Shad [9:45 PM]: So, in saying that I'm assuming you're a bird that cheers "123" a bunch?
Shad [9:45 PM]: :)
Cardinalcheer123 [9:45 PM]: hahaha
Shad [9:45 PM]: Rah Rah Ree! Kick them in the knee, Rah Rah Rass! Kick them in the other knee!
Cardinalcheer123 [9:45 PM]: no
Cardinalcheer123 [9:46 PM]: u r so stuped
Cardinalcheer123 [9:46 PM]: u seem like a fish the way u talk
Shad [9:46 PM]: Oh...you've talked with lots of fish before to know?
Shad [9:46 PM]: fascinating....
Shad [9:47 PM]: You do seem like that type that'd spend a lot of time with their head stuck underwater...
Shad [9:47 PM]: conversing with fish and all...
Cardinalcheer123 [9:51 PM]: in pluse u r a fish but i forgot u ri dont know why i'm talkin to a fish here do u look like on i think u do because u dont think like a person because do u know that fish dont have brain like u and one morew thing u r so stuped because u dont know how to type on computers u have to type slow because ur a fish and fish has to use there finse to tpye like u i think u should go jump in the water a swim away a long ways and go tell ur mom fish and dad because u cry like a baby because i'm callin u a fish
Cardinalcheer123 [9:51 PM]: hello
Cardinalcheer123 [9:52 PM]: and i'm old anofe not like u
Cardinalcheer123 [9:53 PM]: i think ur a slow reader arn't u
Cardinalcheer123 [9:53 PM]: and i think ur 10 to
Shad [9:54 PM]: Slow reader yes...trying to make sense of all that crap you typed of there, what you think passes for English. It's quite horrifying incidentally...
Shad [9:54 PM]: As for me being 10, I appreciate that, it simply means that even through IM's, I'm able to portray that I'm still a kid at heart :-D
Cardinalcheer123 [9:55 PM]: ur a kid
Cardinalcheer123 [9:55 PM]: i didnt know that
Shad [9:56 PM]: Hahaha...oooh man, you just are quite the brainless idiot, aren't you
Cardinalcheer123 [9:57 PM]: no r u
Cardinalcheer123 [9:57 PM]: ur a kid i said di u read that careful
Cardinalcheer123 [9:58 PM]: i think u didn't
Cardinalcheer123 [9:58 PM]: did u
Cardinalcheer123 [9:59 PM]: how old r u
Cardinalcheer123 [9:59 PM]: kid
Cardinalcheer123 [10:01 PM]: hello
Shad [10:01 PM]: I'm going to have to end this now, as fun as it's been. Aside from some work I've been trying to get done, I've found someone more interesting and a LOT more intelligent to talk to. (Hi Krysta!)...so, have a nice day!!!
Cardinalcheer123 [10:02 PM]: on here
Cardinalcheer123 [10:03 PM]: i'm nice and intelligent but ur being so rude to me every time i'm on here but u dont know what i'm like
Cardinalcheer123 [10:04 PM]: all i want to know is that ur age and where u live and then i will live u alone for ever
Cardinalcheer123 [10:04 PM]: k
Shad [10:05 PM]: Geez, this is like a car-wreck: I just can't not talk to you. OK, so I give you my age and location and you never talk to me again?
Shad [10:05 PM]: Ever?
Shad [10:05 PM]: Promise?
Cardinalcheer123 [10:05 PM]: ya
Shad [10:06 PM]: In that case I'm 145, and I live on the moon. Now, you've promised, so you are never allowed to talk to me again!
Cardinalcheer123 [10:06 PM]: r u a kid tell me that to k
Cardinalcheer123 [10:06 PM]: what ever u do not live on the moon and u r not 145 k
Cardinalcheer123 [10:07 PM]: hey can u see me
Cardinalcheer123 [10:07 PM]: hold on i'm goin out side k
Shad [10:07 PM]: You LIED! You said you wouldn't talk to me again!!! You even PROMISED!
Cardinalcheer123 [10:07 PM]: and u tell me if u can see me
Cardinalcheer123 [10:07 PM]: k
Cardinalcheer123 [10:07 PM]: here i go
Cardinalcheer123 [10:08 PM]: did u see me
Shad [10:08 PM]: Uh huh...sure did.
Cardinalcheer123 [10:08 PM]: u did
Shad [10:08 PM]: didn't I?
Cardinalcheer123 [10:08 PM]: u did
Cardinalcheer123 [10:08 PM]: u promise u did
Shad [10:09 PM]: Of course not you twit.
Shad [10:09 PM]: And I said that with a smile!
Cardinalcheer123 [10:09 PM]: so u dont live on the moon
Cardinalcheer123 [10:09 PM]: do u
Cardinalcheer123 [10:10 PM]: u r so neaver mindif u will give me ur real age and real where u live than i will live u alone forever and ever
Cardinalcheer123 [10:10 PM]: k
Shad [10:10 PM]: Geez, you're dumber than I thought...you think I can see you ALLLLL the way down there from where I am here on the moon? Nooo...did you look up and see me? Nooo...geeez. It's not like I have a telescope up here...
Cardinalcheer123 [10:11 PM]: what do u see up there than
Shad [10:13 PM]: I just usually watch a lot of TV and surf the net. Because there's no atmosphere, I get great satillite reception...
Cardinalcheer123 [10:14 PM]: all i wantr to know is ur reall age and where u live k and than i will live u alone k
Cardinalcheer123 [10:15 PM]: i promise this time k
Cardinalcheer123 [10:15 PM]: :-(
Cardinalcheer123 [10:15 PM]: :'(
Cardinalcheer123 [10:15 PM]: :-\
Cardinalcheer123 [10:17 PM]: r u still talkin to her still
Cardinalcheer123 [10:19 PM]: i will not stop talkin to u untill u give me the ral age and where u live
Shad [10:20 PM]: Well, that's good, 'cause then I wouldn't have anything to post in my journal, like this conversation will be. I'm sure there's be some good laughs out of it. In the meantime, I am going. So, have a good night, you slightly spooky stalker kinda person you....

So stay tuned. I'm sure she'll be back.

Last night we had an impromptu poker game and instead of our usual five-dollar buy-in and dealer’s choice, we made it ten dollars and just straight Texas Hold ‘Em. You might know the game from the popular World Series of Poker tour on ESPN, as well as The Travel Channel’s World Poker Tour.

We’ve played this a few times and Bill usually comes out the winner, not surprising considering his skills with the cards. And last night it came down to the two of us. Jeff, after losing his stack had left and gone home early. Christy, who was next out, stayed and was our dealer for awhile (thanks again Christy!). Eventually she had to go home as well. This turned out to be the latest we’ve ever played. Christy threw in the towel around 2:30 this morning.

I was bound and determined to win last night, as I’ve yet to win a Hold ‘Em tournament. Because it was winner takes all, the pot was forty bucks, and I wanted it! But it was grueling: I had a chip advantage over Bill and was being patient, just picking at him, fifty cents here, two bucks there. I would be doing fairly well, and then he’d put in a big bet. I’d have something halfway decent (or think he was bluffing) and call him on it, and he’d win.

About 3:15 A. M., we got down to where I had about a 3 to 1 chip advantage (just a guess, really). The cards were dealt and I had pocket tens ("pockets” refers to the two down cards for those of you who don’t play poker). I bumped the blind by a buck, Bill shrugged and said “All in” (meaning he bets his entire stack of chips) and I quickly followed. We flipped the cards over: he had a king and a non-suited low card. My two tens were looking good. Here came the flop: King, King, seven. Of all the luck. He’d not only matched his kings, but twice. The rest of the cards were junk, and Bill doubled up on his chips.

I still had the advantage though. Two plays later, I was dealt pocket Jacks. Again I bumped the bet. This time, Bill bumped me back. Now it was my turn to pounce. All in was my call, and Bill followed suit. Thankfully, my pocket Jacks had what it took and I won the game.

Finally.

Trying to get to sleep was a nightmare. I kept replaying the hands in my head, scolding myself for being too easy to bluff, and not being more aggressive. I last looked at the clock at 4:08 A.M. I told myself not to look anymore. I awoke at 7:15, and was into work by 8:30. Man, is today going to be a looooong day.

Buy hey. I won Texas Hold ‘Em. Look out Unabomber. I’ve got my sights set on you!

The service was very nice. My Uncle Eddie got up and talked about my grandmother’s life, and much of it I’d never even heard. How she eloped with my grandfather. How she wasn’t allowed to be married while in Nursing School, and when word reached the administration that she was married, how she was expelled. It was like discovering a whole different side of my grandmother.

My cousin Kim, being the oldest of the grandchildren, was next to speak. She took all of our memories of summers spent at Nana’s and recounted them to the people at the service. It was wonderful and emotional and I miss her even more after listening to everything I’d forgotten. If I can get Kim to send me what she wrote, I’ll post it here.

Aside from the services, it was really a nice time. It was great seeing all my family together again, and I had a good time catching up with everyone. My in-laws were coming through town on the day of the service, so they brought the kids (who have been staying with my in-laws since the end of June) and Gail and I got to visit a bit.

I also got to drive my Aunt Nadine’s Mercedes SL 500. Ooooh my. Talk about a damn cool car. It’s a hardtop convertible, and when the top is down, it’s just sweet.

Gail and I also made it to Chandler Harley-Davidson, where we got to see some of the new models. She also sat on a Duece again, and is now looking at accessories for one like she was getting it. Just the fact that she’s thinking of getting one makes me all a-tingle. First thing’s first: the Motorcycle Safety Foundation class!!!

I can’t tell you how grateful I am that we got to spend time with her just this past month. It was wonderful to see her, and she seemed in great health and spirit. I guess that’s why when my mom called to tell me the news, it came as such a shock. I think I’m still in a bit of shock. It certainly hasn’t sunk in yet.

After the service, my mom and aunt (and uncle I’m assuming) will be taking my grandmothers ashes, along with my grandfathers (who died 18 years ago) to South Dakota, where she grew up. There they’ll bury her in the Black Hills, which is beautiful country indeed. It’ll be a good final resting spot.

God Bless Nana. I sure will miss you.

With Gail being gone (she’s out in Arizona visiting her parents and then she’ll be back with the kids on Thursday), I’ve been mostly just hanging out and watching TV. Being a slug in other words. Before leaving, Gail instructed Marcia to take me shopping at J.C. Penny’s, as they are having a sale. I actually bought clothes for myself. Which is odd; I never buy clothes for myself.

Hopefully the problems with the hardware that hosts my website has been fixed. Apparently the hard drive went south, and after that was replaced, the RAID controller went. Lots of fun.

It would appear that storms of all sorts have to be weathered.

After a 2 hour delay, we arrived in Phoenix at midnight local time, meaning it was 3 a.m. back home. The kids (and adults) were exhausted. Fortunately my aunt and uncle were there to pick us up and usher us sleepy travelers to their house, with soft beds and the promise of not needing to be up before lunchtime. Naturally, my internal clock decided that 6a.m. was plenty of sleep-in time, so I was awake with the roosters.

We had a nice morning, Gail and I watching the kids splash in the pool while we sat in the shade. I’d forgotten that was possible here. Back home, when it’s 95 degrees out, in the shade - thanks to the humidity - it still feels as if it’s 95 degrees. Here, shade drops the temperature noticeably, and makes sitting out with the kids bearable.

Lunch time saw us visiting with my grandmother. Hopefully she’s forgiven me for coming through last time and not stopping to see her (Before everyone gets riled up, I had a good excuse; my father was in the hospital in Flagstaff, and I was anxious to get up there). We had a nice afternoon, checking out her new house, and the clubhouse of the community she’s moved into. That evening we were back at my aunt and uncles’ for dinner, and the next morning, Gail’s parents picked us up to travel to Colorado.

We had a brief stop in Flagstaff to visit with my dad, and then it was on to Grand Junction, CO., to visit with Gail’s brother and his family. We had a nice visit, touring the dinosaur museum and dig site, and visiting downtown Grand Junction. Sunday we had a nice picnic at a park right along the Colorado River, and then Monday, our plans to go whitewater rafting were rained out. I had planned on staying with my sister-in-law, as she’d recently broken her wrist, so I didn’t feel cheated out of a whitewater trip, but I think Gail was disappointed. We were in Glenwood Springs, and it’s quite the picturesque town. I fell in love, and if I can ever manage, I just might have to look into moving there.

We traveled south on 82 into Aspen. What a beautiful, pricey, artistic, pricey, charming and pricey little town. It was chilly that day, and not being accustomed to the wet and cold weather, I was noticeably cold in my shorts and t-shirt. I thought maybe I’d get a sweatshirt or something. I checked a few prices in a few different shops, and the cheapest sweatshirt was $110.

I figured I’d just be chilly.

Tuesday we traveled on back to Flagstaff by way of Monument Valley and took a bunch of pictures. Gail’s parents went as far as Flagstaff with us, and then headed on down the Tucson the following Wednesday. Gail and the kids and I spent the next few days roaming around town with no real agenda, and spent the evenings visiting with my Dad and his long time girlfriend Laurie. We hiked down Walnut Canyon to the Indian ruins, visited downtown (It has changed so much since I’ve left), and generally relaxed. There was a forest fire burning about 20 miles south of Flagstaff, and I managed to get a couple of photos of the smoke.

