Friday, December 31, 2004

So I've gotten back into the video game sweep. What can I say, it's my addiction. It's hard to walk away and as soon as I come back, I NEED TO PLAY. The latest game is Pikmin. It's tons of fun, though I seem to be running out of days to collect the pieces to my space ship. But those little Pikmin are resilient! They can kick the crap out of a giant beetle, build a bridge, and even carry items 50 times their own size (though it takes a lot of them to do that). It's pretty fun and I see myself playing for quite some time during off work hours. It's too bad my job isn't playing video games. If anyone knows of an opening though . . .

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

The Vogel-miester has pointed me to a great link regarding the book The Da Vinci Code. Check it out (you may have to click thru a few ads). http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/12/29/da_vinci_code/index_np.html

To make a few side statement here I want to first say that anything lacking proof will always be called a conspiracy theory. And whose to say that some conspiracy theories aren't true? Also let me state that I am not supporting, nor disputing the facts and statements made by the author of The Da Vinci Code. Let's take a look at some of the great conspiracy theories of our time. First let's look at my favorite: alien abductions. Sure the ideas some might say are far fetched, yet there is evidence to both support and refute this theory (I've done enough research on this matter to know). To spare myself some humiliation, I will not state my person opinion on the matter of extraterrestrials here. Second, how about the conspiracy theory that the government is always watching us, all the time! Again, evidence exists to work this theory both ways. Conspiracy theories exist regarding man and dinosaurs co-existing, stolen alien technology, even disputing the fact that we walked on the Moon!

Evidence lies all around us, taunting us to believe this or dispute that. Let's face it, most people are quite closed minded anyway and they believe what they believe regardless of the real truth. The Da Vinci Code may not have an original plot or even an original idea, but maybe the author took a shot at possibly opening up the minds of his readers just a hint more. We can't learn what we don't want to. Why not get people interested in something so we find out more. Religion seekers will eventually find the Gnostic Gospels, and history about the Church and Christ if they are truely interested in the religion around them.

Without bringing my beliefs completely to the surface to be ridiculed let me leave you with a few words. Don't get so caught up in the history and factual knowledge that the Bible contains. There's more to The Book than that. My uncle claims his one seminary buddy always said, "The Bible tells you what happened, Science tells you how it happened." Perhaps a quite novel idea. History as we know it usually comes from the eye of the victor. Historical records come from the powers that win wars and burn other's documents (I'm guessing Janet may have something to say about this). Never can we truly know what exactly happened and why it happened. History is most always one sided and from a certain point of view. Don't let history be a determining factor in believing what you believe. Let your beliefs be guided by more of a . . . higher power . . .

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Well I finally made it up to The Knob after work today. I must admit I was greatly disappointed. Yeah I knew that there were only 8 slopes open, and yeah I figured there would be the signature Blue Knob Ice out there, but it was almost down right miserable. I couldn't carve thanks to the ice everywhere and you can't go real fast because you know there is ice right ahead of you. To top it off, it looks like the place hasn't made snow in a week! Come on people! It's frickin' 15 degrees out so turn your snow makers on! I don't care if I have to ski thru it, that's why I have a mask and goggles! It looks like the temperatures will rise this week so I can throw December out the window for good boarding. Hopefully I didn't throw $250 out the window as well when I bought a season pass this year. Well, with all that said I think it's time for a drink...er two...

Monday, December 27, 2004

So my birthday is finally over and hopefully with it will go the depression of being another year older. Let's not mention the B word for a long time!

So today I skipped out of work (with the bosses permission) so I could have lunch with some old high school friends of mine I haven't seen in a year. We do this lunch thing at Issacs in Lancaster with our calculus teacher every year after Christmas. It's great fun. I get caught up with my best friends from high school and a great teacher! It's amazing how we've all changed in the 5 years since high school, yet all still remain the same. It's also neat to see how dynamic our little group has become over the years. Our careers vary from radio in LA, to Parkinson's research in Atlanta, to teaching in London, to programming in quite dull New Enterprise, PA. But hey, it's great to see some familiar faces and hear how well life is going for them.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

There is so much to learn in this life and not near enough time to learn it. I recently finished The Da Vinci Code and nessled within the book was a wealth of information. The book is an exigent religious read and will challenge your very core beliefs about Christianity and the Church. Of course you can read the book and blatantly refuse to believe any message the book has to tell you. But maybe what The Da Vinci Code proclaims is not so bad. We all have our beliefs and whose to say every single thing I believe is entirely accurate? I can tell you now that I know it is not, and yet, I'm okay with that. I ask you to challenge yourself and pier into why you believe what it is you believe. Think about things you believe and other's don't and visa versa. No two people will ever have the exact same beliefs. It's sort of like a religious fingerprint of sorts. The nice thing about a religious fingerprint is that it can always change, grow, and become more prominent. All you need is an open mind . . .
So here I sit, it’s 204PM, Thursday afternoon and I am stuck at The Workplace trying to do work. It’s just not happening.

