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My Stuff

About Me (pics)
Everything you never wanted to know about me.

My Car
I'm a little nuts about my car!

My Family

Mom
The lady who went through to trouble of my gestation. She calls me George for no particular reason.

Dad
The guy who had the fun part of my being in the world.

Carrie
My oldest sister.

Katelyn
My 'lil sister.

Alex
personal blog
Not blood-related, but just as close.

Annie
The lil sister I never had. I actually have one, but still.

Kenna
Surrogate mother.

Bob
Quasi-dad and maker of the greatest ribs in history.

My Friends

Rachel
personal blog
My fiance.

Johnny 5000
My best friend since the sixth grade.

Gortho
My friend and roommate for the past few years.

Niccole
Friend originally through Katelyn.

Fun Kristan
Her name is Fun Kristan, 'nuf said.

Bish
personal website
The Great Bish. The best programmer I know.

Kurt
personal website
The Intern.

Dan
personal website
Co-worker.

Tall Kristen
personal website
Friend through Katelyn.

My Favorite Sites

Slashdot
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters.

The New York Times
All the News Worth Wrapping in Markup.

Google
I hope no explanation is necessary.

The Jargon File
Dictionary of techy slang.

Fark
A daily collection of all the truly odd news on the net. Very funny stuff.

HowStuffWorks
The most fascinating collection of articles about how things work.

Wikipedia
The best encyclopedia ever written. And it's all free!

My Journal - April 2004

2004-04-30
So, my boss (a.k.a. The Boss Man) gave me a couple dozen or so iTunes Pepsi caps. It appears I can only turn in 10 per day. That sucks ass. Anyway, I got the songs Dan wanted and a bunch I wanted but wasn't willing to pay for the albums. They're worthless tomorrow, so it sucks that I couldn't use all of them. Either way, I got some stuff I would never have bought otherwise.

This morning I interviewed two people for the internship that's coming up in my group. One of them was a total geek in every way and would be just perfect for us. About the same 'perfect' as the girl I interviewed on Thursday. I hate to be 'That Guy', but I'd really like to see the girl get the job. And, I have to say, this has very little to do with the fact she's a cute girl. I just think, for some reason, she'd be easier to work with. Oh, I'm sure that's not unbiased at all! Hehehehe.

So, anyway, I'm pretty tired and more than a little drunk, so I should just sign off. Ta-da.

2004-04-29
So, this week is going pretty shitty overall. Monday I spent all day working on some system tunes which seemed to have helped at least a little. Monday night I went to Gortho's band's concert. It was pretty good. The band is really starting to sound and feel like a real band. Tuesday night I went to my parents, got my hair cut and recharged my K&N air filter which took more time, but was far easier, than I had expected. Wednesday night I actually had a little much needed down time. Tonight I had dinner with Bish, which was good. I'm exhausted.

This afternoon I interviewed a girl for an intern position in my group. She was really cute! Still, she was really just the perfect fit for what we need, so I hope her cuteness doesn't sway the decisions one way or another. Tomorrow I've got interviews with two other people. I've got at least two more next week. God, I hate interviewing people. I'm so bad at it. I seem to have almost no ability to see any bad in anyone. Dan jokes about how I've lost all input on who we hire because I always say everyone is great. Oh, well. I think there must be worse traits in the world.

Well, I'm a little drunk and I've got to at least try to get some sleep. I'll really try to get better at updating this thing. I almost always have something to add, but sometimes I just don't have the energy. :)

Oh yeah, and one more thing before I hit the proverbial sack: my car rules! I've had it for a year and a half now and I still can't quite find it's limits! Damn, that is just one incredible example of what good engineering can do. Wow.

2004-04-25
Ok, I know it's been a few days. I've been kinda busy and I haven't had a whole lot to say about life. Let's see...

Friday was pretty normal for work. I hate Friday's in general, but this one wasn't all bad. After work I met up with The Matts at Majors in Bloomington for dinner. We sat outside which was really, really cold after a while. The service started out pretty shitty but we ended up with a really cute, nice server who took good care of us. The Matts are all good. Murphy just got back from San Francisco, which I'm so incredibly jealous of.

