Thoughts in a Pensieve

new spot to find me

2007-03-20T22:26:00.000-04:00

Ahh the finer things

2007-01-20T00:10:00.000-05:00

It all started with cheese. Well, we assumed it was cheese. It was either REALLY good cheese, or REALLY bad meat. We assumed it was cheese. The cheese wheel wouldn't fit on the axle, so we try some different nuts. Not peanuts. Cashews. The kind that know how to say Gesundheit! But really, wouldn't a Sudafed be better? I mean honestly who throws a shoe? Horses maybe, but why'd you bring that up ya lemon? Simply Lemon. Simply Lemonade. Two lemons walk into bar. Ouch! who put that in the way. The way is shut. It was made by those who are dead. And the dead keep it. And they can have it for all I care. I'll take a boom stick from S-Mart any day. Shop Smart, Shop S-Mart. But you don't have to take my word for it, that's what the library is for. Mind you drinking a book is a hard thing to do, but if you concentrate hard enough it's possible. And here you bring up lemons again. Look it's not from concentrate, I told you it all started from cheese.

Hail to the King Baby

2007-01-16T19:06:00.000-05:00

SUPPOSEDLY if you've seen over 85 films, you have no life. Mark the ones you've seen. There are 239 films on this list. Copy this list, go to your own facebook account, paste this as a note. Then, put x's next to the films you've seen, add them up, change the header and click post at the bottom. Have fun!

So, I have seen 119 of these.

That doesn't count the ones I started and then didn't complete (Cujo, Hannibal, maybe others).

(X) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(X) Grease
(X) Pirates of the Caribbean
(X) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
Boondock Saints
(X) Fight Club
Starsky and Hutch
(X) Neverending Story
Blazing Saddles
(X) Airplane
Total So Far 7

(X) The Princess Bride
(X) AnchorMan
(X) Napoleon Dynamite
(X) Labyrinth
Saw
Saw II
White Noise
White Oleander
Anger Management
50 First Dates
The Princess Diaries
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Total So Far 11

(X) Scream
(X) Scream 2
(X) Scream 3
(X) Scary Movie
(X) Scary Movie 2
(X) Scary Movie 3
(X) Scary Movie 4
(X) American Pie
(X) American Pie 2
(X) American Wedding
American Pie Band Camp
Total So Far 21

(X) Harry Potter 1
(X) Harry Potter 2
(X) Harry Potter 3
(X) Harry Potter 4
Resident Evil 1
Resident Evil 2
(X) The Wedding Singer
Little Black Book
The Village
(X) Lilo & Stitch
Total So Far 27

(X) Finding Nemo
(X) Finding Neverland
Signs
(X) The Grinch
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
White Chicks
Butterfly Effect
13 Going on 30
(X) I, Robot
(X) Robots
Total So Far 32

(X) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Universal Soldier
(X) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
Along Came Polly
Deep Impact
KingPin
(X) Never Been Kissed
(X) Meet The Parents
(X) Meet the Fockers
Eight Crazy Nights
Joe Dirt
KING KONG
Total So Far 37

A Cinderella Story
(X) The Terminal
The Lizzie McGuire Movie
Passport to Paris
(X) Dumb & Dumber
(X) Dumber & Dumberer
Final Destination
Final Destination 2
Final Destination 3
Halloween
(X) The Ring
The Ring 2
Surviving X-MAS
(X) Flubber
Total So Far 42

Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
Practical Magic
(X) Chicago
Ghost Ship
From Hell
Hellboy
Secret Window
I Am Sam
(X) The Whole Nine Yards
The Whole Ten Yards
Total So Far 44

The Day After Tomorrow
(X) Child's Play
Seed of Chucky
Bride of Chucky
(X) Ten Things I Hate About You
(X) Just Married
Gothika
(X) Nightmare on Elm Street
(X) Sixteen Candles
(X) Remember the Titans
Coach Carter
The Grudge
The Grudge 2
(X) The Mask
Son Of The Mask
Total So Far 51

(X) Bad Boys
Bad Boys 2
Joy Ride
Lucky Number Sleven
(X) Ocean's Eleven
(X) Ocean's Twelve
1 Bourne Identity
(X) Bourne Supremecy
Lone Star
(X) Bedazzled
(X) Predator I
(X) Predator II
The Fog
(X) Ice Age
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
(X) Curious George
Total So Far 61

(X) Independence Day
Cujo
A Bronx Tale
Darkness Falls
(X) Christine
(X) ET
Children of the Corn
My Bosses Daughter
(X) Maid in Manhattan
War of the Worlds
(X) Rush Hour
(X) Rush Hour 2
Total So Far 67

Best Bet
(X) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
(X) She's All That
Calendar Girls
Sideways
(X) Mars Attacks
(X) Event Horizon
(X) Ever After
(X) Wizard of Oz
(X) Forrest Gump
Big Trouble in Little China
(X) The Terminator
(X) The Terminator 2
(X) The Terminator 3
Total so far: 40 77

(X) X-Men
(X) X-2
(X) X-3
(X) Spider-Man
(X) Spider-Man 2
Sky High
Jeepers Creepers
Jeepers Creepers 2
(X) Catch Me If You Can
(X) The Little Mermaid
Freaky Friday
Reign of Fire
The Skulls
Cruel Intentions
Cruel Intentions 2
The Hot Chick
(X) Shrek
(X) Shrek 2
Total So Far 86

Swimfan
(X) Miracle on 34th street
Old School
(X) The Notebook
K-Pax
Krippendorf's Tribe
(X) A Walk to Remember
Ice Castles
Boogeyman
The 40-year-old-virgin
Total So Far 89

(X) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
(X) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
(X) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King
(X) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(X) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(X) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Total So Far 95