So here I sit, typing to you my loyal fans and attempting to at least entertain someone.

So here I sit to inform you that last night I went out to bar called Coaches in Bellwood where I had pizza and beer with some volleyball buddies. Why do half of my friends have to be teachers and get out of work for the next week and a half? It just doesn’t seem fair. And if Steph plays Free Falling one more time…

So here I sit to tell you that I went to the mall before going to Coaches last night. Big mistake! I didn’t know there were that many people in the Blair County area! But hey, the Eddie Bauer clerk was cute and she had red hair so it made the time worthwhile.

So here I sit trying to stay occupied. Unfortunately we have killer network security here so I had trick them and download VB projects that were actually games made by Joe Shmoe.

So here I sit, playing Connect 4 and kicking some serious computer bootie!

So here I sit, waiting, just waiting for that email that tells me to go home early. Where are you great email?! WHERE?!

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

So here was my workday yesterday. Get up at 5AM and leave for Erie, PA at 6AM in The Van. Make it to Erie by 10AM and begin work. Install a new Workplace Time Clock. Install a new PC for a production plant by 11PM. Go get lunch at 1PM at Sheetz (Mmmmmm).

Let's take a slight break here. On Monday, Help Desk Mary made reservations for Dave (may also be referred to as Do Dah, Rudolph, or "Hey can you work any slower?!") and myself to stay over at Erie. Well Do Dah and I were not exactly thrilled to spend the night so we decided we would try to get everything done and leave Erie in the evening. Around lunchtime we were informed that the next day the forecast in Erie was for "heavy snow." Now, about this same time we were also informed that "heavy snow" in Erie is nothing like heavy snow we have ever seen back home. We’re talking like up to 6 inches of snow an hour! YIKE! With this in mind, Do Dah and I decided to work as hard as possible to get everything done and not have to stay over and be stuck in Erie, PA for the holidays. Okay, back to my timeline.

Begin installing hardware for wireless communications at 130PM and finish by 530PM. Weather forecast is calling for freezing rain, sleet and heavy snow! Already there is a nice wind blowing from the lake. Call and cancel reservations since it looks like we'll be heading for home in about 1.5 hours. Begin connecting cables and configuring new wireless hardware at 630PM. Uh oh…trouble at 700PM – Can't get wireless network to communicate. Doh! There’s no waiting until tomorrow because hotel reservations are canceled and there is some monster storm heading our way. At 800PM we are still troubleshooting the communication problem. Call up Tim the Cisco guy and have him VPN into The Workplace and take a look at the IP address for the wireless Cisco bridges we are trying to get to work. Doh! Tim only has a dial-up link to The Workplace so wait 30 minutes for him to modify IP addresses. Everything works perfectly by 9PM and we rap things up by 10PM. Go eat and leave frickin' Erie, PA by 1030PM. Stop at Sheetz and get gas and clean off windows and head lights and head for home! Hmmm, 12AM and it's very hard to see . . . but it's clear outside and the moon is shining. 1230AM – Can no longer see most of the line markings on the road. Decide that my headlights are completely caked with dirt and grime and also realize I can no longer see out the back window either. Oh well, I'm not stopping! It's frickin' one in the morning! Luckily the moon is out and casting some light on the road. Keep cars in front of me so I can see where turns and road changes are. Cross the centerlines a few times. Finally, pull into my driveway at 2AM and fall into bed.

Let me just say, it will be a looooooong time before I go back to Erie, PA again.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

I must have missed something. Last time I checked the New England Patriots were one of the best teams in the NFL this year with a record of 12-1 (their one loss was to Pittsburgh of course), and the Miami Dolphins were one of the worst teams in the NFL with a record of 2-12 (or something like that). So how is it that when these two teams play each other, the worst team in football defeats one of the best teams? Am I missing something here? Did Tom Brady completely blow it or what? At one time I was thrilled that the Stillers defeated the unbeaten Patriots but now that they have had a loss to the Dolphins, I’m not as excited anymore mainly because my posse and I could defeat the Miami Dolphins in a backyard bowl. It's no big feat anymore. But hey I guess when Tom Brady stinks it up, he really stinks it up. Maybe you New England fans should find a quarterback that won’t lose to the worst team in football.

