Today I had salmon for the first time- and it wasn’t all that bad…
I have been trying this atkins diet thing for about a week now- limiting myself to less than 20 carbs a day… I guess i should go buy the book to see what i need to do next…
Saw a ‘new’ band called Apoptygma Berzerk on another journal and realized that it was an actual band- there is a Cruxshadows version of ‘Tears’ that is called ‘Apoptygma Berzerk Remix’ and I just figured out that it wasn’t a DJ, but rather a band. They aren’t too bad- downloaded a few songs and liked them… ‘Kathy’s World’, and the first 1/2 of ‘Soul Taker’.
I am feeling very spiritual like today- i dunno why… i just feel more connected to the world and the whole of the cosmos… maybe it is just a weird deliurm from the lack of sugar that my body has been able to process in the past several days…
Archives
All posts for the month September, 2003
…Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!
Let’s See…
Saturday I went to bed around 10:30 and I was awoke by the pager at 11:15- and I was up until 1:30 until I got home from the first server downage.
Then again at 2:00am I was abruptly awakened- returning home at around 8:00am… and had a good nap until around 12ish.
Dinner and a pager going nuts at around 6:00.
Then off to bed at around 12:00am for a good 7.5 hours sleep- only to be interupted one time! [gotta love this new filter system].
Last night [Monday] I slept from around 11:00pm until 2:30am- 3.5 hours; minus the 15 minutes around midnight when the pager went off for BS DB errors.
Today I got a quick nap in from around 2:10 – 2:30…
So i have been up for close to 21 hours- with a 20 minute break in-between.
And the strange thing is that I do not really feel all that tired or brain-stupid at this moment…
But the pager is gone and I can sleep for a good 8 hours!
Life can be full of small joys -like this one.
Death is a strange fellow… There are many movies, books, poems and songs about it, and everyone understands it- until it happens to someone you are close to.
Two completely different stories:
Dead Like Me is a TV series on Showtime about a girl named George that died and has became a Grim Reaper- and she has Co-Workers that are also Grim Reapers- in addition to real life co-workers [hey, even Death needs to eat and have a place to sleep].
Tonight I watched an episode called “The Bicycle Thief”- and it was fucking awesome. Three different scenarios [kind of reminded me of an episode of Star Trek] and three different emotions: Loss, Grief and a great Realization.
I have tried to write a paragraph or two on this eposide, but I am very bad with letting my feelings flow into words- but I feel that I am getting better. Perhaps in a few years I can look back at this entry and laugh.
Anyway- the second part of the Story:
My roommate’s dog of 8 years was put down today. His name was Kopaz and he was a Vizsla. He had an untreatable cancer- he had been holding on for a few months before my roommate’s ex decided that he was suffering and had him put down.
They had discussed the option earlier and the day before and T was furious that it shouldn’t happen- but it eventually had to.
I did not have a real ‘love’ for the dog- but I did have some affection as he was a pretty kewl dude [except when he got into trouble]. However, T loved the animal- probably to an extent that I may never truly understand.
After a very quick conversation on the phone she sat in her chair and she was very quiet. She tried to be strong, but the tears ran and her voice cracked.
It was very upsetting to her- and that upset me: I do not like to see her that way. I looked at the tears running down the side of her face and her trying to look like everything is Ok and i could feel the warm salty water swelling up beneath my eyes as well. I quickly left the room as guys aren’t supposed to be seen crying. [that was a little sarcasm there, Ok?]
It is strange how death does not directly affect a person, but the feelings can be transferred and universally understood without anyone really saying anything.
I helped her make some really evil fudge and she seems to be feeling Ok for now. Fudge and friendship go well together.
Side Note: Do you know what is in fudge? Easy… Chocolate, evaporated milk, and butter- this confirms my suspicions that the worse something is for a person the better it tastes.
Today my work hours have changed- I now work form 9:30am to 3:60pm [vs. 7:00am to 4:00pm]. I feel pretty rested being able to sleep until 7:30 and then leisurely get a shower and get dressed…
The construction on ‘glenwoodpark‘ next to my house resumed this morning at 7:00am- I would think they would take the day off with all the rain that they had yesterday. I am listening to the squeal of a very large front-end loader outside my window; neat.