Baseketball
Hostel
Waiting for Guffman
House of 1000 Corpses
Devils Rejects
Elf
(X) Highlander
Mothman Prophecies
American History X
Three
Total So Far 96

The Jacket
(X) Kung Fu Hustle
Shaolin Soccer
Night Watch
(X) Monsters Inc.
(X) Titanic
(X) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Shaun Of the Dead
Willard
Total So Far 100

High Tension
Club Dread
(X) Hulk
Dawn Of the Dead
(X) Hook
(X) Chronicles Of Narnia The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
28 days later
Orgazmo
Phantasm
Waterworld
Total So Far 103

Kill Bill vol 1
Kill Bill vol 2
(X) Mortal Kombat
Wolf Creek
Kingdom of Heaven
The Hills Have Eyes
I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman
The Last House on the Left
Re-Animator
(X) Army of Darkness
Total So Far 105

(X) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
(X) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
(X) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(X) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(X) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(X) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
(X) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
Ewoks The Battle For Endor
Total So Far 112

(X) The Matrix
(X) The Matrix Reloaded
(X) The Matrix Revolutions
(X) Animatrix
(X) Evil Dead
(X) Evil Dead 2
Team America: World Police
Red Dragon
1 Silence of the Lambs
Hannibal
Total So Far 119

Now Add them up and...

Change the header to show how many you have seen

WTF? Microsoft steals Apple Universal Logo

2006-11-29T15:47:00.000-05:00

Now, granted it's just a yin yang symbol, but M$ is using the exact same colors but flipped the image horizontally.

By the way, the M$ marketing campaign is at http://www.powertogether.com and supposedly you can sign up for a free copy of vista business with the completion of 3 online seminar thingies. So I figured Hey, Why not give them a shot.

Oh, but I have to use Internet Explorer to do so. Stupid. Stick to internet standards M$ and maybe you can get people to come back from Linux and OS X. Promotions like this. dumb.

There's so much my brain is thinking about all this, but I just don't think I have the time to get into it all.

YouTube - Apple - 30 Years

2006-09-14T14:03:00.000-04:00

great little video I found. Haven't seen it on digg yet.

read more | digg story

HiFi Dissed by Apple - - Sorta

2006-09-12T21:34:00.000-04:00

So.... Apple released some product in the iPod arena, and relegated the iPod HiFi to a difficult to find location. iPod HiFi is no longer in the top iPod menu, instead an iTunes iCon takes it's place. Perhaps Apple is relizing that this device is just an accessory and shouldn't be considered on par with the "iPod Line"

I just find it interesting.

Conan O'Brien 2006 Graduation Speech (Pt 1 of 2)

2006-09-03T15:26:00.000-04:00

Hilarious High School Graduation speech given by Conan O'Brien. This guy is hilarious, while giving some great advice to graduates.

read more | digg story

Metal Gear Solid like Flash Game

2006-07-04T07:47:00.000-04:00

This is a quick and simple flash game based on stealth espionage - sorta.

read more | digg story

Funny video: Comcast Installation Guy falls asleep

2006-06-21T13:46:00.000-04:00

This guy was trying to get his comcasticness hooked up. Unfortunately, the tech fell asleep while HE was on hold with comcast. Funny video pointing out how bad comcast customer service is.

read more | digg story

ME strong!!!???

2006-06-16T11:36:00.000-04:00

hulk-shouting-1,
originally uploaded by riptide_dad.

Okay, long time no blog. I am slowly recovering from unloading 120 computers from a truck. Mike and I moved 7,605 lbs. Yeah, so... air conditioning feels nice right now.

Nerdy

2006-06-16T10:08:00.000-04:00

Honor all around

2006-04-29T22:51:00.000-04:00

So I've been hearing about a mustache appreciation month. Ironically the latest JoT mentioned a mustache as well.

I'm probably not rambling about anything of interest. Well good night all.

Lost the Musical!

2006-04-18T15:23:00.000-04:00

I suppose it only makes sense if you've seen the show though

BenchMarks Windows Viruses run faster on Boot Camped Macs

2006-04-12T14:33:00.000-04:00

Novell wants people to Digg or Slashdot their articles

2006-03-15T12:34:00.000-05:00

I was surfing for a program for OS X, one thing that I thought was interesting is that Novell actually has a link to "Digg this" and "Slashdot this". I originally thought that it was already a story to digg, but it actually sends you to the story submission page. Hmm. I wonder if other companies will start incorporating "Digg This" links.

read more | digg story

In a Grant writing workshop

2006-03-08T14:52:00.000-05:00

Yup, kinda bored. Found this picture, and thought it was hilarious. Only a few people that read my blog might understand this.

Yeah, anyway. that's pretty much all my brain is working on right now.

Selfish

2006-02-27T16:59:00.000-05:00

So this is one of my daily websites i check. I thought this was funny enough to share. wait for the nag to go away to see it.

Update w/ No Pictures

2006-02-25T22:32:00.000-05:00

Well, I suppose this widget is nice and all, but I can't link to pictures with it. Oh well.

Hey, updated the template today. added Digg top 5 stoeis in the left column. If it slows down the page, I might have to remove it. Let me know if the page seems slower.

Life just got easier

2006-02-24T06:16:00.000-05:00

So now I can post little snippets to my blog even easier.

http://www.google.com/macwidgets/

Perhaps it's time to look into a Gmail account. I've never been interested in one, but looks like it's getting even easier to use.

So much for regular updates

2006-02-23T16:59:00.000-05:00

SO I am getting ready to go to class for a final and decided to take a quick peak at some movie trailers.

Saw this one. Thought it was a very interesting movie. Not sure how they did it, but I hope the cartoon style doesn't make the movie suck. It looks better than sky captain and the world of tomorrow at least. At least this one doesn't look like it was green screened to death.