Last night was spent with some old friends from college in Phoenix, and now I’m sitting here in my in-law’s house in Tucson. We’re going to a party tonight, and then tomorrow I get to visit all my old friends.

So here’s to old friends! Hope to see you all soon. And to all my new(ish) friends back home in Virginia, we’ll be seeing you all soon.

Saturday morning I spent at Great Falls Park with the rest of the students from my Photography class. I have a nice camera, and I finally decided I should really learn how to use it, so I took some of the tax money this year and enrolled in a no-credit class. I’ve only had one class and one field trip, but I’ve learned a lot about my camera. We spent the time out at Great Falls taking different pictures of whatever we felt like; we just had to use the select aperture settings and shutter speed assigned by the teacher. I pick up my slides tonight. I’m rather excited to see how they turned out.

The rest of the day was spent getting the top of my poor old bald head fried while waiting to get Sarah’s soccer pictures taken (I thought it was in the gym like last year, but nooooo....), and then Gail and the kids went to the Rainforest Cafe for a birthday party that evening. I hung out with Jeff playing Playstation. Gail and the kids came back later, and more people showed up at Jeff and Marcia’s. The evening progressed into a couple of beer runs, a run to get some food, and me feeling like I’d be better off at home. So I collected the kids, left Gail to chat awhile, and I went home to bed.

Sunday was a nice day so Jeff and I decided to go for a ride on the bikes. Kerry Ann saw us heading out and asked if she could come. She hopped on the back of Jeff’s Vulcan and off we went to West Virginia.

Talk about a beautiful ride. The day was cloudy, and for awhile I thought we might get some rain, but for the most part it held off. The road we took out to West Virginia was a two-lane twister through the Blue Ridge Mountains that was just perfect for a bike. We got to the town of Ranson, WV, and decided to grab a drink and sit for a bit.

Now, here’s where the day became a bit surreal.

As we’re sitting there on the curb enjoying our drinks and talking about nothing in particular, a beat-up old Ford Ranger pulled up and the old-timer driving it hopped out and went into the Quick Mart we’d parked at. His passenger leaned her bleached-strawberry-blonde head out the window and said “Those sure are some pretty bikes! I haven’t been on a motorcycle ride since I was six!” She looked at me and said, “Can you take me for a ride?”

I kinda stuttered a “Well, I don’t have an extra helmet...” as a way of reply.

She turned to Kerry Ann sitting next to me and said “Can I use your helmet?” To which Kerry Ann enthusiastically replied, “Of course!”

As the lady hopped out of the truck, she asked if I was married. I said yup, and Kerry Ann added “She’s a beautiful lady with the skinniest thighs you’ve ever seen.” That remark didn’t even penetrate as she eyed me and gushed, “I just love big men!” Heck, I don’t think she even heard me say that I was married. And if she did, I’m not sure she’d care.

She introduced herself as Sarah, and after our introductions were all made she got Kerry Ann’s helmet on and planted herself on the back of the bike. As I was getting ready to roll out, the old timer she was with came back out of the store with a 12-pack of something alcoholic. He jumped into his truck and took off so fast that Kerry Ann said later that she’d thought he’d never even noticed his passenger was gone. I know he noticed though, ‘cause I saw the look he gave her as she was perched on the back of the bike.

After he’d gone, Sarah and I headed out of the parking lot and cruised down what I took to be the main drag in tiny Ranson. It turns out that she was 22, and the old guy I took to be her dad, was really her husband and 60 years old at that.

But wait. It gets better.

So we’re driving down the road and she starts rubbing my shoulders, gliding her hands from my neck to my arms and says “You have such broad shoulders, I love broad shoulders.” I mumbled some sort of reply. She then ran her hands down my arms and said “You have hairy arms! Are you hairy everywhere else?” I said pretty much.

A little further down the road, with her laughing and talking the whole way, she said “I bet you get all the girls with this bike. Are you married?” Further proof that mine and Kerry Ann’s comments about being married to a gal with skinny thighs went right over that head of hers. “Yes!” I shouted back at her. She giggled and said that I could probably get all sorts of sex with this bike...

So I’m sitting here thinking “Geezus, I’ve gotta get this chick back to her (literally) old man. She’s whacked” I was having visions of me dropping her off at her house and her husband sitting on the front porch with a loaded shotgun just waiting for me to get back.

But oh wait....it gets better.

So we’ve turned around and we’re heading back to her place when she says something that I didn’t catch. I turned my head towards her and said “What?”

She leaned in close to my ear and said “I said I feel privileged to have gone on this ride with you!” and with the word “privileged”, she reached around and squeezed my crotch.

It was all I could do the keep the bike straight.

I must’ve jumped a bit because she took her hand away and laughed, and I gunned the bike down as fast as I could to get her home. We pulled up in front of her house (without a gun-totin’ pissed off husband around, thank God), and she hopped off the bike. After taking her helmet off she said, “Well, now that you know where I live, next time you’re in town you can stop by and visit.” The last was said with a rather mischievous smile, and I’m sure she was talking about more than just popping in for a spot of tea in the afternoon.

I said if I was in town again I’d consider it while I was laughing at myself inside. If I got to Ranson W.V. again this year, it’ll be because I got lost. And I never get lost.

I took the helmet, gave her one last smile and headed back to Jeff and Kerry Ann. I didn’t even bother strapping the helmet down, I just stuck it between my legs and took off. I actually laughed out loud and shook my head at myself while driving along.

When I pulled back into the Quick Mart, Jeff and Kerry Ann where still where I left them. After killing the bike, I told them what happen, and both had a good laugh at my expense. Hell, I had a good laugh at my expense.

We got back to our safe n’ sane neck of the woods about an hour later and dropped Kerry Ann off for her Southern Living party that Gail would be attending. Kerry Ann promised not to tell Gail. Jeff and I then went and saw a movie (Troy, not too bad) and then I headed home.

I told Gail what happened and she had just as good of a laugh as Kerry Ann and Jeff did. Can’t blame her really. She said she was pleased I’d gotten “a little” and that I’d had a good time.

I have the most awesome wife in the world, don’t I? :)

Yesterday, however, I was the idiot.

I'm not sure where my head got off to, but it certainly wasn't on my shoulders as I was heading home. As the weather has been absolutely gorgeous here the past week, I've been riding the bike to work every day. As a motorcyclist in an urban environment, I am very attentive when driving. I watch everyone and everything, constantly. It's the only way you can survive the blacktop chaos that is rush hour in these parts.

Yesterday was not my day though. Coming out of the parking lot at work, I got annoyed at the line trying to get out, and cut through the line of cars and then cut some poor lady off as she was making a right. After realizing that, I told myself to knock it off, and just drive.

Then as I was heading up Rt. 28, I found myself in the type of situation I usually try to avoid. I was in the center lane with an SUV on the left of me, and one on the right. And there I was, like an idiot, coasting along right in their blind spots. The SUV on the left made to turn into the center lane, and I goosed the throttle, not only getting ahead of them, but making the pipes rap a bit so she knew I was there. After I was in front of her, I just shook my head in a kind of "Geez yer dumb" way.

But it wasn't all her fault. Yes, she should've looked over her shoulder to check, but what the hell was I doing sitting there in the first place? I know better than that. So the "Geez yer dumb" shake of the head was repeated, this time aimed at myself.

I made sure I paid extra attention on the way to work this morning. It's stupid stuff like that that will get a motorcyclist killed, so all senses were at 100% this morning. I got my comeuppance though: I had an asshole in a BMW cut me off, missing my front fender by about 2 feet. I gave him a justified "Geez yer dumb" shake of the head this time.

So to all those riding the cycle today, be careful out there. And to those of you in cages....you be careful too!

...but not all is hopeless...at least this guy was kinda cool....

Pbrenbren43: hi good looking
Shad: Hey sexy
Shad: Question for you...
Shad: who are you?
Pbrenbren43: k
Pbrenbren43: met u 1970
Pbrenbren43: round march
Shad: oh yeah?
Shad: let's see...1970...in March....
Shad: I was about 3 months old!
Shad: no wonder I don't remember you!
Pbrenbren43: yes i know i changed your shitty diapers
Shad: Awesome
Pbrenbren43: look at the name closer
Pbrenbren43: :-*
Shad: ::: peers in :::
Shad: nope, this ain my mom's screen name
Pbrenbren43: not my moms either or my sisters
Shad: And I'd be shocked if my dad ever got online. Can't think of who else might've changed my diaper...
Pbrenbren43: lier
Shad: So! ok, I give, who are you that you've changed my diapers?
Pbrenbren43: your pink ammies and binky was cute but not at age 6
Shad: I had pink jammies?
Pbrenbren43: whos your favorite sister
Shad: It was SO long ago, I can't remember...
Shad: My favorite sister? I have a step sister that I see around Thanksgiving usually...
Pbrenbren43: u better be kidding or iv got the wrongfernandez
Shad: Who the hell is fernandez?
Pbrenbren43: o i need to feel dooped
Shad: You need to feel dooped? What's dooped feel like?
Shad: oh! duped, nevermind, got it
Pbrenbren43: sorry whats your whole screen
Pbrenbren43: im new at this
Pbrenbren43: help
Shad: My whole screen name is Shad.
Pbrenbren43: my baby brother was born 1970 of march i thought id found him at last i apologize
Shad: Nope, sorry...I was born in 1969, and I'm the oldest
Pbrenbren43: his name is shad el fernandez
Pbrenbren43: O:-)
Pbrenbren43: im the oldest 1960
Shad: Well, hope you find him then...and glad to know there's more Shad's out there
Pbrenbren43: me to ill find him some day
Pbrenbren43: by for now good looking your friend sexy
Shad: hahaha...

My days are never boring when I get IM's, I'll tell ya that...