Monday, December 20, 2004

So my primary blogging computer is down! Yesterday morning we had a power blip and when I went to boot the bad boy back up after that, it wouldn't turn on. I've had some issues with it before coming back on after a power failure but I've always been able to get it pumping again. Not this time. I'd hit the power switch and no sooner would the fans turn on, they'd turn off again. So I took the computer out of it's location in the desk cubby to take a peak inside. As I pulled the computer out I heard some rattling inside. This intrigued me a little, so I opened the beast up and shook it a little to see what was rattling. It was coming from the computer power supply. So I took that apart and opened it up and low and behold I found the problem. An exploded capacitor! The cap was what was rattling and it had completely blown off the leads and whatever foo is inside one of those things. There was a second capacitor with gunk oozing out of it and it looked like it was ready to explode all puffed out and stuff.

After seeing this I recalled an article I read more than a year ago that detailed failing motherboards with faulty capacitors that would explode. We even had some bad PCs at The Workplace due to this problem. Apparently these bad capacitors were inside power supplies as well. Although the power supply is under a 5 year manufacturer's warrenty, I decided against going that route for a replacement. I figured by the time I paid for the post and shipping costs, and whatever other hidden costs that went with it, plus the fact that me opening the thing up probably voided the warranty anyway, I decided to just by a new one. The thing only cost me about $50 from TigerDirect plus this one claims to be rather silent. Like any normal computer geek (I do try to keep that low key by the way) I'm anxious to get my hands on the new one and see how she runs!

Saturday, December 18, 2004

My legs hurt! Today was the big Robby Rhoades Volleyball Tournament in The Cove. My friend Kelly drove 3 hours for the opportunity to play. Like all other tournaments and leagues I've played in so far, the team made it to the playoffs, but never to the finals. We had a killer team too. We almost won the playoff game but just couldn't pull it off. I nearly had my fingers broken by blocking and Kelly about got knocked out with a wicked kill from the other team. When it was all said and done it was an awesome day. I know I'll be regretting it tomorrow, but hey, no pain no gain.

I need to check the weather tonight but last time I checked there was some snow heading this way for tomorrow! You'll find me up at The Knob next week probably multiple times. In fact, I may feel a cold coming on. *Weak cough* I may have to leave work early on Monday to, you know, "rest."

By the way, Andy you'll be very happy to know that I took my monthly "exam" this evening and passed with flying colors!

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Well, the snow finally stopped today. Not that that's a good thing. It has been pretty nice. There is less than an inch on the ground as it has just been a real light constant snow. But the ground now seems frozen so the next snowfall should amount to something sizable.

So I've been reading a new book recently. I'm sure you've heard of it. It's called The Da Vinci Code. Not only does the book cross mathematics and religion (references to the Fibonacci Sequence, Golden Ratio (PHI) and countless other symbols) but it's somewhat of a mystery novel as well. I'm about 1/3 of the way thru and so far it's a great book! If you're interested in different views of religion and are open to different ideas, I highly recommend it! For those of you who have heard about the book and claim it is sacrilegious to read, I’d urge you to re-evaluate your opinions and open yourself up to learning more about what you believe in.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

No Christmas is complete with an office Christmas party! And this evening was no exception. Driving throw a slight blizzard on the way to Bellwood and then The Calvin House, Steph and I were able to actually arrive to the party on time. Though the invitations said open bar was from 530PM to 645PM, it turned out the bar was open all evening long! That was a nice Christmas gift! Some people enjoyed the bar a little more than others and provided some entertainment, but hey, that's what office parties are all about. I didn't win a gift this year again, even with the absence on Horseshoe Head Ashley and his trusty sidekick Leprechaun Leroy! But hey, that's not what parties are all about. And have I mentioned it's been snowing since Sunday?

Monday, December 13, 2004

GO STILLERS! I'll tell you what. I love watching the Stillers play football on TV, but that doesn't compare to seeing them play in person! The real party started around noon on Sunday when Brad, Wendy, Steph and I pulled into the $30 parking lot to do a little tailgating. By the way, 30 bucks for parking? Why haven’t I gotten into the parking lot business yet? We had a pass to get into a closer parking lot for free, but for whatever reason there was no alcohol and no tailgating allowed. There were two too many NO's in that parking lot so we decided to pay a $30 to tailgate. It was quite the crowd there let me tell ya. I may have been the only person in a whole 2 mile area without some sort of Stillers paraphernalia on my body. That changed once I got my Terrible Towel and some bumper stickers (though most of the stickers weren't Stillers related and the sayings on them are slightly inappropriate here (hey, it was for charity or something, though after the woman that asked for money from this charity came back a second time we thought something smelled a little funny. Hey she had a badge and everything. After we told her she’d already gotten money from us she asked for a shooter. What a job huh?)). Anywho we enjoyed our 4 hours of tailgating quite well. Lambert (some guy with a #28 Lambert jersey) decided to take a pee about 4 times right in front of us. One car even dragged in their own porta-potty! A group of teenage guys parked their Ford POS a few cars down from us and decided to take their shirts off at one point in the 30 degree weather and slur (major emphasis on slur) "GO STILLERS!" Finally, with my three pairs of pants, 4 shirts, winter jacket, Terrible Towel, and Santa hat, we made our way to the stadium. Despite the loss of feeling in my toes I still managed to enjoy myself watch The Bus throw a touchdown pass as well as run another one in. It was a time filled with new friends, alcohol, and a whole mess of fun! GO STILLERS!