Well, off to take a final exam.

Can't wait another day

2006-02-13T20:33:00.000-05:00

What is the Deal? I am actually posting regularly, or so it seems. looks like I've had the need to dump some crap out of my brain.

Well, I am waiting for 2007 to hurry up and get here. I couldn't wait till tomorrow to post this. For those of you who don't want to click on my link, Lego Star Wars: The Original Trilogy is to be released then. It claims that it will be out for the PS2.

I am honestly thinking about getting a Nintendo Revolution and if they are out by Thanksgiving, I know what's on my Christmas list. So, I hope that they are actually developing for that and not the gamecube.

EDIT: Oh Dang!! I didn't even read the official press release.
"And much more new to offer, it still has." Do I sense some Yoda speak in the press release?

" For the first time ever, levels feature vehicles and creatures that players can ride or exit at will." Sweeet!

"Also, in LEGO Star Wars II's Free Play mode, gamers can customize more than 50 new playable characters by mixing and matching body parts, to build their own LEGO Star Wars heroes." That is something that is a natural fit to the Lego aspect.

"And on certain platforms, a game save from the first LEGO Star Wars can unlock as many as 56 additional characters for Free Play -- that's more than 100 characters total, plus millions of possible creations!" Turns out I'll have to buy the PS2 version just for the bonus features.

"Other exciting additions include the ability to Free Play with vehicles, cool new character-specific attacks and maneuvers, playable mini-kit vehicles, an optional advanced mode for experienced players and more." Yay a more difficult setting. That ought give Shannon and i a good challenge. But... we will eventually turn on invincibility just cause we get sick of blowing into little bits.

Well, that was a longer post than I anticipated. Good night all.

Ah.. cleaning the Office

2006-02-13T11:29:00.000-05:00

So i took a break after some hard work. Too bad I don't have any before pictures.

but here is a "Virtual Tour" of my office. If the video doesn't work, you can check it out here

A massage!!!

2006-02-12T22:20:00.000-05:00

What the...
I just wanted to give my profile a picture. but no, Flickr is get a massage.

Oh well, www.photobucket.com to the rescue.

Work in Progress

2006-02-11T23:01:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so college sucks. Who ever thought of it should be punished. of course they are dead now.

So the picture that you see above, is of my homework that I am working on. I have to design a network for a business called XYZ Research corporation. seems to me that they need to research a better name for their corporation. I guess in the end it's all pretend, but you would think that the scenarios would have more realism to them.

I am also still enjoying the pandora website. I am listening to a Johnny Cash feed right now.

I am also typing a bunch of this laying in bed with my eyes closed. the wife was looking at me weird. or so I think, since my eyes were closed. She asked, "what are you doing?" ... uh... sleep blogging?

She thought I was doing homework. apparently I can do home work in my sleep too! I wonder what else I do in my sleep? never mind I don't think I want to hear any answers.

All right, bed time. talk to you all later.

Oh yeah

2006-02-04T13:41:00.000-05:00

Your results:
You are Batman

Batman		75%
Hulk		70%
Superman		65%
Green Lantern		65%
Iron Man		55%
Robin		52%
Wonder Woman		47%
Supergirl		47%
Spider-Man		45%
The Flash		35%
Catwoman		30%

You are dark, love gadgets
and have vowed to help the innocent
not suffer the pain you have endured.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Intelligent music recommendation

2006-01-26T21:44:00.000-05:00

So I was listening to a podcast that mentioned pandora.com

I am EXTREMELY liking this site. Say your in the mood to listen to a certain song. Everyone's tastes are different, but this site will stream music to you based on characteristics of music you like.

You create a free acount with just an email address, and enter a new "Station" Then you can add a few other songs to balance out the style that is played.

And it's Free... well for now. you could pay $3 a month for a membership which will be advertisement free. Right now there are only ads on the website itself. which I send to the background and open a new window.

I'd like to encourage anybody that happens to read this blog to try this out... I think that's only two people, which my wife already uses this site.

Worst movie ever

2006-01-23T21:08:00.000-05:00

Wow, did I really just wast that last hour and 40 minutes with that? See I thought it would have been slightly better. but come ON. I don't know if it was the cardboard acting, or the blatantly fake CGI. There was some good CGI, but then other stuff looked like it came right out of... I don't know, it was just bad.

Cheezy lines. How did the characters know some of this stuff. How come the the pilot was smarter than the 60 something year old scientist. Sure it was a casual character to kill off in the electricity gate thingie but... How come the characters were conveniently able to escape things.

I know why this was so bad. It was all shot on a green screen set. Quite frankly, I think that's why the Star wars prequels get such a bad wrap. They were mostly shot on a green screen. what that translates to is now sense of surroundings and natural reactions on behalf of the characters. "And Action... now look surprised, now say your line, now conveniently escape, Sure you can pretend to bunch big flying robots.... We'll back it look believable in the editing room."

I am going to go find some way to get back my 1h40min. of course, add another 10 minutes with this rant. oh well.

It's a bird, it's a plane ... it's it's oh, wait wrong superhero (wrong publisher even)

2006-01-01T21:49:00.000-05:00

Look... look. in the address bar. It's Spiderman. That's right, I figured out how to make favicons for my blog. Something that's been bugging me for a while.

Anyway. there it is. of course you have to have a web server that you can host the file on. I am using a buried directory on a school web server. but for the amount of bandwidth i use for my blog, I figure no big deal.

Dugg it

2005-12-30T23:36:00.000-05:00

So I have been getting into digg.com. It all started when I listened to a podcast from diggnation.com I liked Kevin Rose on G4's AOTS especially the episode with the HOMEROWED Short.