Saturday morning I went for an incredibly long walk with Niccole. We must have walked close to ten miles and it took us almost 2.5 hours. I was supposed to go to the Zoo with Bish, but the walk took too long so I couldn't. Too bad, really. I love the zoo. Anyway, I watched a pretty shitty movie Saturday night.

Today I went shopping (mostly for music) with Gortho and Niccole. I bought three new albums. Hopefully they're good. New music rules!

Well, I hate to be so boring, but that's about it. Busy, but I don't really have much to say about it. Oh well. I guess I've got work tomorrow, so that should be good. Gortho's band, The Maladies, are playing at 5 Corners tomorrow, so I'll probably go to that.

Oh, and I added an image library. It's pretty empty right now, but I'll be adding more.

Ok, I'm going to fall asleep on my keyboard...

2004-04-22
Ok, so today I got the word that some guy (no idea the name, but had 'SMALL' in his username) tried to order and it failed. And then, strangely enough, it wasn't in our 'shopping cart' system or in the order system. Somehow this thing just fell into the ether. Well, to make a long story short my research on this one little event brought to light a half-dozen bugs, many of which I've had tickets open for a while. Oh, sweet victory! By the end of the day tomorrow I'm going to have so many things fixed!

Well, I'm tired and kind of blah, so I'm signing off. Maybe some television will do me good for once. Probably not, though.

Oh yeah, and before I forget, I'm going to be adding a image library to this thing soon to hold my ridiculously large collection of pics. I'll probably also try and start a story section so I can get some writting done. Ok, that's it.

2004-04-21
Oh, this week is like a roller coaster. Monday was kinda blah. Tuesday kicked ass. Then today I woke up early and in a great mood, I got to work a little earlier than normal and sat down at my desk feeling great. Then it all went to shit. After I got my machine booted up I noticed that one of the systems that are being tested kept kicking out all this email. For no particular reason at all I just sort of lost it and called The New Guy who was doing the testing and jumped all over him about the email. Boy, I feel so stupid about the whole thing. I guess the rest of the day was pretty normal except I was really short with everyone. For some reason, unknown to me, I just couldn't get into the groove at all. I dunno. What the hell am I doing?

So Niccole and I washed and waxed our respective cars tonight. It went pretty well. We didn't nearly have enough time, so I felt really rushed. Still, I think both cars turned out pretty good. Oh, and fsck that Mr Clean car washing thing. It left the most annoying oily residue on my car and completely stripped my previous wax job. That thing is going in the trash double quick.

Tomorrow I've got dinner with Bish. That's quickly becoming my favorite part of my week. It's nice to sit down to a big meal and just sort of not be concerned about stuff.

Oh, and talk about fscked up, my back has been killing me the last few weeks! Can you believe that shit! I'm only, like, 27 and I get plenty of activity and I lift regularly and I sleep on a great mattress. Oh boy, if this is me getting old I'm going to be really pissed off. I mean, could this strange little thing called life be any more overrated! We're all just so gipped. I want my money back. ;)

So anyway, I guess I feel like I've got something really important to log here, but I don't know what it is. Maybe I'll come up with the secret to life tomorrow. Maybe it has something to do with dental care. Ok, now that was just stupid.

Oh, and one more thing before I go. It appears my 'lil sis sent my father a link to my site so he could see some pictures. Well, he's been colder than normal to me the last few days, so I can only assume he's read my journal and I said something mean about him. Well, dad, it's your choice to read this thing. I, personally, don't particularly like the idea. But if you do, please remember that this is just a stupid site with a bunch of semi-coherent thoughts written on my way to bed. Some nights I'm in a good mood and I write about good things and some nights I'm in a bad mood and I vent a bit. Sometimes I'm not in any mood and I don't write about anything at all. Remember that there is no way anyone could possibly capture their complete thoughts and feelings in such a limited medium. I haven't even begun to try. So if you're going to read this please remember all that and don't make anything out of anything I say here. Just leave it online. I do. Enough said. Oh, and if you didn't read this stuff and you're just mad at me about something else (which is almost more likely), all I have to to say is: Shit, what did I do this time?!? :)

2004-04-19
Not a whole lot going on today. I guess it was a pretty average Monday. The bug I've been working on so much ended up being a fairly simple little configuration error which is so incredibly good and bad. I would really have preferred if it was an actual bug that I found and squashed. Still, I guess it's good that Ernie can order again. :)

Other than that, I guess it was a pretty slow news day.