Shadman52889 (12:23:19 AM): hey!
Shadman52889 (12:24:04 AM): asshole
Shadman52889 (12:24:12 AM): talk to me pussy
Shad (12:24:13 AM): name calling now, are we?
Shadman52889 (12:24:21 AM): yes
Shad (12:24:31 AM): Whatever floats your boat
Shadman52889 (12:25:28 AM): fuck you!
Shad (12:25:46 AM): Oh yeah? Well...you mother wears Army boots!
Shad (12:25:48 AM): so there!
Shadman52889 (12:26:00 AM): qweer
Shad (12:26:16 AM): Would you at least SPELL it correctly?
Shadman52889 (12:26:17 AM): that is stupid
Shadman52889 (12:26:24 AM): no
Shad (12:26:33 AM): what, and spelling it qweer isn't stupid?
Shadman52889 (12:26:47 AM): nope
Shadman52889 (12:27:03 AM): but you are
Shad (12:27:14 AM): I know you are but what am I?
Shadman52889 (12:28:24 AM): you are insane
Shad (12:28:49 AM): All the world's crazy but me and thee, and I'm not so sure about thee...
Shadman52889 (12:30:06 AM): yui pui tui flui
Shad (12:30:42 AM): What happened to qwerty berty jerky curses?
Shadman52889 (12:30:45 AM): i cursed you
Shadman52889 (12:32:04 AM): are you jerking off i never said jerky
Shadman52889 (12:32:25 AM): idiot
Shad (12:32:36 AM): derky?
Shadman52889 (12:32:40 AM): hahaha!!!
Shad (12:32:40 AM): lerky?
Shad (12:32:44 AM): perky!
Shadman52889 (12:33:00 AM): herty
Shadman52889 (12:33:47 AM): what are you, and imbosole?
Shadman52889 (12:34:49 AM): fuck you
Shad (12:35:22 AM): an imbecile? Is that what you meant to type?
Shad (12:35:38 AM): Considering you can't even spell the word, I guess that'd make YOU the imbecile, eh?
Shadman52889 (12:37:23 AM): are you sure about that
Shadman52889 (12:37:33 AM): huh
Shadman52889 (12:37:37 AM): huh
Shadman52889 (12:37:39 AM): huh
Shad (12:37:50 AM): ayup...pretty sure...
Shadman52889 (12:37:54 AM): jackass
Shad (12:38:16 AM): yup...still sure
Shadman52889 (12:38:53 AM): ayup...pretty sure... shithole
Shadman52889 (12:39:13 AM): Shadman52889 [9:39 PM]: jackass
Shad [9:39 PM]: yup...still sure
Shadman52889 (12:39:39 AM): your lying
Shad (12:39:44 AM): Oh, the old "cut & paste" skill...most impressive...
Shadman52889 (12:40:30 AM): you need to shut you fat mouth,O kay!!!!!
Shad (12:40:44 AM): or...what?
Shad (12:40:48 AM): You'll kick my ass?
Shad (12:40:58 AM): Look! I'm trembling in my boots!
Shadman52889 (12:41:07 AM): no ill kill you!!
Shadman52889 (12:41:16 AM): hahaha
Shadman52889 (12:41:20 AM): :(
Shad (12:41:21 AM): Wow...kill?! WOW!
Shad (12:41:58 AM): You're like...super hardcore...you skipped right over the kicking ass phase, and went right to the KILL phase..that's like jumping over the double-dog-dare and going straight for the TRIPLE-DOG-DARE!!!
Shad (12:42:04 AM): Man...you don't mess around, do you...
Shadman52889 (12:43:01 AM): im right behid you
Shadman52889 (12:43:20 AM): you looked dident you
Shadman52889 (12:43:27 AM): lol
Shadman52889 (12:43:39 AM): stupid
Shad (12:43:41 AM): No, but I did get tense...I figured you might be liking my butt, and thinking naughty things about it...
Shad (12:45:21 AM): You're still checking out my butt, aren't you....
Shadman52889 (12:45:57 AM): zzzzzzzzzzz you are so boring im geting sleepy bye asshole
Shadman52889 (12:46:24 AM): yui
Shad (12:46:33 AM): mui bui!
Shadman52889 (12:46:45 AM): zzzzzzzzzzz
Shad (12:46:47 AM): ha! Finished the curse before you did
Shadman52889 (12:46:47 AM): zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Shadman52889 (12:46:49 AM): zzzzzzzzzz
Shadman52889 (12:46:50 AM): zzzzzz
Shadman52889 (12:46:51 AM): zzzzzzzz
Shadman52889 (12:47:36 AM): i wasent curseing you idiot!!
Shad (12:47:52 AM): Mui bui yui gui!!!
Shad (12:47:55 AM): hahaha!
Shadman52889 (12:49:20 AM): feeling kind of stupid right now considering that i wasnt cursing you i was just typing letters!!!!
Shadman52889 (12:49:41 AM): hahahaha!!!
Shad (12:49:44 AM): And I wasn't?
Shad (12:49:52 AM): Hey, I thought you were going to bed?
Shadman52889 (12:49:55 AM): ?????
Shadman52889 (12:50:13 AM): no i was just messing with you!!!!
Shad (12:50:26 AM): what?! MESSING WITH ME?!
Shad (12:50:29 AM): oh my god
Shad (12:50:32 AM): I feel so used...
Shadman52889 (12:51:01 AM): im evil
Shadman52889 (12:51:11 AM): you are too
Shadman52889 (12:51:17 AM): Change Your Password
Shadman52889 (12:51:29 AM): bitch
Shad (12:51:46 AM): sniff and here I thought we had something special...something meaningful...only to realize that you're nothing but a mean, spiteful, evil person who just uses other people!
Shadman52889 (12:52:39 AM): hell yeah its the truth!!!
Shadman52889 (12:52:46 AM):
Shad (12:53:09 AM): Sorry...but I just can't go on with this kind of relationship...
Shadman52889 (12:53:14 AM): i own you now
Shad (12:53:17 AM): But we can still be friends, right?
Shadman52889 (12:54:03 AM): i love you!
Shadman52889 (12:54:24 AM): fuck me!!!!!
Shadman52889 (12:54:37 AM): now!!
Shadman52889 (12:54:45 AM): ;)
Shad (12:54:58 AM): sorry...I want to be romanced first.
Shadman52889 (12:55:28 AM): Get some Help
Shadman52889 (12:55:56 AM): you seriosly need it
Shad (12:55:58 AM): I want flowers
Shadman52889 (12:56:29 AM): you want help
Shad (12:56:41 AM): And chocolates
Shadman52889 (12:57:08 AM): and by help i mean tharapy
Shad (12:57:45 AM): And a cute pink teddybear that says "I wuv you!"...that's romantic...
Shadman52889 (12:57:51 AM): 69 69 69 69
Shadman52889 (12:58:14 AM): xxx
Shadman52889 (12:58:31 AM): xoxoxo
Shadman52889 (12:59:48 AM): lets break up
Shadman52889 (12:59:57 AM): 8-)
Shad (1:00:09 AM): I'm already seeing someone else anyways...
Shadman52889 (1:00:16 AM): fear me hahahahaha!!!
Shadman52889 (1:02:07 AM): im the devil and imgoing to shove my pitchfork up your ass
Shad (1:02:58 AM): Yeah yeah yeah....
Shadman52889 (1:03:03 AM): why do you smell like shit?
Shad (1:03:05 AM): I'm going to have to let you go now...
Shad (1:03:13 AM): you're getting boring...starting to repeat yourself...
Shad (1:03:22 AM): I'm going to go find someone new and exciting to play with!
Shad (1:03:25 AM): Good night!
Shadman52889 (1:04:01 AM): i wipe my ass with $100 bills
Auto response from Shad (1:04:01 AM): I am away from my computer right now.
Shadman52889 (1:04:11 AM): im the devil and imgoing to shove my pitchfork up your assim the devil and imgoing to shove my pitchfork up your ass

--10 minutes later... ---

Shadman52889 (1:14:49 AM): its me again
Shadman52889 (1:20:46 AM): hi
Shadman52889 (1:20:52 AM): hi
Shadman52889 (1:25:41 AM): hey
Shadman52889 (1:25:59 AM): im sorry
Shad (1:29:21 AM): Bhahahaha!!! You APOLOGIZED!!!
Shad (1:29:23 AM): Looser
Shad (1:29:39 AM): have a nice evening!

Shadman52889 [1:21 PM]: hi
Shad [1:21 PM]: Back again, eh?
Shad [1:22 PM]: going to tell me why you're IM'ing me this time?
Shad [1:22 PM]: or are you just going to answer with a bunch of question marks again?
Shadman52889 [1:24 PM]: hi
Shad [1:24 PM]: hi
Shadman52889 [1:24 PM]: ill shove a stick up your ass!
Shad [1:25 PM]: and how do you propose to do that?
Shadman52889 [1:25 PM]: :-*
Shadman52889 [1:25 PM]: to hell with you
Shadman52889 [1:26 PM]: >:o
Shad [1:26 PM]: To hell with me? Ok, off to hell I go!
Shadman52889 [1:29 PM]: you satanic peice of shit, up yours jackass
Shad [1:29 PM]: LOLOL
Shad [1:29 PM]: Satanic?
Shad [1:29 PM]: you're a HOOT
Shad [1:30 PM]: C'mon...you can finish ONE sentence, can't you? You've started and stopped typing two or three different times now...
Shadman52889 [1:31 PM]: huruioeruioioetyjiowreiotriwrjioswiwio[trio[wrjiowrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrwrioqtp]wryopwryuopwyiju
Shad [1:31 PM]: There you go! Very articulate, and well thought out.
Shadman52889 [1:31 PM]: >:o8-)O:-):-D
Shad [1:31 PM]: oooh! Smilies now too!
Shad [1:31 PM]: VERY Impressive
Shad [1:31 PM]: I stand in awe of your IM'ing skills...
Shadman52889 [1:32 PM]: Shad: There you go! Very articulate, and well thought out.
Shad: oooh! Smilies now too!
Shad: VERY Impressive
Shad: I stand in awe of your IM'ing skills.
Shadman52889 [1:32 PM]: Shad: There you go! Very articulate, and well thought out.
Shad: oooh! Smilies now too!
Shad: VERY Impressive
Shad: I stand in awe of your IM'ing skills.
Shadman52889 [1:32 PM]: Shad: There you go! Very articulate, and well thought out.
Shad: oooh! Smilies now too!
Shad: VERY Impressive
Shad: I stand in awe of your IM'ing skills.
Shadman52889 [1:33 PM]: qweer
Shad [1:33 PM]: And you can cut and paste!!!
Shadman52889 [1:33 PM]: qweer
Shad [1:33 PM]: WOW!!!
Shad [1:33 PM]: I'm going to save this IM
Shad [1:33 PM]: And send it to ALL of my friends...
Shadman52889 [1:33 PM]: ???
Shad [1:33 PM]: So we can all learn how to IM people, just like you do
Shad [1:33 PM]: because you are SO good at it...
Shad [1:33 PM]: amazing typing skills...
Shad [1:33 PM]: witty comebacks
Shadman52889 [1:33 PM]: ha ha ha
Shad [1:33 PM]: cutting and pasting...
Shad [1:33 PM]: AND Smilies!
Shad [1:33 PM]: gives me goosebumps just thinking about how good you are
Shad [1:34 PM]: if there were Oscars for IM'ing, you'd win, hands down...
Shadman52889 [1:34 PM]: i know i suck!
Shad [1:35 PM]: So then...if you suck, why are you IM'ing me? Trying to get a date?
Shadman52889 [1:35 PM]: cuse im a idiot
Shad [1:35 PM]: Well, yeah, but you established that a LONG time ago...no need to go into it again...
Shadman52889 [1:36 PM]: Well, yeah, but you established that a LONG time ago...no need to go into it again...
Shad [1:37 PM]: man, there's those ever impressive cutting and pasting skills again...have I told you how awesome they are?
Shad [1:38 PM]: What, all that typing and you gave up?
Shadman52889 [1:38 PM]: qwerty berty sherty
Shadman52889 [1:38 PM]: you have been cursed!!!
Shadman52889 [1:38 PM]: hahahahahaha!!!
Shad [1:38 PM]: By the qwerty berty sherty voodoo Shadman, eh?
Shadman52889 [1:38 PM]: um okay that makes no sense but okay
Shadman52889 [1:39 PM]: im the devil
Shad [1:39 PM]: No you're not
Shad [1:39 PM]: I'm here in Hell and I don't see you anywhere
Shadman52889 [1:40 PM]: i put a curse on you dident i?
Shad [1:41 PM]: Doesn't mean you're the devil though...the Devil wouldn't deal with curses, he'd just zap someone outright with his pitchfork...
Shad [1:41 PM]: curses are for pansies.
Shadman52889 [1:42 PM]: ill shove my pitchfork up your ass
Shad [1:42 PM]: Pitchforks are for pansies too.
Shadman52889 [1:43 PM]: i love you
Shad [1:43 PM]: Well, duh...of course you do. I knew that already....
Shadman52889 [1:44 PM]: uh hu okay whatever you say
Shad [1:44 PM]: No, it's what YOU say...you love me, you hate me, you curse me, you'll shove a stick and/or a pitchfork up my ass...it's so very obvious that you're infatuated with me...
Shadman52889 [1:44 PM]: QWEER
Shadman52889 [1:45 PM]: uh hu okay whatever you say
Shad [1:45 PM]: And you love me. How very sweet...
Shadman52889 [1:45 PM]: 8-)
Shadman52889 [1:46 PM]: Shadman52889: im the devil
KC chinatown: riiight okay
Shadman52889: qwerty berty sherty
KC chinatown: uh hu ummm ooook
Shadman52889: you have been cursed!!!
Shadman52889: hahahahahaha!!!
Shadman52889 [1:46 PM]: KC chinatown: um ok sorry but do I know you?
Shad [1:46 PM]: Oooh, doing a little three way action now, are we?
Shadman52889 [1:47 PM]: KC chinatown:ill shove a stick up your ass
Shad [1:47 PM]: Sorry, I'll have to cut you off now...I don't share my pansy bitches with anyone else, and as you're going after this KC Chinatown person, I'll leave you to them. Too bad, you make a good pansy bitch too. :)

What amuses me is that this was supposed to be an accident. This wasn't staged, and everyone involved is apologizing up and down for it. But geez, wasn't anyone watching? At the end, when Timberlake had his hand wrapping around Janet's waist, and then slid up, grabbed the material and pulled? Sure, she looked surprised, but maybe she's just a good actress. Or maybe Timberlake was seeing if it really was Janet, and not her brother Michael. Regardless, I have to think it was staged...mostly because most women I know don't wear a nipple shield under their clothes. (Link is NOT safe for work, children, small dogs, etc...) You'll also notice in the picture that the outfit Ms. Jackson is wearing has snaps in the bra cups. Convenient, eh?

Oh, and she has a new single coming out as well...and according to the press release, it's spreading "like wildfire". Funny, considering the timestamp on the article shows that it was published even before the game was over.

Coincidence? I think not. Staged? Most likely...

Other than that bit of excitement, the weekend over all was good. Aside from the afore mentioned Super Bowl party at Jeff and Marcia's, the kids and I had a lock-in at the YMCA Saturday night with the Indian Guides (or, as known now, the Adventure Guides. Apparently, honoring the Native American way of life, and reverence to all things nature wasn't "politically correct" so they had to change the name. Now, instead of "Great Spirit" it's "The Creator's...". But I digress...). We basically had the run of the place from closing until the next morning. We swam in the pool (or the kids did at least), shot baskets in the gym, watched movies, and ran around acting like idiots. Good fun! As a bonus, Gail managed to have a "girls night out" with some friends. They went to dinner, and a movie and had a great time. She was so happy and relaxed when we got home Sunday morning. I'll have to try and make sure she has more evenings like that.

Oh, and I like my LJ Icon, so I have to keep that too.

I'm still working on getting the site to look the way I want, as well as getting used to pMachine as a journaling tool. Then there's the website I'm trying to do for my friend Marcia's work. And my other website, Harleyroads (which is currently in the garage for a tune up, and has been for months now. How embarrassing...). I also want to try my hand at "modding"...I've been surfing the Bit-Tech forums for weeks now, and want to get my hands dirty.

And speaking of getting my hands dirty, every time I watch American Chopper, I want to go weld/grind/build/paint/throw stuff around. I need a hobby that doesn't involve computers, and something that requires using a welding torch sounds like good fun to me!