Anyway, I just discovered that when i post a story to digg, it automatically updates my blog. well, seeing as how it updaed my blog, I figured I better explain what the flip happened there, since there is no picture, and there are some funky links at the bottom.

Anyway, I gotta go to bed
I'll be up a little later tomorrow night than I am now. ah but kate's awake and I need to go help shannon check on her.

Apple Shedding the Shuffle?

2005-12-30T22:47:00.000-05:00

Apple's Web store has been out of stock on the 1GB shuffle since mid-December...The Street speculates that the 1GB iPod shuffle is to be replaced or removed from the Apple product line, based on growing evidence

read more | digg story

blog this

2005-12-29T19:44:00.000-05:00

Okay, playing with sand should NOT be this much fun.

And also, a blog should not be this ugly. oh well.

You oughta be in pictures...

2005-11-14T22:11:00.000-05:00

So I was in a dinner theater at my church recently. here I am throwing a punch line to a joke in a Dick Van Dyke skit. I was too tall to play buddy, but whatever.

My coworker was out sick getting his tonsils removed and had two weeks of recover time. He sounds different. When I am not looking right at him, he sounds like Katohater. Freaks me out sometimes. Dude, you got here fast from Arizo... oh it's Mike... okay.

Got this new(used) sectional couch from my mother in laws best friend. It's darn comfy. So darn comfy, that I decided I didn't want to get up. Not much to do sitting here, since nothing really is on Aerial antenna TV. So Look at me... bloggin again.

Okay, so I really like the ecto software for editing my blog, especially since I can continue using it by clicking "Renew" when the trial runs out. Now I just need it to be able to read my thoughts and automatically update the blog.

So I cleaned out the garage on Saturday so I can park my car in it. If you didn't know us and tried to guess what our interests were based on the contents of our garage, you would never never never know me...ooo ooh sorry.. my point was that somebody would look at the roller blades, mountain bikes, sleeping bags, tent, three coolers, 6 kites (1 is a trilby, so does that actually make it 8 kites?... but then 5 of them are cheap kiddie kites), fishing poles, basketball... and think that we were outdoorsy kind of people. I think I even have a camoflaged coat out there. I don't hunt. We camped a B93 Birthday bash, but is that really camping?

Anyway, good luck reading that previous paragraph.

I think I want to write a book. Not anything nonfiction. puh. that'd be boring or something. And of course it would need more organization than this post, but I really like some of the fantasy storylines. I am halfway through reading The Two Towers , and I like the story of Final fantasy X. Of course I don't aspire to be as great as J.R.R. Tolkien, because, well, he was a little too into it all. I choose to not believe my story that much.

Well, my wife is home and she brought me a fix and mix frosty, or something like that.

Boomstick

2005-11-02T12:12:00.000-05:00

Gimme some sugar baby.

Which B-Movie Badass Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Well, that's pretty much all I got time for right now.

Hiatus

2005-10-09T20:32:00.000-04:00

So... What are you supposed to write about in a blog when you first attempt to come out of a hiatus.

Oh well. I don't care THAT much. I am finally starting to slow down at work. But I am taking classes two nights a week to actually get a degree.

I am just sitting here on my couch and watching extreme makeover home edition. I don't have a point to make, just thought I'd share.

It's no secret that I am a fan of Apple computers. Something is getting released on wednesday, but I don't know what it is going to be. They aren't releasing anything on the Intel processor for a while so I am not super excited. just intrigued. some think it's going to be a video iPod. some think a Pink special edition Madonna iPod nano. I am hoping it has nothing to do with the iPod.

The iPod is great, but I hope apple starts focusing on computers again. but that's just me

Alright, that is about enough for now. See you in the ether.

-r

So I am out of trial time again.

2005-08-22T21:13:00.000-04:00

Wow. things are starting to wind down now. the summer is officially over. Teachers are back tomorrow, and they are all getting "trained" on how OS X works on wednesday. I will be wearing a wireless microphone headset like the three dead trolls guy. The drama teacher that is setting up the AV Equipment for the training days calls it his rockstar microphone.

Anyway, I am running on reserve battery power, gotta go to bed too. Iget to hand 80 iBooks back to teachers in less than 10 hours. ugh.

wait...huh... but I was just trying to... grr..

2005-08-12T21:47:00.000-04:00

So, my boss got a new laptop. She got the sweet Toshiba Satellite M60. It's huge. So she thought she'd do me a favor with her old one and wipe it back to the default factory install. Good thought, except that it crapped out half way through and then would just show a blinky cursor at startup.

Well, I finally got into the bios of her old Satellite Pro 6100 and configured the boot priority so I could boot from the restore CDs again. Toshiba goes with the Esc key as apposed to F10, or the del key.

It crapped out an me during the second restore CD. So I took a quick look at the disk to see if it was scratched. Thankfully it wasn't, there was some nasty gunk stuck to it.

Anyway, I have now spent about 5 1/2 hours getting windows installed and installing Service pack 2. And all the other required security updates and Antivirus... yadda yadda. Then I happened to look at the clock in the system tray. It said it was 5:30 AM.

well, I gotta fix that wuick I thought. Opened up the clock preferences and sure enough, it was set to synch with Time.windows.com for kicks, I pinged it. Time.windows. com was not responding. No problem, I'll just use the Time.nist.gov address that is already in the system.

WTF? as you can see in the picture, I got the dumbest error message. I know my date and time are wrong, that's why I am synching?

Leave it to Microsoft to "Patch a hole" but not allow the true functionality to work.

"I am sorry, you can not save that document, because you need to save it first"

Oh , and by the way, it's just that we need to put cover sheets on all TPS reports from now on. I'll make sure yhou get another compy of that memo.