I have almost nothing scheduled (besides work, of course) this week. I'm actually really looking forward to a little more time to myself. Besides my standard Thursday dinner, I'm helping Niccole wash and wax her new car on Wednesday. I guess that's a full evening. Still, my Tuesday is wide open! Sweet.

2004-04-18
I have had a really fantastic weekend so far. The 60th Wedding Anniversary party was really cool. Everyone had a great time. Mom's story went over great. There wasn't a dry eye in the place when she finished (except mine, of course). My uncles all had very nice, touching speeches. All around a great evening.

My grandfather and I trying to be cool.

After the party, Katelyn, Carrie and I ran over to Majors on 394 which was fairly well packed with the beautiful people, all rubbing up against each other and very happy doing it. I liked the place. Katelyn took off kinda early to catch a movie with Niccole, but Carrie and I stayed late and talked as people our age do. It was nice to talk with her because we're both sort of in the same place in life and we both look at life with a certain self-conscious, introspective viewpoint. Anyway, I got home late.

This morning I had more fun than I've had in a very, very long time. Mahoney and I went to this thing called C Spot Drive Party. Basically, Mercedes rented out the multi-acre Valley Fair parking lot and set up two courses. One was a slow course where the unwashed masses (like myself) could take out any of the C Class cars (except the C32 AMG) and basically tear up the tires and brakes through a fairly difficult arrangement of cones. What a blast! I went three runs and Mahoney did one. The first one I did was, oh, less than impressive. But my second run, with a C230 Kompressor, was good. I tore that thing up!

One of the turns on the slow course.

A tight 'lane change' type setup on the slow course.

The other course was a 'fast' course which was much larger with wider turns. Unfortunately we couldn't drive on that one because it was big enough were you could really get the cars going to fast to be making beginner mistakes. For that course you could ride along with professional drivers in a C32 AMG. We took that course twice with different drivers. Wow! Those guys are nuts. They took those cars to far beyond what I would have thought of as The Limits. Wow. So, long story short, I think I've found my next profession: race car driver! Maybe test driver for a sports car company. I think I look good in helmets. :)

Mahoney outside the main tent, next to my car.

The best part, for me anyway, about the whole event was not the fact that the driving was a blast. It wasn't even that the Cs impressed the hell out of me. And it wasn't that I've got a new profession to lust after. The best part was that I'm absolutely positive that Breña would have beat the snot out of any of the cars I drove! Oh how I would have loved to get her on that course and see what she could do with it.

Oh, and when I came back from my too-much-fun driving adventure, the girls had cleaned the apartment...

Before and after shots of the kitchen. Pretty impressive.

...and did a bang-up job of it. The place looks (and smells) liveable again! It cost Gortho and I $100, which feels high to me, but when it's turns out as nice as it did it's hard to argue.

2004-04-17
This is probably going to be a two-parter because I've got to run to my Grandparent's 60th Wedding Anniversary party thing soon. But, I haven't written in a couple days and I feel like writting...

The last part of my work week really sucked serious ass. We had major problems with our web server and Internet connection which meant we were all running around like the proverbial chickens (sans heads) and trying to explain to the irate business that "this computer stuff is really hard"! Of course, most of them think that since they can put a picture into a Word document, they could keep everything running better than we can. :)

I also spent most of Thursday and Friday tracking down a bug where some guy named Ernie (isn't that a great name!) couldn't place orders. When I left on Friday evening I was no closer to having a solution than when I started. There is really nothing worse than leaving the office at the end of week with an unsolved bug. Damn. Although, the week wasn't a total loss. This girl who I've been working with a lot lately gave me some quasi-code to fix an Excel problem we were having. I was kinda shocked and more than a little impressed. I almost told her that if she wasn't so beautiful and a girl she could be one hell of a programmer. Then realized that it would be both uncomfortable and maybe a little insulting. Anyway, even if I can't use the code I like it when people surprise me.