Friday, December 10, 2004

Sorry, no bloggin' today. I just spent the last 2 hours modifying my blog template. That is my blog for today.

Today's Tea Bag Tag Quote: A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor man made perfect without trials. -- Jimmy's morning tea bag tag

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Tomorrow is Friday! Time to celebrate (Droofus got the first buck since 1968). I'm looking forward to this weekend. Saturday I'm heading out to Pittsburgh for a wedding then hangin' out there until the Stillers game on Sunday! A little bit of tailgating and a heck of a lot of fun! I have this foobar feeling that work is going to take forever to be over tomorrow. Oh well. I guess that just means more time to code.

So let's talk about AIM away messages for a moment here. Are you an away message junkie? I am. I see a buddy has one up and I need to read it! It's an addiction. Why? I don't know. The thing about the away message is that it's an art form, much like a painting, the move creative, the more enjoyable. Andy's always got some good ones (especially when my name is in them). Vikki is apparently always going out to drink while her sister usually seems to put a decent amount of time into them to make her seem cool. If you've run out of ideas for some away messages, here are some good IM away message ideas.
  • Funny quotes from movies or TV shows. Seinfeld ones are excellent!
  • An observation that has a slight twist.
  • Making fun of your other friend's away message.
  • Saying something great about myself or the Stillers.
  • A completely random thought.
So let the creative juices flow and entertain me here people!

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

So did you know that there is a difference between dinner and supper? I didn't know it up until I moved to The Cove. On more than a few occasions I've been asked out to dinner, but it seemed their dinner started at 1200PM. It didn't take me long to be thoroughly confused. Now I have come to realize that what I call lunch, people around here call dinner. And when you eat your last meal of the day around 600PM or so, that is actually supper. So to get caught up, here is how this works. People here get up in the morning and eat breakfast, then work and have dinner, then come home from work and have supper. I still haven't figured out where lunch went to, but it appears people just don't have it around here. Keep that in mind next time someone asks you out to dinner. They may in fact just want to have lunch.

And to give Andy a heads up, I just read they are planning to build a new Sheetz restaurant there in Raleigh, NC. The Sheetz restaurants are huge, have free wireless access points, fully automated gas pumps (you can only pay at the pump), and an expanded menu. So if you or Janet have been in Sheetz denial, it won't be for too much longer!

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

I'm counting down the days until Sunday. Why is that? Well, I'm heading out to Pittsburgh to see the Stillers play in person! Hot dog! Hamburger! YO! Turns out I know some people in high places. I'm hoping for some snow as this would be my first live NFL game and a little(or a lot of) snow would be sort of nice. The only downside is I'm missing the first week of volleyball playoffs, but hey the other people going to the football game play for the team we are playing against so while their team is upset with us, my team is quite pleased (though they are a little upset I won't be there). Here's to hoping the Stillers kick butt in the snow!

Monday, December 06, 2004

I think my co-worker got it right today when he said, "You need to write about work at least of some time [referring to this blog]. How else would people know why you're the way you are [making reference to my slight goofiness]?" We were talking about how I try not to write too much about work in my blog just incase someone from work were to come across this and get offended somehow. The fact of the matter is, work is plain chaotic. We get direction from here, and then direction from there and somehow it turns out the two go in completely opposite directions. We are told we will do one thing from someone then find out from someone else we are actually doing something completely different. It's a mess. Frankly I'm surprised we get anything accomplished at all. The big aid is being able to take everything in with a grain of salt. And it's a fine grain. But honestly, do I really care? No. We get things done and still have our fun doing it. Sooner or later things will get straightened out and who knows what will happen then. By the way, why do all barcode readers take 5 volts? All I want is a barcode reader than can handle 12 volts as in input! I don't think that is asking too much to make my world much simpler. WHERE ARE YOU 12V BARCODE READER!!??