This past weekend was HELL! I am on call since Tuesday, and all was pretty quiet… until Saturday @ 11:00pm. Two blade servers went down and I spent 2.5 hours working with them. Then, after about 3 hours of sleep, and entire blade chassis went down at 3:15- this eventually led to the entire cabinet of servers going down and making it even more fun…
I had help and we finally finished getting the systems back up around 7:00am. We went and had breakfast at The Original House of Pancakes– I had a stack of buttermilk pancakes with lots of butter and maple syrup with a side order of bacon; it was fucking awesome! Plenty of coffee as well…
So the weekend is done, and I am back to the regular work week- with a sight 2.5 hour time shift towards the future.
Damn- there are way too many icons on my desk- I guess it is time to see what the Hell I have been installing…
Well, we got the house deal finished- we are now happy home owners! Now I get to redo the downstairs floor! [Oh, fun, fun].
Work has been busy- I am going in early tomorrow to help w/ several projects that are going on. I am pretty caught up w/ my stuff- with a few small exceptions- and that is a good feeling… We are upgrading the infrastructure NT servers to Win2003 later this week. I also need to finish updating the server inventory so I can make sure we are backing everything up [145 servers on the list- and I still need to add QA and Dev at Hammond].
The laptop lost network connectivity tonight, probably from that @#$@#$ tweak program I tried from CPU- I am upgrading it to XP; it was time to do it anyway. It hasn’t played DivX right since I went back to 2000. Now if they would just make a good USB GPS driver for XP, I wouldn’t have to worry about going back if I need to take this on any more trips… [or perhaps I should just do a dual-boot?].
I have finally gotten back into exercising; it is amazing how quickly I can get ‘out of shape’ and how fucking hard it is to get back into shape; where the hell is the reverse DNA pill to reverse the aging process and get my body back to 19 years old? :P I have been running on the treadmill, but I need to make a schedule so I can also get back into lifting weights.
I am going to get a membership for all three of us at the YMCA this weekend if I get paid on Friday- if not, I will do it the next weekend.
Next weekend will also be the weekend for my PC upgrade- if everything goes as planned. I have my parts picked out on Newegg- about $500 worth of crap that I probably don’t really need. I am a spending fool when I get a little money… I need to learn how to save!
Well, I and the roomies spend a good part of the day looking for car dealers that were open today so we could find DJ a car as she will probably need one to find a new job… No luck- most of them are closed on Sunday. We did find KarPlanet.com on the internet and it seems to have some pretty good deals…
Since DJ is out of work, she has been volunteered to stay home and wait for the exterminator to come by so we can get the final document that we need to close on the house- and this ordeal will finally be over. Then the next project will be replacing the carpet in the front area downstairs…
We test drove a BMW that sounded like a deal that was way too good- and of course it was. The car has 6100 miles on it and it is a 2002 model- the person selling it said that the title was clean except for a small wreck where the bumper was replaced- turns out the car is marked as ‘salvaged‘ on the title- kind of makes the value decrement….
While we were out, we stopped at a few places while we were out- Value City and TJ Max and More- and I got to go up by the ‘Mall of Georgia’ but it was already around 5ish [on a Sunday] when we got there- I measured on the odometer and it is about 39 miles from there to home- not a trip I will be making very often!
The weather had taken a cool shift and I am loving it! I have my window open and it is about 70 degrees outside- totally awesome. It was the same last night.
I started running again today- I only got about 1.25 miles in tonight. It is so hard to get into shape and so very easy to fall back out of shape! I guess another few weeks of the treadmill will make me feel a lot better…
Ohh… damn donuts!
So I went to the super-wal mart to get some groceries and some special roommate requests, and I go through the deli area- and the smell of glazed dounts made me salivate like a dog that is being offered a slab of meat. I bought a dozen- of course. And 6 hours and 8 dounts later i am having a sugar buzz from hell still… I guess this is a good way to check and see if I have diabetes or not…
On the not-so-funny side, DJ lost her job today; they let her work the entire day and then told her they were letting her go after closing- Bastards at WaMu. T is going to try to find and attorney and sue WaMu b/c they really didn’t have a good reason for letting her go and there are some strange circumstances that happened around the same time [like her handing in a doctor’s not stating that she cannot be on her feet all day long].
Anyway- it is probably for the best; she wasn’t happy there and she needed some motivation for her and T to look at getting her a new vehicle [she has been carpooling w/ T since her truck lease went up earlier this year].
Also- we did not get to close on the house on Friday- the only thing we were lacking was a recent termite inspection letter- the lending bank requires an inspection within 30 days prior. We need to get our exterminator out on Monday to give us a sign off and we should be good to go!