Legomania

2005-08-02T15:33:00.000-04:00

So, I meant to post this a while ago, but alas, I have been extremely busy. And when I got some down time, I was addicted to Lego Star wars. This is the best Star wars game I have ever played. seriously. It is really in depth for a lego style game. Plus the creative license they took with the story line doesn't take away from the storyline. There are a lot of really funny jokes thrown in. Plus it's got a lot of replay value. The problem is that I can't find it for rent again. My brother in law rented the game, and I turned it in for him. The wife and I wanted to play it more, so now we are looking for a good used price. EB Games in Woodland mall had a used copy for $36, but that's a little high. Used games should never be more $20 in my mind. I mean, the company already made there profit selling the brand new game.

I'll be glad when this is done.

2005-07-31T08:50:00.000-04:00

Well, I haven't posted for a while. That's because I have been re-roofing my in-laws house, As you can see in the picture that my lovely wife took of me. It's been HOT. It's not to bad on the ground, but when you have black shingles, it gets pretty bad. Plus when the shingles get hot they get soft, so it is easy to tear them up.

Anyway, I have been whooped this week, and I am taking a little break this morning. My arms hurt, my fingers are cramped, and my toes have blisters on them. But the bright side is that we are almost done. We have all the old layers completely removed and in a 20 yard dumpster. There were three layers of shingles on the entire house. some areas actually had four layers on them.

Well, I am going to actually take a break now.

My ears hurt

2005-07-19T21:14:00.000-04:00

So my iPod shuffle came today via FEDEX and now my ears hurt. Not because of listening to music though, it's the stinking earbuds. I suppose it could be because I am not used to sticking things in my ears. Well, just thought I'd share that I now have portable tunes. Of course I could have always plugged my my Powerbook into my cassette tape player, but the shuffle is easier.

Well, off to continue reading Half blood Prince.

Half and half

2005-07-18T21:00:00.000-04:00

It turns out, part of the issue at work is that Cisco, even though it's an industry leader, doesn't correctly auto negotiate 100 full duplex. So they recommend forcing duplex status and connection speed on the main switch. But the problem is things are only connecting at half duplex. When I force my servers to be full duplex, things go worse and stop working completely. I will be looking into this more in the morning with our vendor. We really do have some good guys working with us, just had some frustrations last week as stressful items started to crop up.

The other half. I am Half way through the new harry potter book (The Half blood prince) Lot's of half stuff in this post. Anyway, It's pretty good so far. i'll probably share more of my thoughts on it later, and attempt not to spoil the plot for those that haven't gotten there yet.

Now I am off to research free ways to image PC images over the network. Similar to Ghost, but I don't want to pay for it. Plus Ghost is so confusing to buy. have you seen the pricing sheet?

eh. maybe I'll figure out how to buy it. It really does seem like the best solution. unless there are any other ideas out there.

So I am using ecto again. turns out you can "renew" your trial. it deletes any of your drafts, but re-downloads all your posts from your blog. So there is another half to this blog. a half-assed trial glitch. Oh well, another 20 days of trial on my way.

No more days left

2005-07-18T13:52:00.000-04:00

Well, I have no more days left on my ecto trial. So it would be interesting if this in fact posts my comment. Maybe if I keep linking to them they'll let me have it free. not that I have a huge audience though.

My computer network is up and running at work, but it turns out that our Novell Border manager server has a bad NIC. it has been getting errors all day. in 5 minutes, it attempted to send 2500 bad packets. nice. so we are looking into what kind of card it is.

Network almost done

2005-07-15T08:07:00.000-04:00

Hey, I have internet at work again.

More importantly, I can image computers at decent speeds.

well, I gotta work now see yall later.

4 days left

2005-07-12T19:51:00.000-04:00

So I have four days left.
Four days left until my trial of ecto expires and I have to decide if it's good enough to buy.

Four days left until my copy of Harry Potter Arrives

But only three days left until I go see Fantastic Four on Friday night date night.

Speaking of movies, I watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night. It was pretty good. I like the style of it. I feel the acting was very good too. It was interesting to see the main actors play the opposite roles that they normally play. Jim Carrey being the more serious role and Kate Winslet being the wild and wacky character. I thought it was pulled off very well.

I also appreciated the style of creative camera work as opposed to relying on computer effects for everything. As you can tell, I watched some of the bonus features.

And the nightmare begins

2005-07-10T20:53:00.000-04:00

So tomorrow is do or die time. We will be shutting down the entire network at school and we don't know really when it will be back up. Why? Well, our vendor neglected to tell us that 11 switches that are primary and key to the redesign are not going to be here. 2 are backordered until August 1st. And the other 9 switches are lost in transit. They shipped July 1 and should have been delivered around July 6th. (sounds like the same black hole that one of my blockbuster DVD's slipped into. but that's another story) So I found out about the swtitches on Friday. We ordered the first of June. Fine time to tell us that our switches won't be here. sure it was three days before our teardown, but really just one business day.

So I am going to try to get some free stuff out of this, because I see it as their screw up. Now I won't name names, due to slander lawsuit possibilities etc. I don't blame the manufacturer. Cisco is probably still the best in the business. I at least hope so, since the are definitely the most expensive. But the price doesn't concern me. Why? Well, read on.

Thanks to all you fine people that have a telephone service. See, there is a surcharge called "Universal Service". How is this related to my switches? Keep your pants on,( or don't, I don't care I can't see you). Any way, the Federal Government distributes that money back into the school systems. There's a catch though. you have to spend the money on telecommunication types of equipment and services. and there are other catches too, but the gist is our switches are covered. They aren't free mind you, but they are drastically discounted.