The reason I bring this up is because of a site I recently saw. The Mushroom House is the creation of a guy (aptly named "Zube") who came up with the idea in the late '70s. It's an incredible piece of work, with detail that's just astounding. The house itself, interior and exterior, reminds me of a hobbit hole, and the whole "nature" motif is carried throughout the house.

Obviously Zube (I love saying that name) must have had an incredible passion, for this took 22 years to complete. The only thing I've done for 22 years is breathe. I'd like to have this kind of determination and desire to have such a vision, and decide to do it, however out of this world the idea might seem.

In celebration of this, I bring to you the LOTR Survival tips

1. Stand up halfway through the movie and yell loudly, "Wait...where the hell is Harry Potter?"

2. Block the entrance to the theater while screaming: "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" - After the movie, say "Lucas could have done it better."

3. At some point during the movie, stand up and shout: "I must go! Middle Earth needs me!" and run and try to jump into the screen. After bouncing off, return quietly to your seat.

4. Play a drinking game where you have to take a sip every time someone says: "The Ring."

5. Point and laugh whenever someone dies.

6. Ask the nearest ring-nut if he thinks Gandalf went to Hogwarts

7. Finish off every one of Elrond's lines with "Mr. Anderson."

8. When Aragorn is crowned king, stand up and at the top of your lungs sing, "And I did it....MY way...!"

9. At the end, complain that Gollum was offensive to Ethiopians

10. Talk like Gollum all through the movie. At the end, bite off someone's finger and fall down the stairs.

11. When Shelob appears, pinch the guy in front of you on the back of the neck.

12. Dress up as old ladies and reenact "The Battle of Helms Deep" Monty Python style.

13. When Denethor lights the fire, shout "Barbecue!"

14. Ask people around you who they think is the next "Terminator" sent from the Middle Earth of the future to assassinate Frodo Baggins

15. In The Two Towers, when the Ents decide to march to war, stand up and shout "RUN FOREST, RUN!"

16. Every time someone kills an Orc, yell: "That's what I'm Tolkien about!" See how long it takes before you get kicked out of the theatre.

17. During a wide shot of a battle, inquire, "Where's Waldo?"

18. Talk loudly about how you heard that there is a single frame of a nude Elf hidden somewhere in the movie.

19. Start an Orc sing-a-long.

20. Come to the premiere dressed as Frankenfurter and wander around looking terribly confused.

Number 7 made me laugh :)

sup rob u know who dis be jasmine damn i know u like what she doin writing me but damn i miss talkin to a nigga shit i been gone and had school so where you been at couldn't write a nigga huh? lol its koo shit i wouldnt blame you but ay i just wanted to say whats up n u still my nigga and tell yo cuz i said wud ^

you female jasmine aka lil iverson holla back black spade 1

So, in the spirit of...er...well, something, I offer a translation for all us suburbanites:

Hi Rob, this Jasmine. I know you're probably thinking "Wow, what's she doing writing me?", but I really miss talking to my friend! Gosh, I've been gone and had school and been busy. So where have you been? Couldn't write a friend, huh? LOL! It's OK, geez, I wouldn't blame you but hey, I just wanted to see how you've been, and if you're still my friend. Tell your cousin I said hello!

Your friend Jasmine, sometimes known as Iverson. Write me back my friend!

I am so easily entertained.

• Having the birthday boy miss me with every single shot in the first round and me tagging him in the head on my second or third shot.

• The adults winning all 5 games, even though we were outnumbered each time.

• "Bunkering" one of the "Soon-to-be-Sponsered" kids. Bunkering is where you rush their hiding place and run by at full speed and just spray paint behind it as you go. The same kid had just explained it to me the round before. I'm a fast learner.

• Cody providing the "cover fire" for my bunkering run. He had joined our team for the last two games, I think simply 'cause he wanted to be on my team, which I thought was really cool. I told him what to do, and he just stood right up and started pegging the bunker in question. It rocked.

• Pegging the birthday boy in the fourth game, right in the chest, with one shot, from across the field. I was yelling at him from across the way "SEE!? ONE SHOT! THAT'S ALL IT TAKES!!!" Yes, I sunk to his level. I'll probably stay there all week too, just to gloat.

We had a great time, and Cody really enjoyed it. I'm hoping we can do it more often, as it was outdoors type of fun, which we don't do enough of. The whole hobby is damn expensive though.

But then, most of guys’ hobbies are, it seems. Ah well :)

Ah, I amuse myself ;)

We had a neighbor who had a tree not only go down and clip the corner of his house, but took out his car as well. Another neighbor had a tree go into a bedroom of his house.

Here's what's annoying: We have an old, dead oak in our front yard. It needs to come down. Do you think it fell over? Noooo...damn thing is solid. Didn't even lose any branches. Just some leaves blew off and that was it, so it's still going to cost me $400 to have someone take it down. Why couldn't have Mother Nature taken care of it for me??

In other news, I'm on VACATION starting tomorrow!!! Yeah baby! Going to the Big Apple to visit my brother for a nice long weekend, then I'll be kicking back around the house for a few days when I get back. Woohoo! First real vacation I've had in almost 2 years. The last two "vacations" were spent sitting by my dad's hospital bed. So those don't count.

• While telling me she wants to learn how to ride a bike.
  
  "And I need to wear a helmet for my head, pad for my elbows and a shoulder strap".
  
  "A shoulder strap?", I ask. "Why a shoulder strap?"
  
  "For my precious shoulders" came the reply.

• On the way back from Wal-Mart, talking to Cody in the back seat.
  
  "Hey Cody, what are we going to do when we get home? Hey Cody, why do you like that shirt? Cody, do you like that shirt?"
  
  Cody, naturally, gets annoyed and says, "Sarah, you ask too many questions! I'm not going to answer!"
  
  Sarah says "Why aren't you going to answer my questions Cody? I like asking you questions. Aren't you going to answer my questions? Why won't you answer my questions?
  
  After nothing but silence from Cody, she says, "It must be because you're constipated."
  
  I about drove over the curb.
  

• While sitting in Gail's lap Saturday morning. She was singing a song, that Gail didn't quite understand the words to.
  
  "What are you singing about?" Gail asked.
  
  "Hamsters and Germans" Sarah replied.
  
  Gail looked puzzled. Very puzzled. "Hamsters and Germans??"
  
  "Yes," Sarah said, "My friend has a hamster that's a German."
  
  Laughing at Gail's befuddled look, I said "Honey, do you mean gerbil? You have a friend who has a type of hamster that's a gerbil?"
  
  "That's what I said!" said Sarah. Gail about died laughing.
  

• While Gail and I were lying in bed Sunday morning. Gail had her arms up above her head, exposing her armpits. Sarah came in and sat next to her, and noticing Gail's unshaven armpit asked...
  
  "Are these from Daddy's cheek?" she asked while feeling her stubble.

I tell ya....she sure knows how to make me grin.

I love Metallica. I think they're a kick ass band. I've been to see them many times.

But they're assholes.

METALLICA DEFENDS RIGHTS AGAINST CANADIAN BAND OVER E, F CHORDS (updated link)

Does this mean Danielle Steele can sue other authors for using "Heaving" and "Bosoms" in the same sentence next to each other?

I'm supposed to be QA testing our latest client build...I just can't. It's such a gorgeous day out, that I want to go riding, do some work around the house, do anything but work on the computer. And that says something...not only not wanting to work on the computer, but work around the house...I hate house maintenance stuff, but I feel like getting out and cleaning flower beds, or something.

Weird.

Hopefully, with Gail being home during the summer, she'll get to get out and do some of that stuff. She at least likes it. Me, I just view it as a chore. One which I usually have to spend money on. I don't have any money as it is. It never seems like we have enough money. They say that the key to happiness isn't all about money, and I agree, for the most part. A little bit more money sure would help though!

As a kid, I did my share of TP'ing. But this went way beyond a prank. Obviously, this is the work of some kids, and apparently they have a bone to pick with one of her kids. They just don't understand that it's not the kid they're "getting back" at, but it's the parents who suffer. She might have to replace the garage door because of this idiocy. She did call the cops and file a report, and they have an idea of who it might be, but proving it will be a whole other story.

To top this all off, our neighbor is getting married on Saturday and is expecting a bevy of relatives, including her soon to be Mother-in-law. She doesn't need this kind of crap.

Gail called and we were talking about it. I told her to go buy her some new flowers, and get them planted for her. Hopefully that'll cheer her up.

Jackasses. I hope they get caught.

I have a half dozen things I want to do when I get home from work today. I want to work on the website. I want to start my case mod. I want to get a Windows machine working. I want to clean out my garage. I want to take the dogs for a walk. There's not time for all this AND homework. I have a 5 to 8 page paper due Wednesday for my Psychology class. The bitch of it is, I don't even have a decent subject picked out yet.

I'm starting to panic a bit.

So 90% of this weekend will be spent researching, writing, re-writing, and trying to fill in spaces to make a 5 page paper. Oh, and I have a take home quiz and journal to do.

Summer school sucks. There's just SO much reading to do. A 3 month class shoehorned into 6 weeks is NOT fun...

As a result of all this rain, there's been a lot of mud around. I mean, a LOT. Not only in the yard, but in the house as the result of dogs and kids and even grownups (OK, just me) tracking it in. We had our end of the year Indian Guides family BBQ yesterday. Lots of families getting together, all for a good time. We went to Claude Moore park, which has a farm on its premises, with goats, lambs, pigs, roosters and even peacocks. A couple of dads and myself took the kids down to see the animals, and after a bit, started walking back, knowing the kids would catch up. Cody came running up two minutes later and said "I accidentally pushed Daniel into a mud puddle". Because of all the aforementioned rain, Cody could have pushed him anywhere and almost guaranteed he'd land in a mud puddle. I looked at him said, "Accidentally?".

He didn't even try. He just said. "No, I pushed him into the mud puddle." Naturally, I asked why, and naturally, got the standard "I don't know" answer.

The rest of the day was nice, even though Cody was sullen and moody. I asked what the matter was. "I'm just in a bad mood", he replied. Even though I had a good idea, I asked him why. "I just feel like a bully", he said.

I agreed, saying that his actions do seem to indicate he's a bully, but that I didn't think HE was a bully, and left it at that. Talking to my mom this morning, she made a good point; he was at least thinking about it. He was down on himself because he knew what he did was wrong, and excluded himself from the rest of the afternoon's activities.

Basically, he punished himself, and from where I stand, that's not a bad thing. I can only hope he learned something from it.

And on a totally unrelated note, I've lost 25lbs so far on the low carb, high-protein diet. Maybe that explains my carb-binging yesterday at the picnic.

Back on the wagon!!

I also won a drawing here at work where I get to go see it tonight for free, and as a team, we're going tomorrow afternoon to see it as well. Good thing I liked it. :)

In other news, I think I've actually settled on a major. I think I'm going to go for a Psychology major, with a minor in Film and Media Studies. Why Film and Media? I've always loved movies, love the Internet, and find the way the media in general can manipulate the public thought process fascinating and disturbing. That interest should tie in nicely with the Psych degree.

Sarah "graduates" from daycare today. I'm in work early today so I can leave around 9-ish, and go watch the ceremony. Should be very cute, and I hope to have pictures up shortly after (though I'm taking my 35 mm and not my digital, which in itself wouldn't be a problem if Canon would make a flippin' scanner driver for my Mac, which runs OS X. There's another company that has, but they want 50 bucks...but I digress)...

Cody has SOL tests today (Standards Of Learning), which is a nice, 4 hour long test. He then has a game tonight (he had one last night as well), so I imagine by tomorrow he'll be worn out. Gail and I are getting stuff together for a garage sale we're having Saturday. I discovered I have more computer parts and software than I ever thought, so I'm selling 95% of it. Hopefully, once Gail sees how cleaned out the basement is, she'll let me go buy more crap...er...computer stuff!

Once this weekend is over, we have to start cleaning like mad, as my Mother-in-law (queue Darth Vader music!...just kidding Lou!!!!) is coming to town for a wedding, in which Gail and I are in. And then starting Thursday is the HOG VA State Rally, with Rolling Thunder smack dab in the middle of it...

It is going to be a very busy week.

Yeah...right.

So Monday I called his teacher and got things straightened out. Turns out that after she passes out the papers, she asks if anyone didn't get one, and then puts the leftovers in a tray on her desk for those that might have lost theirs. After I sat Cody down and confronted him about all this (And one lie just kept leading to another, even while we were sitting there), it turns out he had all the papers in his desk. With Gail's "encouragement" I kept it very toned down (though I wanted to bend him over my knee and spank his butt like a 5 year old), and mostly positive. Encouragement instead of negativity, praising him for the great grades he brought home last week. It's a good thing Gail was there, because she had the right of it. He responds so much better when we're positive, instead of nagging him to get his homework done (after he sits there for 3-4 hours, it gets annoying).

So, on top of regular homework, we had him bring home his class work, which we're helping him through. Only 6 weeks of school left. I really hope next year he gets a stricter teacher. He does so well with a teacher who's a hard ass :)

As for Sarah...well, I have a feeling she might be more trouble. Aside from the "Go faster daddy" when I'm driving to the "play louder daddy" when I'm playing my guitar, she pulled a new one on me last night. I'd just gotten her out of the bath, and was drying her hair with the towel, and with exaggerated motions, tousled her hair. She laughed and laughed and then said "Daddy! Stop that! I'm a GENIUS and geniuses don't GET their hair dried!"