I must not go to sleep- i have been working on an updated web page most of the day [when i wasn’t at wal-mart or Ross’] and I need to try out my new duvet cover… [silly, eh?]
i am overjoyed- I cannot express the happiness that i have in me at this moment.
and why go much glee, you may ask?
sounds trivial, but I finally have gotten my only bad mark taken off of ChexSystems– the abomination that banks use to prevent people from opening accounts.
i had a small blurb on my record from October of 2000- a blurb that was caused by a bank and I refused to pay them until it was resolved- i did pay the collection agency about 30 days later, but I missed the payment by $0.02- so I sent $13.53 instead of $13.55….
Anyway- to not bore everyone with the details, i discovered this was on my history last October when I went to open a checking account- and I have been fighting this for over a year.
Today I received an apology from Hibernia National bank in the mail- and an official notice that my record should be cleared up in 7-10 business days… I even have a person’s name and telephone number with extension that I can call directly to bitch about how long it has taken to get this resolved. [Too bad that i am not that kind of person].
I guess the mention of attorneys and seeking restitution for wasted time, metal anguish and financial turmoil caught their attention- either that or the nice time line that I worked up helped them see that they really fucked up!
Look out NetBank [with free ATM usage about anywhere in the US and checking with interest] – I will be trying to sign up [for the fourth time!] in a week! :o)
i also got some 55mm filters in for my camera fom eBay- I got four differnet filters for a total of $9.39 including shipping- i will have to play with them to see what they can do!
Anyway- it is the weekend and I am doing NOTHING save recovering from a long weekend at Dragon*Con! :o)
Well, tomorrow we finally close on the house- this has been a several month process.
I am not all that excited about it except that it means that I will not need to move for several years [unless we cannot make the payments for some reason- then I will have much worse concerns]. I mean the house is nice and the value will go up dramatically as the sub-division goes up next door, but the house is 60+ years old. We (mostly me) have done so many renovations up to now that I can only hope there is nothing else that can go wrong. [I still need to replace the main service line].
Future projects include:
” Redoing the kitchen [expanding, new floors, cabinets]
” Redoing the bath [mostly floors and fixtures- I want an elongated commode]
” Privacy fence in the backyard
” Re-siding the rest of the house with HardiPlank siding
” Some basic re-wiring [some outlets are not grounded properly]
” Finishing the attic decking
” Re-doing the downstairs floor [for our tenant].
Luckily I have some of this stuff before- but it comes to a point when I feel my time is more valuable and that we should just hire someone to do the work- even if they charge $60/hour to lay tile. Granted, I probably wouldn’t be doing anything productive with the time, but life is too short- I could be watching TV or downloading something… :P
Anyway- big close tomorrow and we have to do some vehicle shuffling to get all of us to work and to the banker afterwards [myself and two roommates, all with different jobs- but currently only two vehicles]. T has to get me to work for 7 am so I can get out for 4:00. DJ has another class for her work. I have tons of crap to do, and I have to be at the loan place at 4:30 as i have been given power of attorney by our landlord to sign for him [now I could have some REAL fun with that].
Anyway- bed ways is right ways now- right, right, right? Yes my droogs, your humble narrator must rest his gulliver and dream of the dreams filled with wonderful music of Angels’ trumpets and Devils’ trombone.
[I must find a LJ agent that can do HTTP links- it is a pain to manually do them, and not much less to paste this into Dream weaver and work from there]
Not much interesting today; working on firewall audits and I have a few servers to rack mount and cable-up in a bit.
I did find some episodes of “My So Called Life” in the newsgroups last night; I think that I liked the show a lot when it was on- but I don’t remember why.
I have had a song in my head since DragonCon; something about ‘in a world of stupid people…” that was being played to an anime video- wierd. I guess i will need to go look for that song in a bit…
Need… more… coffee!!!
Mmmm… one of the things I missed at work… Coffee. Not really good coffee, nor really bad coffee… just liquid caffeine to get my body moving…
Well, I am back to work tomorrow after six days of vacation [four of them for Dragon*Con…
Today was DJ’s B-day; she turned 28. I went to Alon’s Bakery and got her a Kahlua Chocolate Cheesecake as per T’s recommendation [DJ’s girlfriend]. We cut it a few minutes ago and it is FUCKING AWESOME!
On my last day off, I picked out a few B-day decorations and blew up about 30 balloons and put them in key areas throughout the house- I think she liked it. I kind of felt bad because I pretty much had forgotten her birthday last year because of Dragon*Con 2002; that and the fact that cash was so tight last year that I really couldn’t afford presents- if I remember correctly I was scraping to find money for gas and parking for DC2002 [hey- I have to have some priorities].