Last night I got a call from John and Sasha. They wanted to come over for a movie, which I guess kinda sounded like a good time. I pushed it off a couple hours so I could finish Geoff's machine, which I did, and then called them and changed the plans to drinks at the local joint instead of sitting around this place. I went, it was ok. John was his normal incredibly funny self. His brand of comedy is so incredibly cleaver. He's also really nice in that sincere was that's so very rare. I just could not be a bigger fan. Sasha has been reading the book I gave her. I can't read her very well, but I don't think she thinks it's as good as I keep saying it is.

I went over to Geoff's place this morning to drop off the infamous computer. Everything fit together perfectly. The machine ran like a champ. I realized, like I thought I would, that this machine is maybe a little overkill for him, but I think that's better than giving him less than he wanted. Oh, and his girlfriend (or fiance, maybe?) said that I was 'cute' because of my enthusiasm over the computer. I don't think I've felt more insulted in a very, very long time. Where does she get off? Anyway, Geoff paid me a little more than the total cost, which I had anticipated and was ready to refuse, but he said I should buy some good scotch with it, which sounded like a fantastic idea, so I took it.

After finishing up with Geoff I ran over to my rent's place to help my dad pick up his new grill at Home Depot. We were going to rent the truck that they have there, but it was already being used. Dad flipped out! He yelled. He looked destroyed by the whole thing. He was entirely incapable of dealing with this completely minor, truly insignificant moment. After he left I very nicely apologized to the guy who took the brunt of it. Then, in the parking lot as we were pulling out, some guy in a Camry pulled out in front of me. No big deal, right? Well, Dad flipped at that guy and then let out the most sad, defeatist sigh I've ever heard. I really worry about that guy. How could he have gotten this far (years wise) in life with that attitude. What an ass.

Oh, and I went over to my other family's house today for a few minutes. It seems Alex has made a movie which one some kind of amateur film festival thing. It's all packaged up in DVD format. It looks really cool and funny. I can't wait to see it.

Anyway, I've got to clean up and get dressed for this party thing. I should get to that. Hopefully I can jump back on later.

2004-04-14
I did not have a great day today. I woke up feeling like I got about an hour of sleep, made it to work kinda close to 9:00, and spent all day doing a bunch of stuff I didn't really care about. God dammit Bobby!

I finally just forced myself to eat tonight. I got a pizza. It was good, although it's a little weird eating without an appetite. Still, my stomach is starting to feel a little better. Hopefully whatever this is goes away very soon.

Anyway, enough bitching. I'm getting very, very close to having Geoff's machine done. The hardware is pretty much finalized and now I've got most of the software installed. I hate to say it but my interest in this whole project has really started to drop off. It looks like I'll be 'delivering' it on Saturday morning.

So, hopefully tomorrow I can get something interesting done. I'm supposed to be working on getting this incredibly shitty section of one of our apps tuned a bit. Hopefully that's fun.

Well, I guess that's it. I'm really kinda tired, so...

2004-04-13
I spent almost the entire day at work today reading PL/SQL with drool coming out of the corner of my mouth. Damn, what a fscked up language! It's like reading sanskrit or something. Reading a single function (or procedure or whatever the hell they call it) tells you almost nothing about the what the hell it's doing! I even had the PL/SQL alpha geek look over one of the procedures and he couldn't tell me what the hell it was doing. Another day or two of this and I'm going to really start hating my life.

After work I went to this home buying seminar thing. Luckily it wasn't put on by a company, so it wasn't just some long sales pitch. Still, the guy who was teaching it was like a caricature of Sleezy Salesman and I had a really hard time believing a single word he said. Also, and I can't believe someone would do this, the docs he passed out were a small collection of third-grade gramatical mistakes: lower case proper nouns <shudder>, mismatched case <closing eyes>, sentance fragments <opening up wrists>. Oh, I wouldn't trust this guy with string let alone the quarter million I'd want to spend on a house. To be fair, though, I did walk away with information I didn't know. To be slightly more fair, almost any home buying FAQ on the net might give me more.

I was incredibly late for work this morning for the second time in as many days. I went to bed at a reasonable hour but for the last few weeks I just can't seem to fall asleap or sleep very deeply. That on top of my almost complete lack of appetite is starting to concern me a bit. Hopefully this tired old body will calm down a little.