I just sat there with my mouth open, towel in my hand, as she streaked out in the living room giggling her head off.

Around 11:15 it comes back on again, and something happened to the neighbor's home security system. It starts going off on its own accord. Nice, LOUD annoying "BREEEP BREEEP BREEEP pause BREEEP BREEEP BREEEP..." and so on. I could not get to sleep until about 4:30am because of that damn thing. I even took a walk up the road at 3am to take a look and see if I could disconnect it, because, obviously by now, there was no one home.

Turns out the homeowners had dropped the security service that monitors the alarms, but kept the alarm hooked up. And, naturally, the homeowners were out of town. Friggin' wonderful.

It didn't get shut off until 4pm Sunday afternoon.

I'd better get a nice bottle of beer from them or something.

Naturally, she scheduled the appointment in the middle of the day when she's at work and can't get off. So I was the lucky one who got to take her in to get shots again. Sarah had told me she was worried, and you could tell during the exam. She was jumping and running and all over the place.

When the nurse came in to give the shots, Sarah was going to sit on my lap. By this time, she'd ceased jumping and laughing and was crying. Hard. And hiding behind me as well. Eventually it took me sitting her in my lap, wrapping both arms around her, with one hand holding both of her hands, and I had one leg wrapped around her legs to pin them down. Poor thing was so scared, and screaming to raise the dead. Two shots in one arm, one in the other.

Gail owes me big time.

I was going to change, or was thinking about changing at least, the layout of the site. I think I'll hold off on that however, and instead, go with a different layout under the soon to be opened (I hope) graphics section. Naturally, being a "graphics" section, it is going to be a much more graphical interface, as well as some CSS/PHP eye-candy goodiness. At least, that's the plan. And Lord knows how many plans I've had that have gone astray.

Here were my resolutions:

• Lose Weight

• Get more organized

• Work more on getting a small music studio setup

The losing weight is actually going well, though I haven't been doing it the whole time. I've only started dieting in the last week, but at least I'm making a conscious effort to lose weight now. I've also probably worked out more in the past 4 months than I did all of last year. Having a diet buddy helps, someone I can talk to when I need advice or motivation. Although her last journal entry will probably give me an upset stomach. Thong?!? Moi?! icky.

Getting myself more organized is still in the works as well. I've been trying to keep track of the finances with Quicken, and I rescued an older Compaq PDA from the trash heap, fixed it, and now keep track of my appointments and tasks through it. Hopefully soon I'll transfer my address book over to it. It's a neat little gadget, and while it uses Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 and Microsoft's Outlook to do everything, it at least works. While I do like using Linux, and more recently have moved over to the Mac OS X platform, it was nice to have something sync up correctly the first time I hooked it up. All I had to do was download ActiveSync off Microsoft's website, and everything was groovy after that. That's nice for a change.

As for the music studio I want, well, I still haven't forgotten about that. I want to get something like Propellerhead's Reason, a small keyboard, Yamaha Tone Generator, and a nice pair of studio speakers. Unfortunately, this is all very expensive, and just one more expensive hobby for me to start. So, we're concentrating on the cheaper stuff first.

Well, now I'm on a real, honest-to-god diet. I've known for some time that I've needed to lose weight. It just never was high on my priority list. For some reason though, the time has come to make it happen. There was nothing earth shaking that prompted this decision. It's just time to do it I guess. I don't want to be fat forever.

I've got some help this time through. I have my diet buddy who I mentioned before. I have Gail helping as well. She's been reading through different books about the low-carb diets (which is what I'm trying) and is helping me to eat better. We had meatloaf (with lean beef), beans and instead of mashed potatoes, we had mashed cauliflower. Gail chopped and whipped it up, put in some sour cream (low-fat of course ;), and some cheese, and wa-la! Mashed Cauliflower! It wasn't bad at all, but the real surprise was how Cody wolfed it down. He LOVED it.

So here's to hoping the diet works, I lose weight, start feeling better about myself and get all the hot young chicks to notice me without sucking in my gut all the time. Makes my head swell up funny when I do that.

I'm settling into my new role as QA tester type person. On my first "real day" of working as a tester, they gave me some stuff to test (naturally). Real basic stuff, entering difference values for different parameters for our new bug tracking software. I changed a few things, everything was good. Then I thought to myself "well, what if I did this?", and ended up breaking the whole system. I broke our bug tracking system, but not only that, I apparently broke the system it was based off, as well as created some firewall issues for the west coast people.

Man, do I know how to do my job or what?? What's even better is the fact that I get to break it and don't have to fix it. That rules.

Otherwise, it's spring. Flowers are blooming, Cody is in baseball and is starting to count down the days until Spring Break (so is Gail for that matter). Cody's Odyssey of the Mind took second place in their school and we're all headed to Newport News for the State competition next weekend. No one expected them to get placed, as this is the first year for their school, but they surprised everyone. We were pretty damn proud of him!

Sarah is starting to talk about going to school in the fall. I think she's looking forward to it. And I think she'll do well. She's one of those that really likes to please others, and gets very upset if someone becomes upset with her. Guess she might be classified as "teachers pet".

The dogs have been attention starved or something lately. They've been getting into the trash, getting up on the furniture again. So we've been letting them sleep in the room (They're really annoying in the middle of the night. For some reason, that appears to be their preferred time to wash themselves and at 1 in the morning, we're awaken by the sound of dogs licking themselves. Just nasty..). We even managed to all go for a walk last night. Hopefully, now that it's turning nice out, we'll do more of that.

I have a "diet buddy"! A good friend of mine is wanting to lose weight, and as I'm always bitching about how fat I am, she asked me to help her out, and in turn, she'll help me. So we've made goals, and we encourage (read: nag) each other about what to eat, what not to eat, when we've exercised, etc. Hopefully it'll work, and I'll be able to stick to an exercise/diet plan. I seriously need to lose some serious amount of weight!

And other than all that happy rambling, have a good Friday!

Hard.

According to the weather reports yesterday, we were supposed to get a "dusting". There's about 2 inches on the ground now, with a forecast of 2-4 inches by this afternoon. Since when is 2 inches a dusting? You normally won't hear me say this, but I am tired of the snow. I want Spring. I want the trees to bloom, I want the grass to need cutting, I want to ride my bike on nice weekends. Hell, I'll even take the seasonal allergies that accompany Spring. I am just so tired of the snow.

Gail and I took the kids and Sarah's friend, Olivia, to breakfast this morning. Cody was asking me what the vents were above the cook's area, and that led to a discussion of how hot the ovens at the pizza place where Gail and I met used to get. I told Cody that not only is that where I met Gail, but where I got a crush on her as well. He said "Oh...so you used to body slam her?"

I choked on my breakfast, and I could see Gail hide the smile that was threatening to become an out right laugh. After coughing for a few minutes, I asked Cody if he knew what I meant by "crush". He shook his head, and I explained it to him.

I tell ya, kids sure can be funny without meaning to be.

Well, silly me, I forgot that it's February. I mean, geez, apparently Spring is just around the corner (mind you, as I type this there's 5 inches of snow on the ground left over from last week, and it's snowing now). They had all their tank tops and flip flops out. When asked about ski caps and gloves, they looked at me as if I was silly and said "No, we don't have any of those". I was almost stunned. Walmart, not HAVE something? sheesh

So Cody and I went hat-less, but the day was nice and neither of us was too bothered by it. We had a good time. I managed to find a tube that had a plastic bottom instead of a vinyl one. Got myself a good running start, belly-flopped down onto it, zoomed down the hill, crashed into the hay bails at the end and went through. It was awesome!

Also went and saw the new Jackie Chan movie, Shanghai Knights, this weekend. Oh man, I laughed my butt off. Hopefully, I'll get a review of it up and stuck in my movies section. I've let that part slack off a bit, but I'd like to get it up and running again, along with the Gallery script for picture management. Time will tell.

I use...or actually, used to use Greymatter for my blogging needs. Unfortunately, there appears to be a bug in the code that allows a program called phpshell to be dropped into my archives directory, which in turn, allows the twit who uses it access to my site. Thankfully my brother, who hosts this site, caught it in time and locked everything down. Naturally, this meant my blog was locked down and I was unable to post. In fact, I am typing this in manually, as it were, instead of using the Greymatter interface.

As of now, I'm not using anything but plain HTML. I'm currently writing a PHP based journal script, that I hope I can eventually use as a blog tool. I'm not especially talented at coding however, so this might take awhile.

In the meantime, I guess it's back to coding by hand!

So the alarm goes off at 3:30a.m. I head for the shower, cursing the dogs for my lack of sleep the entire time. Get myself out the door and on the road in good time. Make it to BWI just before 5, only to realize that there is absolutely no parking. For some reason it never occurred to me to check on parking. Yeah, sure, I know this is the busiest travel weekend of the year. But do you think I stopped to wonder what all those people did with their cars while they were flying? Apparently I assumed they were magically transported back to their homes, leaving me plenty of parking.

Well, obviously not.

So every single parking garage is full, every satellite lot is full...and I'm running out of time to check in for my flight. I dial the radio to the local am airport station, and get directions to the Amtrak parking garage of all things. Manage to find it, grab a cab and get to the airport. Made the flight, and everything was fine after that. Except the landing; I think Captain Kangaroo was piloting the flight, as we bounced 3 times when we landed. That, or we were shot down.

Friday we spent all day at the stadium updating the appliances. We finally got done around 5, and started looking for our hotel. It's only a half-mile from the stadium. It took us over an hour to get there. Why? Because every friggin road was blocked off for some sort of winter festival. We ended up going through a police road block just to get to the hotel.

The hotel itself was damn nice. The Hyatt in Cleveland was pretty posh and expensive. Breakfast alone was 12 bucks. Eeep! But hey, the company is paying for it, I'll live it up.

Saturday was spent watching the winter festival parade, checking out the Cleveland Library which was right across the street from the hotel, and hanging out in our rooms. Sunday was game day, and it was our job to wander around the stadium by the luxury boxes, making sure no one needed any help. And truthfully, we spent a good deal of the time in the press box. We had these passes that got us anywhere in the stadium. Hanging out in the press box was pretty cool. It was neat to see faces I recognized from the TV.

So Sunday evening, we headed back to the airport for the flight home. It's a good thing it's a short flight, because the plane was CROWDED. I'm not a small guy, so naturally, I got stuck in the window seat. Which isn't as bad as getting stuck in the middle seat, like the guy next to me did. He was about my size, so already I knew it was going to be a cramped flight. I was getting my seat belt on, and putting my book in the seat back pocket in front of me, when I heard the guy on my right say "Oh geez, I hope he's not sitting next to me." I looked up the aisle, and here comes this 6'4", 300lbs dude. He was BIG. And sure enough, he sat in the same row as me and the other guy. I'm surprised the plane didn't fly tilted to the left.

As it turns out, the big guy was Kris Jenkins, who plays for the Carolina Panthers. He had some business in Baltimore, which is why he was flying this particular flight instead of flying home. He was a pretty nice guy and I even got his autograph.

So we finally landed (no hopping down the runway, thankfully), get on shuttle bus, get to the car, and start heading home. I-95 was bumper to bumper, but that wasn't a surprise. I finally made it home about 10:30, kissed the wife, and went to bed.

I think next year, I'd rather go to my moms. :)

Gail and I also celebrated our 10th Anniversary yesterday. Seems like it should be a big milestone, and I guess it is. We didn't celebrate it like it was one though. We exchanged cards, and then she left to go to NC. I spent my anniversary evening alone as well. How weird.

We have a gift certificate for Maggiano's though, given to us by a friend for our anniversary, and she's even going to watch the kids. So sometime this next week, month, whenever we find the time, Gail and I will sneak out and spend a quiet evening eating some very good food. It sure doesn't seem like it's been 10 years. I mean, that's almost a whole third of my life. It sure doesn't seem that long. I can't imagine my life without Gail, and I imagine if we weren't together, I'd be that much poorer. Not financially speaking, can't get much more broke than we are now. But I'd be so much less of a person. She's definitely become my better half, and I'm much better off with her with me. I love you Gail!

I think that test is full of prunes. Financial advisor? HA!

The other test was a personality test called "Please Understand Me" and after asking a ton of questions, it printed out this long report of myself, which, scarily enough, I found to be mostly true.

Go figure.

First off, don't go at night, or on weekdays. You really should visit Sam's Club (or Price Club/Costco) during the day on the weekend end. Yes, it's crowded. Yes, the checkout lines are long. Yes, parking sucks. But! There's a much better variety of free samples during weekends, and you can practically feed the whole family a well-balanced meal just by going through the different isles.

So anyhow, I'm standing in the checkout line at the local Sam's Club, when a rather nondescript woman comes up behind me with a tire. She sees me watching her and says "I had to get a membership here so I could get this tire. This is the only place that sells my size tire." I thought that rather odd, and noticed the tire itself wasn't anything out of the ordinary. She didn't seem too upset by having to join, she just said it as a simple fact.