I got her a Day with Sydel gift package from the Spa Sydel as a primary gift- I am sure she will enjoy it! I also got her a digital voice recorder [to replace the one of mine that she uses- which is fairly antiquated] and an eyepiece adaptor for her Canon EOS Elan 7e camera that she got for XMas.
I guess I am getting more into birthdays now that I can actually afford it- I got T a Toshiba Pocket PC for her birthday. It is a good feeling to give.
We took a bunch of pictures- more for the eventaual ‘picture album’ DVD that I will oneday make.
I am currently just finishing watching a DVD screener of the Hulk– It is a pretty silly movie. I guess it was another one like DareDevil.
So… I need to get a shower and change my bed sheets- there are probably some interesting cultures growing in there after the long days at DC [I am a morning shower kind of person].
YAWN!
It has been a long
day. The roommates just got back from a trip to Louisiana [driving!]. They are
proably a tad more exhausted than I am.
I have been having
wierd problems w/ LiveJournal.com- I am not sure if it is theri site or if it
is my DSL connection [BNR2 news groups are also going kinda slow]. I guess I
will wait unti the morning to see if th problem persists.
Too bad that the
Semagic
live journal updater cannot detect music from Foobar
2000– I had to regress back to WinAMP
to get it to detect what i am playing… Not a biggie, but it is kewl to have.
So the journal
looks like it will work pretty kewl- I will have to see how it goes for the
next few days. I am also considering using this as a dream diary thingie as
well- maybe…
Anyway- a few more
parts to queue up in BNR2 and I am off to
bed!
Ok, I just got
back from Dragon*Con
2003 a few hours ago and it was awesome! I feel that I actually learned a lot
this year- both intellectually and emotionally. I started out with the standard
‘follow the stars’ track, but I ended up at some awesome panels- like Hacking
101 [and 201, and 301]. I also took an Elvish 101 class, but I forgot to find
the Elvish 201 class the next day- damn!
Other points of
interest were the ‘Web Cam Girls’ and the ‘My So Called Life Journal (.com)’
panels; both made me think a lot about things both technical and [for lack of
a better word at the moment] social. As a result, I have signed up for a live
journal [as you will probably already know].
Anyway… I have
lots of pics up at the Dragon*Con
2003 page on my website. Most of them are from the parade on Saturday;
I managed to get a few others in.
The
CruxShadows were there again and I bought a new album called ‘Frozen Embers’.
It is a compilation of remixes with a few new [at least to me] songs thrown
in. I saw a few shirts that I was going to buy, but I was not paying $23/each
for a T-Shirt! I will search
online for similar items [Banzai
Institute and Yoyodyne
Propulsion Laboratories] or I will research more into the ‘Haynes T-Shirt
Maker’ software and transfer labels- I guess those would be considered ‘bootleg’
T-Shirts if I make them myself though… Hmmmm…
I started out on
Friday with feelings of doubt and uneasiness- I took the Marta
train to downtown on Friday- and that was a wonderful HOT experience. Also not
knowing exactly what the Hell I was supposed to do was great. After that, I
had the fun experience of waiting in a line for about an hour to get my pre-registered
badge- along with about 500+ other people. I think the attendance of Dragon*Con
is around 20,000- I can see that most of these attendees are hanging out on
the main levels of the Hyatt and the Marriot- terrible congestion- but that
could also be a good thing.
I missed all the
Lexx extracurricular activities that I signed up for- I just was too much of
a wuss to walk into a room full of strangers and try to make conversation. Cascading
down from the Friday night avoidance of the ‘Lexx Mixer’ I did not get my invitation
to the Party on the next night, and I ended up in ‘Hacking 201’ instead of the
Brigadoom gathering. I am also guess that I am not that much of a hard-core
fan to be in those either; I guess I will wait and see what I feel like going
to next year.
I get a wierd feeling
of loss when I leave Dragon*Con each day- kind of like I am missing a friend
[or many, many friends]- but I did not know a soul at the entire convention-
well, except for HDS’s wife. I also feel that I have a lot of new ideas to learn
about- cryptography,
live journal, se2600.org
and others…
It all
started…
Ok, so I go to
Dragon*Con this year and I sat in on
a few panels that I normally would have never thought of… One called ‘WebCam
Girls’, which led on to ‘My So Called LifeJorrnal(.com)’. And from the combined
influences of these two I started this journal- go figure…
Who Are
You? [Said in the tone of the TechoMage
Galen from Babylon
5: Crusade]
I am Bruce.I
would like to call myself and average guy, but I have some pretty nerdy
tendencies [SciFi, computers,
gadgets, etc] and I am pretty much not a people kind of person- in fact, it
scares the hell out of me to meet new people. Not so much the actual being around
a person, but I get so many thoughts going through my head when I meet someone
and I want to say ‘Hi’ to them [more about this as [if?] my journal continues].