Remember back in high school, there was a free or a reduced lunch price for kids that lived less fortunate lives. If you aren't aware of it, then you must have been one of the "more" fortunate. Anyway, The USF (Universal Service Fund.. Stick with me here) covers the percentage of free/reduced students as the discount toward the equipment. So the school district that I work for has an Alternative high school. Everybody there qualifies for F/R lunch, 100% bam. that's a lot of discount. but it is averaged in with the rest of the district, so our total numbers are more around 75%. In the end, we are putting in about $135,000 network for about $33k!

Anyway, we'll see how fast we can get our network up and running.

I know, I didn't link to anything. nothing seemed relevant though.

Should be asleep

2005-07-10T00:29:00.000-04:00

So my wife's 5 year high school reunion was tonight. lot's of people getting drunk. I had two smirnoff's, but that didn't touch me. it was more like drinking pop. or soda if you desire. anyway. so Shannon is still up and reading some of her mommy message boards, so I figure I could stay up and write down some thoughts.

So for those that haven't figured it out, I have two kids. my daughter likes watching Veggietales. well, the latest one is called Minnesota Cuke. and they typically have a short story , an interlude song, and then a longer story. the interlude songs are usually funny or just weird. So I have the latest song in my head. It's a 1950's style teen tragedy ballad called "Pizza Angel".

Now I know that 50% Of my blog readers are in the pizza delivery business ( I have stealth ninjas that are good at retrieving that type of information). So I just thought I'd share. The song is about a guy who orders a pizza, but the pizza guy is two hours late. he is late because the number on the guys door is supposed to be 16, but the six is broken and hanging upside down so it looks like a 9. The premise of the story is pretty funny, especially since the Pizza delivery guy eats the entire pizza in the 2 hours that he was late. He says something about " Uh I got hungry while I was looking for your house... you don't have to tip me."

I wonder if pizza guys ever do spend 2 hours looking for a house, and then eat the pizza. or do they do things to pizzas to habitually bad customers? I suppose I can wait and read myself.

(Pizza Angel please come to me...Tomato sauce and Cheese so goouuooeey.) At the end of the trailer

Good night... er Morning...whatever it's late ... er early. I'm done

Ding Fries are Done

2005-07-08T15:32:00.000-04:00

Yeah, So I have a song in my head. Every time I get an email i hear this. and I think "ding.... Fries are done". I know it's dumb, but see I used to work at McDonalds, and I remember singing "Pies Are Done" to the musical tones that the pie oven beeped when the..pies were done. see it makes sense. Well, this guy created a web page that Mike went to a while back. There is one expletive on the site, so I recommend not letting little ears hear, if I'm not to late. It goes by pretty quick though so perhaps little ones won't hear it.

Anyway, so every once in a while Mike or I will get email and we hear a ding. Logically, ding needs to be followed by a "Fries are done"

But even when I click check mail and don't get any email, I get this sound when it checks. so it starts all over again. and walking into the Administration building they have one of those doors that go mmmbongg which is close enough to a ding for the fries to be done.

I think I am done with work for the week. I could vent my frustrations on how we did not receive all of our CIsco switches for our plan to upgrade our network. wait... I think I just did. Anyway sometimes the best laid plans .. ah. cliches blow.

Addiction

2005-07-07T22:17:00.000-04:00

So the wife and I have been addicted to this game. she actually beat it before I did. I however have my name on the global high score list. Number 25 baby. As a matter of fact, I have my game paused right now to post this. I actually spent the 19.95 to buy it.

See, I was recently informed that I went on a blogger burnout. Yep. didn't know it existed. But it's not really this games fault. see I am swamped at work. I just finished an Excel spreadsheet with all the projects that I have at work to get done by August 24. It was three pages long. I half thought of posting the list here, but I figured that'd be a waste of your time.

But too be honest, I have no excuse for why I didn't write in the blog. I suppose I could say that I had so many thoughts in my head, that i lacked the capacity to make a decision as to what to talk about.

I have noticed at work that I am having a difficult time making decisions. see we have had a few things that Mike(scroll to the bottom) and I have been able to do 4 or 5 things. we found ourselves sitting for about five minutes going. " well we could do this... or this...or ... this..(relating to computers)... umm. which should we do? uh.. (sitting catatonic) I dunno, Let's go to lunch. Chili Dogs sound good." then we went to Vitale's Pizza. so much for our decision making abilities.

Oh, and that link to Mike listed above was our previous employer. the site hasn't been updated yet. but we don't have one together at Kelloggsville yet. just one of the many things on my spreadsheet O' crap to do.

Grrr.

2005-07-03T23:02:00.000-04:00

I suppose we could just tell members of the community to go to http://216.120.137.132/ Heck, it's less typing, and if I could memorize it in less than 9 months, well, why can't they.

Novell sucks. I know they are migrating everything over to linux, but I don't anticipate that making things better. See the problem with the computer industry today is that the companies assume that people want more FEATURES. but that's not what people want at all. what they want is to be able to do a few things easily, quickly, and reliably. See that's why I am such a fan of Apple computer. They get that point. plug it in and it works. really. depending on what Apple product you are dealing with, you have a range of simple customizations, or you can modify advanced settings and code if you choose to.

Anyway. I am going to fire this stinkin Novell Border manager server as soon as I can. unfortunately that is looking like next summer. Hopefully I can convince the powers that be that I need to at least get my web server on the public side of the firewall. After all, what good is a web server for if it is only available when it feels like working.

Hey add a few more mistakes to that.

2005-07-03T21:33:00.000-04:00

I was going to edit my post the one that says "Try it know" but the irony of all the mistakes is just better. I did get the site up, then broke it promptly after posting the ... uh post.

Anyway. It should be up. especially if you see a rocket picture here.

This is the second dumb thing this week.