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Has anyone noticed that commercials change over time? I'm not talking about commercials in general. I'm talking about specific individual commercials. One day the guy is saying this, then next day in what appears to be the exact same commercial the guy is saying something just slightly different. Let's look at an example shall we? Let's take the commercial for Brand X's heat rap. A few months ago the commercial consisted of a black middle-aged gentleman examining the rap with a completely white background. At the end of the commercial, the man says that he feels so good he could do back flips! As he assumes the back flip position (body like about to sit in a chair with arms swung back) then stands up straight and says, "Bad idea." Now when you see the commercial, its the same commercial and he still says the same thing (though way it is said with slightly different inflections) yet now the man just dances around and does not assume the back flip position. Why the change? Were people getting upset with this man about to do a back flip? Did executives think the product would sell better if the man did not assume the back flip position? What's the deal?

The most recent commercial I've seen with the minute change taking place is a commercial for Brand Y's Fajitas. At the end of the commercial some guy in mountain bike gear sees a man eating a fajita getting out of an elevator. Mountain Bike Man used to watch Fajita Eating Man eating his fajita while walking into and bumping his head on the closing elevator doors. Now Biker Dude has the doors close right on him! Why the change?! Was it too unrealistic the other way around? Did advertising experts thinks fajitas would not sell if someone only bumped their head into a closing elevator door? Instead, to really sell the product, someone had to stuck in the elevator door. These guys are genius I tell you! Pure genius (extreme sarcasm expressed right here in case you missed it)!

Friday, December 03, 2004

So apparently Boston isn't the only place CheeseBobs are disappearing from. All around the Blair County area giant CheeseBobs are vanishing from the tops of Burger Kings. The sad fact is that this is making big news around here. Honestly, does anyone really care? My questions is where are they all going? I mean have you seen these things? They're HUGE! It's not like you just throw the thing in your pickup and set it up in your room. My guess is all the CheeseBobs realize who they are, so they go jump off a cliff somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if sometime in the late 21st century giant deflated CheeseBobs start washing ashore in Europe and Asia with giant X's over their eyes.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend the movie The Incredibles. And if you're an avid reader of my blog you know that I don't see movies much and if I recommend one it must be good. Well it is! So what are you waiting for? Get out there and see it! It's always nice to have good company with you too so you don't feel too out of place laughing at a Disney/Pixar flick. And don't sit a row behind the make-out couple in the "fat guy" chair because . . . Well it's just gross.

So it seems to be official! Last night there was a Solstivus Miracle! The Miracle of Lights as it has come to be known occurred after my dad spent hours and days trying to get this one strand of lights to work on our Christmas tree and they finally did! Shortly thereafter, another Solstivus Miracle! As my dad was telling me about the miracle that had just occurred to him The Miracle of Tongue took place! My dad actually pronounced the prominent holiday correctly! For more than 5 generations (okay years really but generations sounds cooler) of celebrating Solstivus my dad has pronounced it stolstivus (apparently to be confused with the winter stolstis?) and after 5 years of correcting him we deemed the feet unattainable.

But now The Spirit of Solstivus is upon us and oh is it a joyous day!

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

First of all let me start by typing a little note to a little someone I (and Andy) call Skippy. Eehhh hem (that's me clearing my throat). "YOU SURE AS HECK BETTER NOT BLOW THINGS WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND! I ONLY PUT UP WITH YOU FOR 3 YEARS AND SHE'S WILLING TO DO IT FOR LIFE! SHE'S EVEN GETTING YOU CHRISTMAS GIFTS (Stargate SG-1 on DVD might be a good suggestion, just a heads up)!" All righty. The funny thing is said person probably doesn't even read my blog anymore and sometimes I wonder if he reads his girlfriend's. But I still love the guy. Honestly how can you not? You know Andy and were talking about the whole group living in a how together and being our own reality TV show. We obviously have the drama (way more than on other reality shows) but we both agreed it wouldn't meet its potential unless Hillner was there. Just keep that in the back of your mind if you happen to come across this some day.

So here's my other beef (there's a pun there, keep reading and find out what it is). Sometimes it's hard to fathom the world we live in and here's why. Probably one of the most disgusting things that can ever happen to a person is for you to walk into a 50-some colleague's area to talk about work. Said colleague sees you coming and tells you in a very serious tone, "Hey [insert name here]! I have something for you." Then without any warning what-so-ever said colleague squints his eyes, bites his teeth and lets a monstrous one rip! No matter how disgusting this occurrence is, there is nothing to do but laugh your frickin' head off. Why is this so funny? I wish I know but if you can picture this happening to you and you're not laughing out loud just by thinking about it, then perhaps you lost your sense of humor. Which is another thing I find hard to fathom . . .