I love to learn-
about almost anything. I am fairly fluent with computers [x86 technolohy, mostly]
as well as operating systems [Windows, a little Unix and Linux] and netorking
[cabling, infrastructure, basic routing]. I also know a fair amount about home
improvment/repair as I worked at a lumber yard/building materials store for
9 [long] years. I love math, history, space, science, electronics and tons of
other nerdy crap- DVDs, SVCDs, Warez, HTTP, Etc.
What defines
you?
Physically I am
5′ 10" tall [actually 5′ 9.5", but I like to round up] and I weigh
around 215 – 230; depending on what kind of a diet/binge mood I have been in.
Most of my excess weight is concentrated on a well crafted ‘beer belly’ that
I have been trying to get rid of since I quit drinking -did I mention that I
am a recovering alcoholic? Well, I am; and
October 25, 2003 will be my 8 year sobriety mark.
I only have one
kidney [not a real good conversation starter, but the scar is pretty kewl to
show off- in spite of the belly]. I had a ‘Whims
Tumor‘ when I was 2 1/2 years old and I had my left kidney removed. Since
I was so young and they were not sure how far it had progressed, they did pretty
much exploratory surgery- so I have and inverted ‘V’ on my abdomen [following
the bottom of my rib cage] as a scar. Not too pretty for the beach.
Where do
you come from?
I was born in Bogalusa,
LA. I was raised by my grandmother until I was about 13 years old in the
towns of Bush, LA and Covington,
LA. After this, I was put into a foster home for about 6 months and then
I went to live with my Mother [Alice] and her new husband [Huey] back in another
part of Bush, LA. A year or so later we moved back to Covington and stayed there
for a little over a decade…
My mother
died on April 26, 1997. My step
father died in March 24, 2001. I believe my biological father died sometime
before my mother- I never personally met him.
Tell me
about yourself…
Around the age
of 16 I began a slow transition into a raving alcoholic -this pretty much wasted
the next decade of my life… [that part pretty much sucks- but it was all part
of life and growth]. Graduating high school was my only real accomplishment
during that period [from now on referred to as the ‘drunken age’]- but a 1.54
GPA was pretty bad. I am fairly smart [32 on the ACT],
so I could have probably gotten into a good college with a decent GPA- but I
really didn’t give a shit a the time.
I started working
at a place called Poole Lumber Company
in my senior year of High School- after I graduated I wored there for about
three years before I finally tried college at SouthEastern Louisiana University.
I failed out with two semisters of a 0.0 and went back to work ath the lumber
yard.
During this time
my depression got deeper and my alcohilism got better- and my alchohol tollerance
grew dramatically. I tried AA and two or three rehabs, but I ended up getting
drunk when I went out on weekend passes- my heart just wasn’t in it. Then I
developed a nice bleeding stomach ulcer when I was 27 [partially due to the
fact that I was drinking around a fifth of vodka every night] and I decided
that it was time to sober up -after losing 2 pints of blood in three days.
Finally started
to get my life together. I started to learn a lot about computers and signed
up for some MCSE
courses while I was still working the lumber yard. Soon afer I bought myself
my own car [I was a champion at bumming rides up until them] and moved in with
a couple of lesbians in the outskirts
of New Orleans [Kenner]. I started
to work at a career that I really enjoyed [mostly] at a compay called ResTech.
The job at the lumber yard was pretty good, but I wasn’t making much around
$20K with LOTS of overtime -and there was no room for growth. My next job started
out about 45% more and I had a couple of good raises over the next 18 months
before I moved on- to Atlanta.
Now just so you
don’t get the wrong ideas about moving in with lesbians- I am a heterosexual.
Long story short, I had a crush on one of the girls [we will call her DJ] for
a few years [before I realized that she was a lesbian] and when she started
to work at the lumber yard, we became good friends. Eventually she moved on
to a better job and when the opportunity presented itself to me to move on to
another job, it turned out that her and her life partner were looking for a
roommate- what a great coincidence.
Her relationship
didn’t work out, but she found another love of her live via the internet and
-another long story short- we ended up moving to Atlanta. We all three now getting
ready to buy a house together. This brings me to pretty much the present day
and this journal…