2005-07-03T14:29:00.000-04:00

Well, I was half right. The reason my web server at school/work wasn't working was because of a stinkin Novell server. But it wasn't because it just wasn't working. I forgot to re-enter one line of information. Oh well, I suppose that's life. try it know folks it's live, But that don't mean it's pretty. I am going to be in charge of the website next year, or at least partly in charge, as it will fall on the shoulders of Kelloggsville Public Schools Tech support Department. We will work on prettying things up throughout the year.

So to answer the question you have if you read the title of this post, the first dumb thing I did was a collective thing with my brother in law. At church we are on the tech team for running the light board every 4 weeks or so. We've been doin' this for a while, as a team, Joe has been doin' this for a few years. Well, Thursday night practice we couldn't get anything to work. the board and the computer just weren't controlling the lights. Well, they weren't turning on. We could however control the movable lights. Not a lot of good without beams of light coming out of them. It took us a half hour of trouble shooting, and then one person asked the simple question, "Is the Master Slider supposed to be all the way down?" DUH!!.

Who decided to put something like that on the board anyway. Seriously why would you want to have a slider that can do a massive blackout. I can understand having a blackout programmed into the show, but why have a slider that overrides all lights and shuts them down. Well, maybe if one light caught fire or something you might want to shut off all the lights at once... but still that would just incite panic with the audience.

I guess I can't criticize a teacher for claiming that their printer won't work and it turns out it's either off, or there is no paper in the tray.

It was damn good.

2005-07-02T23:14:00.000-04:00

I'd have to say that I was impressed. Some say that it is SUPPOSED to be the style of the 1930's, but I think that is just short vision. Some also say it's not supposed to be a tank, but rather some 1960s Ford concept car called the Futura. But if you want to stick to that kind of logic, it should be a
plain, bright-red sedan.

You know what I think. First of all, IT'S JUST A MOVIE. Second of all, this is a good movie. Third, if Batman didn't exist in comics or movies before, then then this is a damn good movie. See, I think it's such a good and compelling film that if it were in fact the only iteration of a Batman, this film would be on par and have a following similar to the original Matrix. Not those crappy sequels that were just milking the original's ...uhh... originality.

I mean, this was a good well played movie. The acting was great, the story was great. the level of details and the thoughtfulness to pull lines back from the first half hour and say them again in the last half hour with different characters was done correctly. Some of it was predictable. "why do we fall down... so we can learn to get back up" but that's life, sometimes in life you do know what someone will say just minutes before they do it.

Wah!!

2005-07-01T23:17:00.000-04:00

We're going to head to Binder Park zoo tomorrow. I have never been there, so i am looking forward to it. I am resisting the urge to be lazy and stay at home, especially after moving a ton of computers today. Quite literally a ton of computers. 66 pounds a box. 72 boxes. =4752 lbs = 2.1214286 Long Tons or 2.155471 metric Tons. So. my share was over a ton. since I do think I moved more than Mike. I had three on my dolly most of the time, while he had 2 on his.

I know that the kids will have fun, so I know that we should continue going out to do things. And look at them... ^ ... They need some cheering up.

Okay, bed time.

ugh

2005-07-01T14:16:00.000-04:00

It's Friday and at least the weather is good. I just got done moving 72 eMacs. Well, I moved about half of them. I did get to drive a big old delivery truck around. Like this one only older. It may be called an econoline, but there is nothing "econo" about this beast. It gets about 70-100 miles to a tank. I think that's like 2-3 MPG. I am glad that I don't drive that to and from work. I'd have to fill up a 30 gallon tank everyday.

My Brain is Mush

2005-06-30T12:48:00.000-04:00

So, My coworker slept in this morning. I spent most of the morning trying to get our Webserver working. It's still not. try it. http://www.kelloggsville.k12.mi.us See, I told you. Most of the problem is that the server is behind a firewall and not on the real internet. I am hoping to change that soon, since the Novell Border Manager server we have doesn't seem to do NAT correctly. Oh to Replace the clunky Novell Servers with Xserves. Someday maybe we will.

Fake Bullet Holes

2005-06-29T08:04:00.000-04:00

Fake Bullet Holes and Damage Stickers make the perfect Illusion:
What's the big deal with all of this. I mean seriously. Why would you want fake bullet holes on your car. THEY DON"T EVEN LOOK REAL. I saw a car on the way in to work today that had a ton of these. It didn't make the car look cool, it made it look like crap. Like they were covering up some crappy paint job, or some real scratches. Dumb.

Su...weet looking storyline

2005-06-28T22:24:00.000-04:00

Found this today. Liked it, had to post it.

Apple - Trailers - FourBrotherMovie.com - Official Site - Large:

Moving

2005-06-28T14:45:00.000-04:00

So I have to go finish cleaning out my apartment tonight. Plus turn in all of my Fire department stuff to Alpine Towship. Shannon is already over there, so I get to go join her. But here, enjoy a picture of my 15"PowerBook on my desk at work.

Eh. I gotta work

2005-06-28T09:26:00.000-04:00

You know I was going to blog twice a day. but then this work thing keeps getting in the way. A teacher for summer school came in today asking if I took her laptop. um... no. Why would I take your laptop? Apparently she left it in her room on Friday, an it was gone monday morning. So, now I have to figure out what she is going to use next year for a computer. I think I'll give her an etch-a-sketch.

Munchkins

2005-06-26T22:07:00.000-04:00

So much for two posts a day.
I have been taking care of my kids while Shannon has been working at church with our Teen Worship Arts Camp. I may get into detail about what that is another day.

I went to the Apple Store again today. still didn't buy anything, but my brother in law wanted to see it. He didn't want to go alone. He broke his power adapter on his Dell Laptop for the 3rd time. I don't know if it's user error or just crappy design. I am biased, so it could be a bit of both.

I think that's all I am going to write today. I need to go to bed, since I have to work tomorrow.