IM Quote of the Day: What's this tampon doing behind my ear? ... And where did i put my pencil??? -- KerBear3133

Monday, November 29, 2004

So I decided I'd try to appease the snow gods ergo I slapped the ski racks on my car yesterday. We've got the precipitation; all we need is the cold weather. Doug, a fellow Workplace IT guru, and Ski Foo extraordinaire has been doing a snow dance for the past few weeks each morning after he gets up. I figured I needed to jump on that bandwagon as well. I hear The Knob is under new ownership this year. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that yet. I like the back yard feel of the place and a busy day at The Knob is like a rainy day at Ski Roundtop or Seven Springs. There's talk about adding more slopes and some more pizzazz around the place, and I think that could be a good thing. As long as they keep that no-man's country aura and Stembogan Bowl, I'll be a happy boarder myself.

Sunday, November 28, 2004

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. How 'bout them Stillers!

Saturday, November 27, 2004

I'm not really into giving shout-outs, so I'm not going to. Sorry people. Anywho, today was the big Volleyball Tournament at the ProCare Sports Complex in Bedford, PA. I had a fantastic time! It was a fours competition and there were 10 teams competing. Our team (team Darla named for the captain of the team) did quite well. In fact, come play-off time we were undefeated! This mostly due to our little (not very secret) maneuver called "Set the Ball to Tim!" Yeah, you put it up, Tim puts it down and like none other! Oh yeah, did I mention he also blocks pretty much everything too? With him playing middle front, I took a new place called outside hitter. Needless to say, I feel as though I played pretty well. In fact the whole team did well I thought. It took us some games (okay it took me some games) to get used to each other's locations but once we did we worked pretty well together. Once we got into the play-offs though our not-so-secret maneuver wasn't working too well since the people we were playing against could somehow on occasion block Timmy and even more amazingly not be blocked by Tim. Despite the loss, I had tons of fun and hope Rick James (that would be me by the way; don't ask me why I was being called that, it just sort of came out of no where) can make an appearance again with the same people. Here's to hoping . . .

Friday, November 26, 2004

So I’ve been tasked to discover some .NET coding standards for The Workplace. Today I finally got some time to do some research on the internet for this and came across some pretty interesting things. First of all let me point out that today was Black Friday and I was one of roughly 15 people at The Workplace. Do you know how motivated someone is when there are only 15 people in The Workplace? Not very to say the least. A few of us were ready to go play some football outside come 100PM. But hey, I was able to end the day with minimal work completed. Hey, everybody I’ve been designing software for for the last 3 weeks has been laid off. They’re in no rush anymore, and there are people at The Workplace I can know a little better . . .

Oh yeah, back to my research. So while roaming thru endless documents about older VB standards I kept seeing code snidbits with the variables “foo” and “bar.” It wasn’t too hard for me to get distracted and begin research on why people were using these dummy variables in code examples. If you at all interested in learning about foobar (not FUBAR (there will be no dirty language on this web site!)) then check out this link for an RFC document (that’s a standards document by they way for those of you who don’t know about RFCs) about the metasyntactic variables. Wikipedia also has some interesting insights!

By the way, look for the words foo and bar (but probably not baz or qux or quux or quuux or . . . well, you get the idea) to start appearing in blog entries.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Big layoffs at The Workplace today. Over 130 employees! I should probably not mention too much about this, but hey, it was on The News tonight so I feel I shouldn't get into too much trouble, plus I don't know more than The News stated anyway. The crazy part is, I've been working with a decent amount of those people lately on our newest project and now it seems like our project has been dramatically down-sized thanks to the changes at The Workplace. Wish we would have known before two weeks ago. That would have been quite helpful. But oh well.

In other news, Julie and I went to go hear Barney sing in County Chorus yesterday. I'm told the group as a whole wasn't as good as last year, but I thought they did pretty well. If I could have singled Barney out, I'm sure she did great! However, I couldn't even see her thanks to Big Hair Bun Girl in front of her. Oh well. Julie and I had fun and then ate pizza afterwards. Why Barney refuses to eat pizza is beyond me. I'm one for health foods as well, but you just can't pass up pizza. She'll learn once she goes to college. Although, I guess when Pizza Delivery Guy says to you, "Dude you're going to turn into a pizza," you may be eating a bit too much . . .

Monday, November 22, 2004

Finally an evening of good volleyball playing! I always seem to play better with less than 6 on a team. Then I don't feel like I'm getting in the way. Diving is always fun and I just have lots more room to do it when there are only 5 people playing.