While we were there waiting, a young girl, no more than 4, came up and patted the tire and said "Tires are fun!" and took off with it. She was rolling it on down the aisle ahead of her, while the lady and I just sat that there. I started to giggle and the child's dad managed to intercept her and made her bring the tire back. When he got closer, the tire-lady said "Do you go to Patriot Harley Davidson?" He was wearing a Bike Week shirt, so I guess she figured he must be a biker. He said "Pardon me?" She repeated herself by saying "Patriot Harley Davidson?" It was obvious he hadn't heard the first time because he looked at her blankly and shook his head showing he didn't understand. So she repeated herself, this time adding "Do you go there?" He said he'd been there a couple of times. She told him that on Memorial Day he should go down because she was a clown and she spent every Memorial Day down there making balloon animals. He kinda nodded and walked away.

When she turned back to me, I smiled and said "You're a clown? I've probably seen you down there then, as I visit Patriot HD quite a bit."

She said "Professional Clown!" in a rather haughty tone. She paused, and then said "Well, I think I'm more of a Balloon Artist than Professional Clown..."

Ooookay then. Check please?

My old roommate, Mike, called last night. It was great to hear from him. Being outside in the cold this morning reminded me of when we roomed together in his house back in Flagstaff. The house was pretty nice; 3 bedrooms, a huge deck, and right on the dog-leg of the 6th hole on the Country Club golf course. And the price was right (though I was always behind on giving him money for bills and such). The house was originally built as a summer cabin, and as such, wasn't insulated against the cold weather we got in Flagstaff.

Mike and I would sit in the living room, playing Nintendo (Legend of Zelda!) and would literally have blankets and comforters wrapped around us as we sat on the couch. I imagine it was a pretty strange sight: two big lumps with the wires for the controllers snaking under the blankets, and just our eyes and noses sticking out (and even then, it was debatable on the noses). It would be late November, we'd both be blue, the soda in our cups would be slushy, and you'd see our breath before we'd kick the heat on. And that's because once the heat started, it never seemed to turn off. Talk about no insulation!

At this time, we'd usually go back to my bedroom to watch TV, or movies. For some strange reason, my room was the warmest in the house. And it got warm. Toasty warm. Sit around in your shorts warm. Not that I complained too much. I was able to crack a window, and usually left it open all winter. But it wasn't unusual for someone to come visit, and find everyone else crammed into my room watching my little TV.

Ahh, those were the days :)

So I stopped at 7-11 to get a coke. Now, I'm sure many of you have been in a 7-11, and know how they have their fountain machines set up. Cups all loaded in spring-loaded canisters, so there's always one there for you to grab, right below the fountains themselves.

Well, I go in, grab my cup of choice (only a 32 oz. Trying to cut back ;), and noticed that the other cups tried to launch out of the cup-holder canister there. I noticed that these things are right at crotch level as I wrestled to get them back in there.

You can see what's going to happen here, can't you?

So, I get them back in, all is good, load the cup up with ice, start pouring my coke, the cups in the spring-loaded canister slip, they shoot out, and wham! get me right between the legs. My legs crossed, my eyes crossed, all the while, I'm trying not to spill the coke. I managed to fill it, grab a lid and straw, and shuffle over to the register.

I thought the guy behind the counter was going to split his turban trying not to laugh at me. He mumbled sorry, gave me my change, and as soon I was headed out the store, he started to chuckle.

Next time I go to 7-11, I'm wearing a cup to protect me from their cups.

Things are pretty much going along as they always have, with the exception that I'm not near as busy any more. It seems to be feast or famine here at work, and seeing as how it was busier than all get out all during the summer, I don't mind a few weeks worth of famine. I can catch up on school work, and my websites. It also gives me time to do a few more things around the house, and I don't feel as tired. Unfortunately, with the lack of work goes the OT. So it looks as if I'll be trying to find a second job. Here's where we find out if my mom actually reads this journal, because if I do get another job, I won't be able to make it to her place for Thanksgiving :(

And in other news, I know have brought home yet another computer. However, it's NOT a windows machine! I have downstairs a nice, more-or-less brand new Macintosh G4. This thing is sweet. Between that and my Mac G3 Powerbook, I'm slowing moving away from the windows environment. I still use it for Games and some other stuff, but I really like the Macs. I've decided I'm just going use what is the best for each app. I'm getting Photoshop and Dreamweaver for the Mac, and seeing as how that's what I use at school, it makes sense to use them at home as well. I'll still play games on my Windows machine. And once I get my Linux box set up, I'll see about installing CVS and backing up stuff so that I don't have a repeat of my hard drive crashing with nothing, and I mean Nothing with a capital N, backed up.

No, it was not a pretty sight. I think I cried a bit.

As for the rest of the family, everything is the same. Cody still gets scolded on a regular basis for not paying attention in class, or not bringing home all his homework, or just being a 9-year-old in general. Sarah has been saying "Is tomorrow my birthday?" for the entire past month. Unfortunately, it's not until the end of THIS month. She might drive her parents crazy by that time. Gail is still working, still being supermom. And myself, well, it's the same as well: Work School Homework Housework, repeat as necessary....

My brother lives in New York city. He had a job interview scheduled for 9am at the World Trade Center complex. Thankfully, my brother has never been able to get up early to save his life (and I guess, it might have), and had rescheduled it for 2pm that afternoon. He actually slept through the crashes until a friend of his called to check on him. He got online and IM'd me to let me know he was ok.

I live outside of Washington D.C. After hearing that there was smoke coming from the Pentagon, they made an announcement that everyone was to go home. I've never made it home so fast.

The days events unfolded in my living room on my TV. We had friends and neighbors over, as well as my in-laws (who were supposed to leave that day and ended up spending an extra week).

Family and Friends. That's what's become important for me this past year. Spending time with my children, reading them a story before bed. Remebering to tell them, and my wife, that I love them.

A year later, and personally, not much has changed. Politically, I think Bush has lost his focus, and is starting to lose respect, among Americans and among other countries. Let's concentrate on one thing at a time, eh Dubya?

Heh. I know the 2 of you that are reading this are probably sittin' there in shorts (unless you're my mom) and thinking "OK, he's off his rocker". Well, OK, yeah, so I probably am. I just happened to be looking ahead in my calendar, figuring out when my classes were in such, when I decided to count the days.

One of things that bothers me about the holiday season (OK, one of many, but I'll wait until it gets closer to talk about them all) is when people ask me what I want. I have a pretty standard answer: Gift Certificates. I love getting gift certificates, because then I get to choose exactly what I want, the person shopping for me doesn't have shop for hours, and everyone is happy. Who wouldn't love getting gift certificates? I love getting gift certificates from Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, and Borders. Those are probably my favorites of the "Brick and Mortar" crew. I love Amazon gift certificates as well.

However, there are some people who just aren't happy with buying gift certificates. Those people aren't content unless they spend hours shopping for the person in question. I think it must be a gene or something. My mother-in-law is one of these types, and I think my wife is following in her footsteps. So, for those that absolutely must shop, I've created "wish lists", at both Harley-Davidson and Amazon.com. If you get me something off of one of these lists, I'm guaranteed to love it. So no worries about me not liking anything.

These lists, or more specifically, the Harley-Davidson one, serve a dual-purpose. Aside from those who want to actually buy something, it's a good way to keep track of what I want to get for my bike/HD collection. Too many times I've seen something and thought, "Oh, that'd be cool", only to be thinking "What was that again?" just a few days later. I didn't want you guys thinking I was just making lists so people could by me stuff. I mean, c'mon, I'm not THAT materialistic.

Am I? :)

Anyways, I'm sitting there watching the movie and folding laundry at about 11 p.m. last night when I hear Cody get out of bed. He comes out of his room, and without really seeing me, he starts heading downstairs. I asked him where he was going, and he said he was getting some water for the clams. He stood there at the top of the stairs for a minute, while I held my silence waiting to see what he would do. When he didn't do anything for a minute or two, I told him to go back to bed. He simply turned around and climbed back into bed without any fuss.

At least he didn't feel the need to go to the store to get the dogs some dog food or anything.

My weekend was very unproductive, and goal-less. Well, I take that back; I did have one goal that I wanted to accomplish, and that was staying barefoot for all day on Sunday. And I accomplished it! Hooray for me. Other than that, I worked on the forums for my Harleyroads site, and I went to a friends house on Friday night. Taught them how to play Asshole, got them pretty torqued, and managed to get home around 3:30 in the morning. It was a lot of fun though.

OK, that was odd. I took a quick run down to the bathroom to, well, to do what you do in the bathroom. I was standing at one urinal, and guy who is on my team was standing at the other. He'd just gotten back from vacation (lucky bastard) so I welcomed him back and asked how the beach was. He said it was nice, but that he'd actually gotten back last week. Then I remembered it was a different guy on our team who was back today. By this time, we'd both zipped up and were washing our hands, when this voice came from the stalls and said "Oh, is he back?" It was our boss in the stall, doing what guys do in stalls. It was a strange moment to be sure.

Bathroom etiquette is simply odd. I mean, EVERYONE has to pee or poop at some point in their lives. Yet, whenever we're in the bathroom (at least men...I don't know if women do it any differently), it's like there's this "No Talking" sign posted. Some people abide by that sign as if it were written law, while others seem to go out of their way to flaunt their disregard for such silliness. Personally, I fall into the latter category. The people that crack me up the most are the guys that sit in the stall, and flush every time they're going to make some noise (i.e. fart). Every thirty seconds, they'll flush the toilet. C'mon, we all know you're not going THAT much. And if you are, perhaps you should see a doctor!

Well, this entry certainly did get a bit off track. Ah well. At least I didn't talk about work :)

I've also been using my Powerbook G3 a lot more. I could really get to like OS X. And at work, I burned out the video card on my older Mac desktop, so they gave me a new "Quicksilver" model. Woo...damn sexy beast of a machine. I love it! I might seriously consider getting a Mac for my next home computer. Who knows, maybe you'll see me on a "Switch" commercial.

My thoughts have been on home more than usual lately. Home being Arizona of course. I may have lived out here in Virginia for almost 4 years now, but AZ will always be my home. After this summer, I would gladly go back to 110 degree heat, as long as it meant not having to deal with 80% humidity on top of it. It's one thing to be 100 degrees. It's another to be 100 degrees with 95% humidity. I don't know how people stand it. Aside from a few short days last week, it's been like that all summer. Ugh. So yeah, give me the dry heat of the desert, or better yet, the cool air of the mountains. Man, I miss home.

So hopefully the rest of this journal entry will be everything BUT work.

How pathetic. I sat here for at least half an hour trying to think of something to write about other than work. I can write about kids, they're doing fine. Cody's physical therapy is coming along well. Gail's been teaching Sarah how to swim, and apparently she can swim underwater very well. Now we just have to get her to swim on top of the water.

But other than the occasional game of Starcraft or a new one, Stronghold, over at Jeff's, it's been nothing but work mostly. We did finally manage to get the dark blue wallpaper out of the master bath, so it's much brighter in there. Now, we need to get new sinks, cabinets, and light fixture. Oh, and new shower doors. I found some at Home Depot that I really like.

I also think I might like to add some more color to this site when things cool off at work. Then again, perhaps not. I kind of like the simplicity of it. Thoughts?

Other than that, it's just been work. Work, work, and more work. We have a huge project, and the launch date was moved up by almost a whole month, so everyone is scrambling like mad. Truthfully, I shouldn't even be writing this. I should be trying to figure out why my stuff doesn't work like it should. But I've been working 70 and 80 hour weeks, so I thought I'd take 15 minutes to update my journal. Poor thing probably feels neglected. :)

Well, last week, my boss called me into his office and said that he wanted me to handle the address book for the China client. This is a HUGE task, and I get to do it. gulp While it's cool that he trusts me with this, I haven't done any of the sort of coding required for this for almost 3 years. And what I did before hand was piddly stuff. This is huge, major, push it out the door code...eeeep

So anyway, I'm in major panic mode. Guess we'll see what comes of it.

It was a fairly busy weekend overall. Cody had a ball game Saturday afternoon, then we had to bust our asses up to Maryland to make it to the zoo by 6. On the way there, we had the first of what I imagine will be a few "sex" talks. After I explained the basics to him, he was silent a moment, then went "EEEEEWWWWW!!!! I am NEVER getting married!!" I just had to laugh. So after a few minutes, and some more explanation, I told him that if he had any questions about any of this stuff, that I wanted him to come to his mother or I, and we would do our best to answer him honestly and fairly. Then I asked if he had any questions and he said yes. So I braced myself for my first related sex question and he said:

"What I want to know, is what you think the most ferocious dinosaur is after the Tyrannosaurs Rex."

Okie Dokie then. Not exactly what I expected, but for some reason, it didn't really surprise me either.

Sunday I went to my friend Jon's to start work on his new website. He's going to do the graphics, and I'm going to help with the coding of it. I'm pretty excited about it. Jon's very talented when it comes to that stuff, and I like working with him. After about 2 hours of working, we decided to go see a movie, so went and saw the new Star Wars film. I have to say, I liked it a lot.

After that it was home to relieve Gail of a frustrating afternoon of dealing with barking dogs. We really need to get a fence.