The weather is starting to get better again, which is nice. I'm hoping to spend more than my fair share of time on the deck this summer. The girls have mentioned that they want to bring back our weekly trips to the park for grilling and football and beer. Oh, that sounds about perfect to me. I can't wait to start going barefoot again.

Time to start the pointless task of trying to fall asleap. Better days...

2004-04-12
Well, what a freak'n day. I spent all day at work answering email, sitting in meetings and helping people with projects that I shouldn't be invovled in. I don't think I got one actual 'real' bit of work done. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

I got home kinda late from work and ate some toast. I just can't seem to get my appetite back the last few weeks. Anyway, I have to finish up Geoff's computer by Wednesday so I took off for MicroCenter but on my way I got a call from Katelyn saying that she was at Feldmann Imports negotiating the purchase of a car and could I swing by to help. It turned out the salesman was a really nice guy, Katelyn negotiated a great price all by herself, and the car was absolutely perfect. I'm not entirely sure why I needed to be there at all, but I guess I served as an experienced 'voice of reason', so to speak, while the whole thing was going on. Anyway, she's going to buy this great car at a great price with great financing. Done and done.

I did make it up to MicroCenter a half-hour before they closed. I spent the longest time looking for an inline fan speed controller which I later found out they didn't even carry. Thankfully this totally random guy overheard my conversation with the salesman and helped me come up with a really cool little solution. I ended up buying a 4-fan external controler and mounted it backwards inside one of the 5.25" drive bays! This way I can set a reasonable speed for all the fans in one place and I don't have to worry about Geoff fiddling with the fans and melting the whole damned thing. Oh, how I wish I could send that guy a thank you card!

So I've got to run to the grociery store before I call it a night. That's just one of my least favorite activities. Tomorrow I've got a home buying seminar thing which I hope is the slightest bit useful. And maybe, one day, I can get a full night's sleep. :)

2004-04-11
Easter has come and gone. If I hadn't been at my parents for a late breakfast and early dinner, I wouldn't have even noticed. Strange, I think, that holidays get to meaning less and less as the years pass. I doubt I'm alone in this, so it gets me to wondering exactly how any holiday has stuck around so long. I suppose for some it has religious overtones. Having kids, and therefore needing something to do with them, probably accounts for it a little as well. Either way, most of these strange little anniversaries of things that may or may not have happened thousands of years ago may as well simply fall out of existance as far as I'm concerned.

I spent quite a few hours today helping my Mom write a little narrative about my Grandparents for their 60th wedding anniversary. Can you believe that?!? These two people could stand each other's company for 60 years! Blows my mind. Anyway, The story came together fairly well. We re-tooled and polished the very beginning and the very end so there was a sort of tie-in through cheesy metaphor which attempted to wrap it all up in a nice package and, presumably, get the water works going for one or more emotional aunt or uncle who was lucky enough to hear such moving prose. The middle part was more relating fact than anything, which may have been in need of some literary polish, but, thankfully, we decided to give in to our combined sleepiness and call it a night.

John and Sasha (sp?) came over for a movie tonight. They just took off. I wonder why on earth they'd want to come over for just one movie on a Sunday night. I guess couples eventually need something to do that involves more than just themselves. Still, I would have preferred to spend those 3 hours on something else, and it felt a whole lot like they would have too. I gave Sasha her much anticipated birthday gift: a pack of her brand of cigarettes which I had purchased on her birthday from the local tobacco shop and never had the chance to give her. She seemed overly happy for such a small gesture and unfortunately I lost all interest in the giving of it many months ago. I also lent her my copy of _Franny_and_Zooey_ which is good for her because it's such a great novel and I think she'll really like it, and good for me because I've been far too immersed in Salinger lately (as if you couldn't tell by my writting here) and I need to get his stuff as far from me as possible so I don't get suckered into reading it instead of eating or sleeping.

Life should get a little bit more back to normal this week. The now infamous Code Freeze of 2004 is over so I can start up with good ole fashion development again. That will be nice. I should be done with Geoff's machine by Wednesday which I shall deliver with pride. I've got a home buying seminar thing this Tuesday which sounded like a great idea at the time but is quickly losing it's appeal. And, my weekly Thursday dinner. So all in all this week shouldn't be too busy or quiet. Hopefully it comes through on its promise.