Other than volleyball not much else is going on. Tomorrow it looks like I'll be Solder Slave for a day. I've got about 18 little circuit boards to whip up for new time clocks that are going out to one of our daughter companies (by the way, why is it a daughter company and not a son company?). They aren't really involved. The board is just a proto-board so I've got to solder in all the leads and what-would-be traces. Speaking of soldering boards and traces, it looks like the Messiah Engineering Department got a brand spankin' new circuit board milling machine! How cool is that?! Back in my day, we had to use chemicals and dark rooms to make a printed circuit board. The miller (making no referance to my sister and her husband) is about 1000 times better than chemicals with more reliable traces (oh the problems we had with senior project) and can even do milling for surface mount stuff! I feel like I'm missing out. You feel like I'm a loser now after reading this, so it's all good.

Saturday, November 20, 2004

How 'bout them Lions! What a football game! Just in case you missed the Penn State - Mich. State game, Penn State slaughtered the Spartans 37-13! I was supposed to go to the game with my friend Kate, who's a big Mich. State fan (unfortunate for her), but unfortunately work kept tied to home. I was able to poke my head up from time to time to watch a few plays (all the interceptions! It was great! What high school do the Spartans play for?), but I spent most of the time doing coding for work. Our latest project has Ashley and I quite bogged down and we both took work home to do for the weekend in hopes of being caught up to where people would like us to be next week. I was supposed to go to Erie, PA on Friday for work, but we've been so busy, that has been pushed back to next week some time (hopefully not Turkey Day). I'll most likely code tomorrow as well while I watch the Stillers (yes Janet, I know I spell it incorrectly, but that's how it's pronounced) but I'll be sure to watch enough of their slaughter giving as well.

Friday, November 19, 2004

All right! When's the snow getting here?! I mean it's mid-November and I haven't even seen a flake yet. I guess this just means I have to start doing my snow dance every morning. Lucky you, you don't have video of that, nor does it even exist!

Hmmm, I guess that's all I really have to say right now . . .

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Nothing like a 600AM wakeup page is there? Well, not when you're used to getting up at 700AM. It took me 15 minutes to fix a problem over the phone, and then another 40 to fall back asleep. You do the math, my alarm was not very welcome. But anywho, the rest of the day went well and here I am typing away. Tuesday Ashley and I released a test version of our latest software that allows us to control a plant for those giant I-beams used in making bridge decks and such. The beauty of this new application is the ability to control everything from anyway in the world! All you have to do is access a certain web page and you get live steam temperatures and you can open and close any valve, or even schedule a cure for a minute from now or a year from now. It's pretty exciting to see the tests and the guys using it like it even more. There's still a lot of work to be done on the system, but preliminary tests show great results! It sort of makes the last couple months worth while. Now (and since Tuesday) I've got lots of time to spend at our on-site location. It's a great environment! Extreme heat, high decibels, tons of dust, and I have to be inhaling some sort of gas because the air just isn't smelling right. What can I say, I make things work, and it gives me satisfaction.

In other news, Vikki has reminded me Solstivus has indeed brought its wonderful miracles once again. The beauty about Solstivus Miracles is that they can be personal miracles. Of course, if it is indeed a great miracle such like the original 15 Solstivus Miracles (all I can remember of them is one had to do with a flaming cutting board . . .) then it will be ordained by The Founders of Solstivus, but you can have personal Solstivus Miracles. In fact, some of those turn out to be better (hinting at the 30 odd miracles of my college senior year).

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Boy was Peg's Diner open for business today! For those of you who don't work at The Workplace (all of you most likely) we have a small cafeteria there run by a women named Peg (hence the name Peg's Diner) who makes us lunch everyday for free! It's not a fancy lunch, just some soup, salads, sandwiches and/or hot meal. Well, today was a special treat. Peg's Diner was open for breakfast! I'm talking eggs, sausage, ham, pancakes, potatoes, muffins, biscuits, all the stuff! Then, to top that, we had a Thanksgiving feat for lunch! I'm talking turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, the whole works! And yeah body was it good! It'll be quite some time before I eat another breakfast and lunch like that. Here's to working 30 minutes from the nearest restaurant so The Workplace makes it for you!

By the way, if you haven't heard, the first 3 seasons of Seinfeld are being released on DVD at the end of the month! If your not buying them, then either you have no sense of humor or like to think you don't.