Dual post days limited

2005-06-25T22:19:00.000-04:00

So I have been posting a lot to this here blog thingy. I think that I will probably post twice a day for a while. It's like a friend of mine said a week ago this blogging thing is like therapy. I have a lot on my mind, and this might help me clear some of it out. Kinda like taking your thoughts out of your brain into a pensieve like in Harry Potter and the goblet of Fire. (Coming Soon to a theater near you if you haven't read the books).

Speaking of which, (or witch) the next HP book is coming out in 21ish days. I have to figure out if I want to buy it or just check it out from the library. I am still trying to get through Fellowship of the Ring though. I still have Two Towers and Return of the king to go. I think I'll wait until the public school I work for gets it. perhaps I'll borrow it over christmas break. Unless a kid has it checked out. Stupid kids. What do they think books are there for. Oh yeah, their education. I guess I could go to the public library.

I think I'm rambling now.

But that does give me an idea for a real title to a blog. the Pensieve... Hmm. but then it will pop up on Harry Potter Fanboy searches. And I just like the books, I am not a nut case. Speaking of Nutcases. Katohaters recent post on Peter Pan is definitely an example of Internet nutcases. I'll let you decide if it's stemshul or this guy
*(Disclaimer I do not personally know stemshul, therefor he may or may not be nuttier than the pixy guy.)

2005-06-25T12:19:00.000-04:00

I went to the Apple store in our home town today. It's at the Woodland shopping center. Today was the grand opening and the first 1000 people there got free T-shirts. So I thought cool, I'll go get one.

We'll I am in charge of my kiddos today, so I had to take them with me. No big deal, that's what we bought a double stroller for. Katelyn was a good little girl singing her own made up songs, and Eric just sat in the seat staring at some bugs hanging above his head. We got there and there was already a line of about 250-300 people at 9:15. The store opened at 10:00, so we got in line.

When we finally got into the store, it was about 10:20. I was only expecting to get one shirt, since I was the only adult, but they gave one to Katelyn and Eric too. Eric is chunky, but he's still going to swim in his shirt.

77-spiderman

2005-06-24T21:14:00.000-04:00

So, I have pictures figured out. now some of the stuff I need to nail down is are below

-A real Title
-A real user name
-Establish whether I really do like Blogger, or if I should look into another spot for hosting my Blog.

I am the Network Administrator of a public school, so, I could always host my own... but then there are liabilities and restraint that I will have to maintain. I have thought of purchasing a domain name for my family. we could have hoorns.us for 69.50 for 10 years... or we could have hoorns.org for 79.50 (+2.50 ICANN Fees)

hmm. So I would have a domain name, but I still wouldn't have a server. I think I will have to look into that a bit too. I wonder if SBC would allow me to run a server out of my house using my DSL connection. Doubt it. Perhaps I'll sublet a T1 on WiFi for my condominium association that I just moved in to.

Doubt that will happen either.

DSCN8934.jpg

2005-06-24T09:50:00.000-04:00

()

"DSCN8934.jpg" by riptide

_dad

So this is interesting. I have a program called 1001 that uploads pictures to Flickr. I can easily upload any items that are in my iPhoto Library then I can browse my flickr uploads click "Blog this" and it opens up a new blog entry in Ecto. There are a few formatting glitches as you can see above. I left them this time, but the first post I deleted them. Higlighting a little bit of text isn't that big of a deal to me, when editing the rest is so danged easy. Seriously. Adding links is even integrated with the system's clipboard. So then I simply click publish, and you are seeing my results. Not too shabby I'd say.

Now I just got to figure out if I want to spend $17.95 for it... Well I guess I get 20 days to figure that out.

So this should have a picture attached.

2005-06-24T09:27:00.000-04:00

Did this work. It looks like a little extra formatting is thrown in here.

Ahh... I think this is it.

2005-06-24T08:54:00.000-04:00

So I found a program called Ecto. I think this will be what I use for editing a Blog.

Now, I have to think of a real title for my Blog and start from scratch. This one will be here for a while, as I nail down the rest of my learning curve.

Next up, pictures. hmm. flickr or photobucket...

2005-06-24T08:45:00.000-04:00

Testing out a new Blogging client.

So I figure if I can type in my blog and have some nice interface features. then I don't have to muck around with hand coding links and colors. I am testing MarsEdit right now. Not sure if I like it though. Set up seemed really easy. It asked for the title of my blog, and it's URL. it configured everydthing else on it's own... I think. If this is on my blog then it did what I thought it would do.

Where's my money?

2005-06-24T08:12:00.000-04:00

I was reading a friend's Blog, and he has some comments about this. I was originally going to just post this as a comment to his site, but then I figured I should try to get this Blog thing going, if I am going to do it.

Anyway, in terms of the Bush SS reform... I think efforts would be better served if the were pushing education funding reform. Let's get better schools and teach the young generation of America how to invest their money that ISN'T going into Social Security. Then if the SS goes to pot... who cares, you got a million dollars in mutual funds by the time you hit 45 at least... If you started investing while in high school that is.

The problem is that everyone wants the Government to give them handouts, but don't have the guts or brains to just go out and work for themselves, give a little to charity, pay your bills, boost economy by spending a little, and invest the rest.

Most people do this with fake money instead of what they earn. Credit cards are not your money, they are some banks money that you are renting. Why do so many people rent money?

Wow... I actually blogged!

where'd my first post go?

2005-06-19T16:02:00.001-04:00

And for that matter, where's my second post too?

Second Post

2005-06-19T16:02:00.000-04:00

So, I am looking in to writing a blog. I am wondering how the email
post works. Just checking it out.

First Post

2005-06-19T15:56:00.000-04:00

Obligatory W00t!