One more thing before I sign off for the night. I had loads of fun with Mom writting, or more to the point, re-writing, that narrative today. I think I'm going to saddle up to a word processor one day in the very near future and give writting another shot. For some reason it sounds like a lot of fun to me.

2004-04-08
Ok, I'm a little drunk. Sweet! Anyway, I had dinner w/ Bish tonight. I had more beer than I normally would, so I'm in that 'happy' state. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go shorty, it's your birthday! Sorry about that. :)

Anyway, Bish and I had an entirely new server tonight. That makes it well over 100 Thursday night dinners without getting the same server twice. That must be some record! I mean, never the same server twice at the same time on the same day of the week for more than two years! That must be some kind of record.

So Geoff's computer is, in fact, running now. It's kinda loud, which is surprising. Also, the boot-up HD is called 'H' in Windows XP. I have no idea why. Bish gave me some good things to try. Anyway, I'll probably drop it off next Wednesday. It'll for sure be ready by then. Just a little tuning left now.

It looks like I'll spend a lot of this weekend working. I'm going to be in the office at 8:00 pm on Friday as well as 11:00 am to 6:00 pm on Saturday. That kinda blows. Normally I wouldn't mind, but this time is such a waste cause I could barely care less about what we're doing. Oh, well. I guess that's why they pay me the small bucks. ;)

I'm about 3/4 through Franny and Zooey. I've read this book almost a hundred times. I have no idea why I keep reading it. Oh well.

Ok, so my iPod is the coolest thing ever! I don't know why I thought of that. I should just end this before it becomes totally indiscernible...

I desperately need new glasses. Ever burn your lips by smoking a cigarette too low? Ok, I'm done now...

"She hangs her head and cries in my shirt. She must be hurt very badly. Tell me what's making you sad Li." ... ok, I'm done for real...

2004-04-07
I know it's been a few days, but I haven't had a moment to myself. I've been out walking most evenings, I've been working like mad on Geoff's Machine (which is coming together very, very nicely) and for the life of me I can't get enough sleep. Also, and this is driving me crazy, I can barely breathe or think because my stomach hurts so much. Ever since I got back from Chicago. BTW, I have at least the beginnings of some info on the trip. The pictures turned out great.

With the exception of a couple nice moments, it's been pretty shitty at work. I'm right in that middle area where I have things to do, but not enough to be 'busy', know what I mean? I hate that. I'd far prefer to be completely swamped, but I'd accept bored to tears. And to top it of, someone found a really nasty little bug in some code I wrote last week. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't bother me so much (finding bugs in code is nothing new), but this was something I took on just so Yanzhu didn't have to work on it, and to be honest, I really don't care about it one bit. But the really dumb part about it is the bug is something that I so should have caught! I feel like a real tool for missing it. It's like every time I think I'm really starting to get good, I do something royally stupid. Oh well, I guess it's all part of that 'learning' thing my Mom always talked about.

It looks like due to all the craziness of projects around the office I'll be working Friday night and Saturday. Grrr.

Gortho called me today to hang out on Saturday night. He's been sleeping at the apartment the last few days. I wonder if he's had a falling out of some sort with the SO. I hope not. I think he was pretty happy with her. That's saying a lot considering how much he disliked the last few. Still, it'll be good to hang out with him again. We get along pretty well.

2004-04-04
It's just past 11:00 pm and I just got home from Chicago. I'm fscking exhausted! It was a great trip, overall. The drive was easy, the hotel was nice, the town was amazing. Of course, it cost a fortune! Anyway, I'll be adding a section to the site for trips like this. I took tons and tons of pictures, so I'll put those up ... <asleep at keyboard>

2004-04-01
Well, I will be heading off to Chicago in a few short hours. I really should be sleeping, but I've got a few last-minute things to do. I may even have to run to the grociery store for some quick stuff. Oh, 5:00 am is going to come very early tomorrow.

I took the day off today for no good reason. I guess it was nice to sleep in and take my time with all my Chicago trip preparation. The thing is, I really would have preferred going to work, but I knew I'd have nothing to do which would have driven me crazy. Either way, I took the day off and it was ok.

So I'm looking at 5 1/2 hours of sleep if I go to bed right now! Guess I should. :)

Go to entries for March.