She was in bed reading, after having made her first deposit to the curse jar. She was reading an article about how some guy in California is cryogenically freezing hair so that when a cure for baldness is absolute, men can get their hair out of storage, and have it grafted (or whatever) back on to their head. She then said "Only in California would they come up with this bullshit...oh Crap! Oh DAMMIT!" At this point, she shoved a Kleenex in her mouth to keep from cursing more. Needless to say, she almost double the amount of money in the curse jar within about 10 seconds.

It was an enjoyable weekend. Cody had a game on Saturday, which they actually won. It's the first game this year that they've won, which had everybody pretty jazzed. The coach even did this high-step thing through the dugout when they got the last out. I ended up having to leave early, and go to my bosses office to get a standing table and bring it back to work. A standing table is for paraplegics (My boss is in a wheelchair), and allows them to stand up for periods of time. It'll be kinda weird to have him standing up when I go in there.

Sunday, we went to Camden Yards and watch the Orioles beat the Kansas City Royals. It was a good game, made better by the fact that I didn't get any more sunburned than I already was. Camden Yards is a neat ballpark, and we had pretty decent seats down the third-base line. I'd like to go more often, I just wish it wasn't so far away.

Afterwards, we came back, picked up Sarah (she spent the day over at Marcia's for Olivia's birthday party...another fact which probably added to my enjoyment of the game) and then got the kids home, got them fed, got them washed and got them to bed (Ugh...so many 'gots'...my dad would be horrified). Gail and I spent the rest of the evening watching Bull Durham, a movie she hadn't seen.

It was a pretty decent weekend. Too bad it had to be spoiled by Monday :\

After spending about 2 weeks on my presentation for my business class, it turned out that we simply didn't have the time. Half the class didn't get to give their presentations. Personally, I was kind of put out. I would have liked to present my nifty-keen Power Point presentation on Harley-Davidson. As it is, I made the teacher watch my intro anyways. Ah well, she seemed to like it. After that, we graded our finals. She had us trade with one another and then we grade that paper. Right off the bat, everyone got 5 points because this was an older quiz she hadn't had time to update, so some of the questions weren't in the chapters covered. Then after the grading, we discussed some of the questions. In all, she gave everyone an extra 8 points. So my grade on the final? Out of a possible 100, I got 106.

Go figure.

I'm 99.99% certain that I have an A in my Business class. My English class, which I have my final in this Monday, I'm not so certain. I'm thinking I'll have a B...which, in reality, isn't a big deal, and might even be better if I DID get a B. I think it's cool having a 4.0 and all, but I don't want to kill myself just trying to get a 4.0. I just want that piece of paper that says "I'm Smart! S-M-R-T that spells Smart!" As long as I earn my degree, I'm not going to worry if I have a 4.0 or not.

Spent the weekend either riding or cleaning. And getting my butt whooped at Starcraft. I packed the bike and did a quick 100 mile run, getting the kinks outta the packing job. Don't want to have a load shift on me as I'm doing 70mph down a freeway somewhere. That wouldn't be good!!

Countdown - 2 days, 21 hours, 35minutes.

And it'll probably seem like 2 days, 21 hours, and 350000 minutes.

So much to do. Have to get my crap together and pack it on the bike. I want to make a run this Saturday with everything on the bike so I know what kind of load I'm traveling with. I need to get some tools together. Rig a water bottle holder. Find someone to take care of the cat.

Get money. Woo...get a tattoo with the money. Maybe in Sturgis :) For those that don't know what Sturgis is...well, you can write me!

Harleyroads.com is coming along. I'm halfway through my models section. Once I get that up, I'll probably open the site, and then finish it as I go. I'm getting excited about it.

Otherwise, it's the same old same old. Kids and I are going down to my moms for the 4th of July weekend. Gail is staying here to work at her part time job, full time. She took a weeks vacation from her full time to work full time at the part time, while her part time boss(es) go on vacation.

Get all that? :)

Aside from the picnics, BBQs, time off work and such, we should remember what this weekend is for. A time to honor the memory of our vets, and to appreciate that which they fought, and died for.

Gail is now on her way to the school to sit in his class. I sure wouldn't want to be him...

OK, have a new layout (again) and a new way of doing this now. Quick bits, everyday thoughts, whatever strikes my fancy will be here, on the main page. The reasons for this are two fold. 1) I can get quick thoughts down, and take up less space. 2) It'll keep the front page of my site more interesting.

Let's face it, if you're here, it's because you a) Know me b) Know someone who knows me c) Are just some freak who surfs Blogs all day and nothing else. Whatever the reason, when people come to this page, I want them to be able to see what's going on right away, rather than have to wade through some complicated menu.

For the more astute among you, you have noticed that I have a Journal menu item up there as well. What that will be used for is rant/raves/deep thoughts/introspective moments. I will take the time to go through, spell check, check for grammar, etc. Those will be longer than these (hopefully) short bits on my front page here. So, having said that, enjoy! But, and this is just a minor point, none of the links up there work yet. Soon though!

Gonna go kick my machine s'more.

I promised myself I would try, that I would at least finish one project. But then I think about it. And I get listless. Or something more important pops up. Or I have to do something else. Or I need to watch the paint peel. Get the picture?

I tease Gail and call her a freak often, because she works at a new age store, and she is interested in crystals, and tarot cards and stuff. She gets her fortune told, and her palm read. But I have to wonder some days. She had a reading done for her last week, and the lady doing the reading told her that I wasn't happy where I was, and that when an opportunity came, I should take it, even if it means leaving my place of work. I've been here for over 6 years. I'm familiar with it, and I'm content. Not necessarily happy, but content. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't go to work each morning dreading the time I have to spend sitting at my desk (well, at least not that often).

But I'm not passionate about it either. I don't find myself ever saying "OK, what cool thing am I going to do at work today?" But is that a bad thing? I can honestly say I don't know that many people who are absolutely content AND happy with their jobs. I think most people work at jobs that are so-so, but they do it, so they can have the money to do the things that make them happy when they're not at their jobs, whether that's going on vacations, going to the movies, out to eat, to the bookstores, whatever.

I'm feeling so lethargic right now. I don't feel like doing anything at all. Even if my boss came in and said "Shad, take the rest of the day off, and go home", I couldn't say that I would go home and do something productive, like yard work, or fun, like riding my bike. I'd probably end up in bed. I'm SLEEPY.

Getting back into the habit of writing stuff down is harder than I thought it would be. I keep finding myself putting it off, with one excuse after another. So why do I bother? Well, I like reading what I was thinking prior. I'm also trying to get into the habit because I want to keep a journal when I go on my trip to Sturgis this coming August. My buddy Jeff and I are riding there and back. No trailering of the bikes will be happening here. It's just something I've always wanted to do. And I want to record my thoughts about the trip as I go. I think I'll have to resort to keeping my journal the old fashioned way, with pen and paper, but I'm going to write in it every night. And take pictures. I want to take lots of pictures.

I think it's also time to redesign the site. It is spring time after all, time to do a little spring cleaning. I think something simple, brighter, and easier to maintain will fit the ticket just right. No idea when I'll get to it though. Still have to finish Harleyroads.com, my brother wants me to do a Tribes2 site for his tribe, and I need to get on the ball and get Gail's site, and her DAR site up and going.

Damn, now wonder I'm so tired. I never have time. And dang...just remembered Cody has a baseball game tonight. Ugh.

I think I need a pillow in my office.

Sounds rough. No kids, hot car, sitting by the pool. I'm sure she's just going to hate it...uh huh.

So it's the kids and I this week. Gail was apprehensive about leaving us. It's not like I can't take care of the kids all by myself. I mean hey, I can make a mean PB&J Sandwich when I put my mind to it. And no one makes a better bowl of cereal than I. And laundry? Heck, I used to live on my own, I can do laundry. Although, I have to say, since I've been married, none of my socks or underwear are pink anymore...

I've started working out again. Helps when you have someone to go with, so my friend Heidi and I are going during lunch now. It's a good time to go: It's not crowded, and I feel energized for the rest of the afternoon, which is when I'm most likely to start feeling drowsy. We'll see if I can keep it up this time. I managed to do the elliptical machine for 45 minutes today. Wish me luck!

Case in point? Americans For Purity: Winning The War On Masturbation 2020 Edit: dug up the archive.org link because it's just too damn funny

Now, how stupid is that? At first, I thought it was a joke, and perhaps it is. But this person speaks with such conviction that I myself am not all that convinced. It's amazing what happens when stupid people have a medium for expressing themselves. Granted, everyone has that right, but geez man...why pick on something as harmless as masturbation?

You know, maybe if this guy yanked his crank a time or three, he wouldn't feel so uptight.

And mom, if this offended you, I apologize (Though I really doubt it did anything of the sort. She's probably laughing her ass off)

We had a good time. Bill-a-bong was the big winner for the night, and he took the Macaroni Grill certificate (Thanks Deb!)

Other than that, we spent the weekend as your typical suburbanite yuppie couple might: did housework all day Saturday, and did yard work most the day Sunday. Blah. Didn't get to go riding at all. Double-Blah. The muscles between my thumbs and forefingers are all sore from raking. Triple-Blah. Blah Blah Blah.

Ok, enough blahs. Gail's going to Tampa for a few days, for work related reasons. However, she and her partner in crime managed to score a nice hotel, and a convertible rental. Supposed to be mid-80's down there all week. They're going to be lovin' it. As long as I don't see them on the news jumping into a canyon like Thelma and Louise, then I won't worry.

Cody did very well, both Gail and I were really proud of him. He had a line in the play, and when his turn came, he stepped right up to the mic without a hint of stage fright, and said his line in a perfectly clear, understandable voice. He even added some emphasis right were is was need. Hrm...perhaps the next Harrison Ford?

Baseball has also started for Cody. He's on the Mariners this year. This should be an...interesting year. Cody's coach told us the first day of practice that he wasn't going to be there for most the season. So it's fallen onto my, and other parents shoulders to coach this team. sigh

Other than that, things move along. Gail and I figured out we owe over 10k in taxes. Bleah. I have a poker run on Saturday. Hooray! And time keeps moving on and on and on and on...

...but I digress.

I'm sitting here at her desk at her work, waiting for her to come get me. The original plan was for her to drop me off here, I was going to update a computer here, and while I was doing that she was going to go to an art supply store and get some clay. She called about 45 minutes ago, saying she had gotten lost, but was on her way back finally. Then she called again about 5 minutes ago. She'd gotten herself even more lost, and was hungry and grouchy. I'm sure it didn't help I was laughing at her. At least the kids were asleep.

So I'm sitting her at her desk, using her computer to update my journal. At least she has a net connection here.

Thought it was supposed to start getting warmer as the month progressed, not colder! I think I did more riding in the month of January than I have in the month of March. That's messed up.

Well, regardless of the weather, it was a nice weekend. Gail and I went to the Opera on Friday night and had a good time. Then on Saturday night, we went to an Italian restaurant called Maggianos. Damn, talk about good food. I think I have a new favorite restaurant.

Other than that, it was a quiet weekend. Jeff and I are starting to plan for our Sturgis trip in August. Can't wait!

I was working on getting the forum up and running on my Harley site. I'm changing everything over to PHP, but somehow, while uploading one of my pages, I killed the webserver. No problem, I can restart that. Restart it, go and check the url, that works fine. Go to load a php page, and it hangs. Back to the main index page. It hangs.

whoops.

Seth's in London right now, and I think it's a good thing. See, I'm hosting my Harley site, as well as this one, on his machine. So I break something, he's likely to be upset with me. Hopefully, when he gets back (or reads my email) he'll be able to show me what I did wrong.

Spent yesterday washing my bike, then my buddy Jeff and I took the kids to Best Buy. We picked up some network cards, and some cables, and hooked my two machines up together. Now we can play Starcraft!!! Hooray for us.

Today, I'm going to try and get my voting script and my forum working on my Harleyroads site. We'll see how that goes. I imagine I'll end up banging my head in frustration more often than not.

My brother Seth said he was going to be able to host my site(s), so I just cancelled the service and waited. I created a new look for the site while waiting, and while there's still some stuff to do, I like the layout and look, and can hopefully stick with this one for awhile (I'm really bad at sticking to a layout...)

Now hopefully I can get back into the habit of using Blogger to write my thoughts down.

Someone get them on the phone. I want to tell them what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit their product is! Hallelujah! Holy shit, where's the Tylenol.

For those that are wondering, that's from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. I thought it fit well, with a tweak here and there.

OK, now to back up that little tirade with some comments.

They state that the new 6.0 browser complies with W3 standards. Which is just fine and dandy. But when your browser has gone from a majority of the market to something like 16%, you have to be willing to do more. Look at Microsoft. I'm not a huge fan of Microsoft, but the browser is far superior to anything Netscape has come up with. IE support table backgrounds, CSS1 and CSS2, tables are MUCH easier to deal with in IE than they are in Netscape...ARG

The picture, by the way, is what a part of my page looks like in NS6. Sure didn't look like that in MSIE 5.5.

I'm just freaking fed up with the stupid thing. I could go on and on about problems I've had with it. The Java plug-in for the Linux platform doesn't install properly; the preferences were obviously not tested fully when using different themes; even their tech support sucks. I wrote asking about the prefs problem, and 3 weeks later (3 weeks!), they wrote back and said:

Dear Valued Netscape Customer,

We thank you for your inquiry and appreciate your patience. We are receiving a much greater than anticipated volume of interest and apologize for any delay in response that you may have encountered. We realize that you may have sought out other sources of support. If you continue to experience problems with Netscape please reply to this message with a brief synopsis of the problem as well as any new behavior you may have noticed from the problem. Upon receiving your response a Netscape technician will respond to your request in the order in which it was received.

Netscape Technical Support

Now that was helpful. Notice the "a much greater than anticipated volume of interest"? Translated, that means "Holy shit, we didn't expect this much mail about our crappy product!!"

And another thing: This has been touted as a browser for "Core Internet Users"...and what does it do? Sends you to shopping channels on every third click of the button, or so it seems. Yeah, as a hardcore Internet user, my main purpose is to shop. Isn't everyone's?

OK, I think I'd better stop ranting and see about getting my layout to play nice with Netscape. Besides, I have a headache now.

The preceding has been a public service announcement from Shad, and it's his own opinion and nothing else. So don't sue me Netscape or you'll just piss me off more.

In all honesty, it's NEVER done. Someone gives you a gift out of the blue, you feel as if you should return the favor. You see the one thing, The One Thing that would make a perfect gift for someone 2 days before Xmas. It never ends. There's people who go to the after Amas sales to start stocking up for next year. Ugh.

Not much going here at work now. We finished our big project, and as everyone else is slowing down for the holidays, there's not much to do. So, whilst I'm at work, I'm going to work on getting my new layout working with my journal. It's gonna be interesting. Wish me luck!!!

The Commercialization Train that is known as Christmas keeps moving on, and is unstoppable. And I know this isn't a lot of segue here, but have you ever gotten really frustrated when writing something down, and you have a specific word in mind, but you can't spell it correctly, so you attempt to look it up in the dictionary, but because you can't spell it correctly, you can't find it?

Anyhow...

Christmas is coming, and I'm so woefully unprepared. I haven't even started my Xmas shopping. Gail and the kids took care of the tree...it looks great!. I've been working too much lately, so I haven't even seen my kids, let alone go out and shop for them. I think sometime next week, I'm gonna take some time from work and go shopping at the mall. That, or whip out the credit card and go shopping online. Woooo...that can be so dangerous.

And speaking of dangerous (now there's a nice segue. My dad would be so proud :), check out the link to the article below. I think the most dangerous thing on this planet is stupid people. 'nuff said about that! 2022 Edit: Link removed from dead site.

During the day we cleaned his car, because he had to sell it. He said all the change I found, I could keep and put in my chrome jar. I bet I walked away with over 5 bucks in change. He's worse than I am.

We took his car to Carmax to sell. I have to say, I was impressed with the place. Next time I go buy a car (hopefully soon. The poor little Honda's on it's last legs) I'll be going there.

We had a nice day. My brother came over, my mother in law and Gail cooked all day, we ate, played some board games, ate s'more. Generally, stuffed our faces.

Interesting weekend. Saturday morning, at about 1:30 am, I was awaken by a boom outside. I sat up and said "What the hell was that?" and it must've woken Gail up too, 'cause she answered me with "It came from outside. And I hear voices too." So I got up, and peeked out the window. Took me a minute to figure out what I was seeing was the neighbors car on fire across the street. Naturally, I had to get up and go outside to watch. The fire department wasn't even there yet, so just to make sure, Gail called 911. The next day, the car was just this slag, looks like it's gonna take a putty knife to get all the melted fiberglass off the driveway. At least no one was hurt.

Saw a couple of movies over the long weekend. First one was Unbreakable. The second was the X-Men which we rented. That rocked. As a comic book and X-Men fan, I thought they did a good job.

sheesh

/rant

OK, sorry about that. Personally, I'm looking forward to stuffing my face full of food tomorrow. And I plan on enjoying it too!!!

Cody had his birthday party this Saturday. It was actually a lot of fun, even if some of the kids were on the hyper side. Gail organized a treasure hunt of sorts, with the treasure being the kids goody bags. Cody's party was set to a Harry Potter theme, so Gail made the treasure hunt go into rooms the book had. Cody's was Gryffendor Tower, or something like that. The final stop on the hunt was the "Whomping Willow". Whatever that is in the book, I don't know. But I got to play the part of the Whomping Willow, and as far as I'm concerned, if I get to whomp kids, that's fine by me!

I borrowed my old neighbors gilly suit (for those that don't know, a gilly suit is a suit with strips of burlap and camoflage hanging off of it. I looked like a huge bush :) and sat out in the lawn with all the leaves (Those suits work really well. My mother-in-law took a picture from our deck looking down at us. Aside from the cardboard wrapping paper tube I was using to whomp the kids with, you can't tell where I am). I sat very still, and as the kids came out, they saw me right away. However, I don't think some of the kids knew I was in there, 'cause when one reached for the bag, and I whomped him with the tube, he jumped. Pretty soon I had kids yelling and screamin' and laughin' and hollerin' (Sounds like a Charlie Daniels song) and I was a-whompin away with my whompin tube. Great fun.

After that, Cody had another birthday party to attend at McDonalds. Needless to say, when it came time for him to go to bed that night, it didn't take much to get him there.

Sunday, Cody and I went on a hike up Sugarloaf Mountain with our Indian Guides tribe. We rode across Whites Ferry, and then hiked up the mountain. It was a good hike...at least my lungs and legs told me so. The view from the top was great. Jon, one of the dads there, was telling us how they used semaphore from the top of the mountain to signal troop movements during the Civil War. It was a great hike.

All in all, it was a pretty nice weekend.

After work I get to go to Maryland: First, to pick up a treadmill from my office spouse Heidi, then to my friend Jon's. Mostly to stop in and say hi, but he's also going to loan me all of his darkroom equipment. I've been wanting to get into photography for awhile, however, I've just never had the resources. Jon's a font of resources though. I have his helmet, along with his Dazzle, and now his darkroom equipment. Maybe he should just move in.

Naturally, I was against the shower curtain, and not the wall when I did this. Went ass backwards right out of the shower, hit my back against the corner of the counter, and flopped on down to the bathroom floor, where I managed not to yell out all sorts of obscenities.

Now I have a wonderful cut/bruise up my back (about 4 inches long...damn sharp counter top!) and it hurts to rotate my right arm around, as it's sore. Geezus, I tell ya, when it rains, it pours.

Take last night for instance. She told me about this dream she had. It was one of those dreams you have that incorporate reality into your dream. We were snuggling in bed, and I was rubbing her butt, simply 'cause I know she likes her butt rubbed (yeah, alright, I like rubbing it too. So sue me.) and she dreamt that as I was rubbing her butt, this pink smoke came out of her ass and consolidated into a genie, who then proceeded to give me three wishes.

No more ice cream for her before she goes to bed!

And for those of you wondering, yes, I rubbed her butt a lot trying to get the genie to come out.

The Toys for Tots run is sponsored by the United States Marine Corps every year, to help get toys, and raise money for those less fortunate during the holidays. It's a great cause, and I'm glad Gail kicked my butt outta bed this morning to go. They had one vendor there, and one concession stand. However, this is the first year they've done this, so I suspect next year it'll be even better.

There was a radio station onsite doing a live broadcast, and they were doing USMC and Harley-Davidson trivia. First question was; what was the first names of the Davidson brothers? I happen to be close to the the table, so I wandered down there, gave the right answer, and received a set of Mac tools. Well, it was two screwdrivers, and a tape measure, but it was still pretty cool :) (The answer, in case you're wondering, is Arthur, William, and Walter)

So after grabbin' some grub, and chattin' some, I headed home. I like riding in groups, but I think I like alone better, or with just one or two other people. It was a wonderful ride back up 17 to 28. Sad to say though, I believe this will the be last good ride of the season. I'm sitting here in sweats and am just now warming up. My fingers were cold, my knees were cold...getting to be that time of the year!

In case you haven't guessed, I LOVE the snow. I love cold weather. I love it when it's like 20 below, the wind is blowing, the snow is falling, and it's just crap outside. I love that.

Yeah, well, same to you.

Halloween has come and gone, and I swear, these kids are just getting rude. Were we like this when we went trick or treating? They rush up to the door, half the time they don't say trick or treat, and the other half of the time, they don't say thanks. When we went trick or treating, we said all the proper things, and were usually polite. Oh, and we tee-pee'd houses.

Gail just IM'd me, said we should be practicing Tantric Sex. I don't even know what the hell Tantric Sex is, but apparently Sting swears by it. I also told her I was going to put this in my journal, and she said go for it. I think either a) she doesn't believe me, or b) she doesn't think anyone reads my journal. Which is probably true. Although I know my mom reads it.

• When riding in 45 degree weather, the wind chill can make it 35 degrees.

• 35 degrees, at 65 mph will make your cheeks very very cold.

• With a full face helmet, you will not freeze your cheeks.

• I neglected to wear my full face helmet today.

• I had very cold cheeks when I got into work.

My computer has decided that it needs to be rebooted about every 20 minutes, and it tells me this by locking everything on the screen. My shoulder STILL hurts (tore it up about 6 weeks ago...my mom says it's rotor cup related. weee. Thanks ma) and I didn't get to go riding at ALL This weekend.

This weekend was busier than a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest. We had Sarah's Birthday party, Cody's Little League game, Cody's End-of-the-season team party, and a Halloween party. And that was all on Saturday.

ugh.

Gail and I are going to be spending most of the next 2 weeks cleaning, as her parents are coming to stay with us for three weeks starting the 9th of November. Gotta make my computer area all nice and neat. Darn.

So I made it to work ok, and get settled in with a nice cup of hot chocolate to help chase the chill from my cheeks. I read through my email (or is it e-mail??) and discover that I have to ride to one of our other offices to update a machine for an executive type. Oh joy. Oh hooray. It's one thing to be blitzing around (albeit carefully) on a bike in the fog at 7a.m. It's another to have to do it when there's a bunch more traffice out.

C'est la vie.

Gail and I (and the kids) are going to a Halloween party tomorrow night. Gail and I are going to go as Thing 1 and Thing 2. We got the idea from a couple of the kids at the parade. Easy costumes, and pretty cool too. Cody and Sarah are going to a sock hop at the school tonight. And with Gail at work, I get to watch Friends in relative peace tonight. Sweet!

Back at camp, we had a good sized fire going. By now, we had our whole tribe there, along with 2 tribes of Indian Princesses (The Princesses are for Fathers and Daughters, whereas the Guides are for Fathers and Sons). So there were about 20-25 kids there, all running around, playing flashlight tag, and yelling loud enough to shake the leaves off the trees

After we ate dinner, we had a "Silent Walk", where we walked silently up the path (Or tried to. It's kinda tough telling 5 boys to walk quietly) and every 50 yards or so, there was a sign with one of the Indian Guides sayings on it. After that, we sat around the big bonfire, singing songs and telling stories. It felt like the kind of camping experience I always wanted to do as a kid. I was glad Cody and I were able to do it together.

Sunday, we hiked on down to an old quarry, and then it was time to pack it up and head home. Last night as I was tucking Cody into bed and telling him how nice of a time I had, he said "Oh, me too Dad. I can't wait until next weekend"

"What's next weekend?", I asked.

"Our double camping trip! You know, where we camp out two nights in a row?"

"No, Cody, we're not going camping next weekend"

"Oh, then the weekend after", he says.

Uh oh, I'm thinking...he's expecting to go camping again already. "Uh, Cody, we're not going camping for a long time again. We have to wait until next May to go with the Guides"

"Well then, you and I will have to go camping dad. Next weekend"

"uh, Goodnight Cody"

Hopefully, with the excitement of Sarah's b-day, and Halloween coming up, he'll forget about it.

Also went to see Jackie Chan's new movie Friday night with my friend Derek from work, and his lovely wife Winnie. We had a good time. Jackie Chan was as awesome as ever.

October certainly has sped right along on it's merry way. The leaves are turning gorgeous colors. There's a tree on my block that's half red and half green right now, it's the coolest thing. If I remember, I'll take picture of it, and stick it up on the page. Along with the changing of the leaves comes the changing of the weather. It's definitely getting cooler. When I ride the bike to work in the morning, my cheeks are frozen by the time I get to work. I imagine I'll be switching to a full face helmet pretty soon here, but it's so gorgeous in the afternoons that I haven't done it yet.

I've decided I like this new design, at least enough to keep it online and write journal entries without deleting pages because I'm tired of them. I'm hoping to put Shads Pad under my other domain soon, and get it out from the Harleyroads.com domain. If my brother gets this job he's been talking about, it might happen soon. Which would be cool.

We're entering the busy season now. By "we" I mean Gail and I. Starting with Sarah's birthday we then have Cody's shortly after, Cody's cousin's right before that, Thanksgiving, our Anniversary, then my birthday, Christmas, New Years, Gail's brother's birthday, and then Gail's birthday. My wallet is going to have nothing but lint in it when this is all said and done :)

And in other news, the new/old Jackie Chan movie is opening up tonight! Hooray! Those of you who know me, know how much I like Jackie Chan movies. I will be writing a review and putting it up on my movies page after I see it tonight. Can't wait!

Hasta Linguini!