Monday, November 15, 2004

This just in. Tiles A and B are the same color! That's WHOHAW you say? See for yourself. Copy the image into MSPaint and move the tile. With pictures like this, it's no wonder men only know the 16 colors in a Crayola crayon box!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. How 'bout them Stillers!!!
Here we are at Monday once again. You'd think someone would do something about that some day. Anywho, this past weekend proved to be pretty fun despite some issues. Saturday I helped my friend Kate move a few miles away from her current place. I'm not quite sure how her new roommate's dad and I compared to the small Mexican boys that brought Kate's queen size bed in her old place, but I think we did a bang up job considering the room we had to work with. Come 600PM Saturday evening I was dead tired. Moved all day with only donuts to eat and coffee to drink in the morning. That didn't stop me from playing some Frisbee with Roscoe and Moose for 2 hours though. Thanks to the FlashFlight we threw well into the dark! Once my throwing arm was completely dead we headed out for some dinner at Damon's. It was a good time. Even ate with Scary Sarah. Sorry Sarah, it's nothing personal, everyone has their nicknames. It could be worse. People could call you Moose! I had some wings and chicken tenders. After a little upset stomach, Roscoe, Kate and I headed back to Kate's new place and played a little Life and had a few drinks.

After I racked up in Life (and I do mean racked up here! Heck they were lawyers and doctors and all I had was a university degree. It's too bad they didn't keep winning the stock market or finding rare art collections worth $120,000!) we all hit the sack. I wasn't laying down for more than 10 minutes when I got this awful feeling in my stomach. To make a long (and disgusting) story short, I spent the next hour or so introducing myself to Katie's toilet and bathroom floor. It's been 15 years since I last threw up due to illness. I was a little upset with myself for ending that streak, but I guess the lesson here is if you think you ate some bad food, don't wash it down with a couple of drinks.

Needless to say, it took me until today to feel up to my normal eating habits (which is basically eating anything I can get my hands on during a meal). Although currently I find chicken completely unappealing, I'm sure it won't be too long before I'm checking out those suicidal buffalo wings again. Let's just hope the next ones I have come out the proper end on the way out.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Okay, so volleyball season one has come to an end and I feel like hanging up the towel. We were the 1st rank team and lost in the semi-finals to the 4th rank team. And we lost in great fashion, two games in a row. The only relief I got from the game was my playing was much better than last Friday (though that isn't saying too much). It was a big disappointment and let down as our team just didn't play well tonight. Sunday better go a heck of a lot better or I'm seriously going to hang up my shoes.

With all the crappy playing I've been doing lately I decided to step it up and start some training. In addition to my running days, I've added sit-up, pull-up, leg-lift days on Mondays, Wed, and Fridays. Soon will be Increase Jumping 101 added as well. But I need to find a sure workout to increase my vertical at least 6". Hey, it can be done. Karch has something like a 42" vertical. And he's 44 years old! Good night!!

On a final note I've seriously been considering growing my hair out for Locks of Love. This is a very risky move, but I have all this thick hair that is going to waste. Might as make someone happy with it. I'll keep you posted. If I do decide to do this, the growing won't begin until 2005. I've got a hair cut next Tuesday!

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

So, I know I'm killing myself with this one, but most of you know, I am a Star Wars freak. And I feel it is my job to inform you all that the new Episode III teaser trailer has been released! You can catch it at StarWars.com! So far it's lookin' good. The final episode in Lucas' long 6 Star Wars episode career (maybe a little too long) should answer tons of questions (like why some Jedi disappear and others don't (this is one mystery that has even plagued the most dedicated enthusiast such as myself)). So in any event, I'm sure I'll get a lot of heat from this entry, mostly from Andy, but hey, I got him on the Stargate SG-1 bandwagon so I don't want to hear it. Okay, so maybe a healthy dose of sci-fi is okay, but yes, I'll be the first to admit, knowing Luke Skywalker's son's name is Ben (named after Ben Kenobi) and that those aliens in the Cantina playing the music are the species known as the Bith doesn't really get you too far.
Well, it was a somber day today. Today there was another IT employee that no longer works at The Workplace. It wouldn't bother me so much if I knew why these people no longer work there. Everything seems to be going great with them, then BAM! They are gone. If things work like they did last time, I guess Ashley and I will be picking up even more projects . . .

Well, I guess that's enough of that. Hmmm, I don't really know what else to say at the moment. I guess some words of encouragement to everyone out there reading this that has had some somber moments lately. Have faith in yourself and trust in the Lord that he will shape and mold your life in a way that is fitting to His plan. He will delivery you and give you all you ever ask for. All He asks for is a little faith and trust.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Let me start off with this: If you haven't read Christen's blog entry for November 05, 2004, you are completely missing out! Maybe you have to know her, but that entry just made me laugh pretty darn hard. And there's nothing more stupid than laughing out loud in front of only a computer.

Second, it seems to me that Fall has completely disappeared! We apparently skipped fall and jumped right to Winter because it's pretty darn cold and windy outside! Today it was about 35 degrees. And that is not Celsius people! I say bring it on though, except add a little snow here.

By the way, how 'bout those Stillers!!??

Monday, November 08, 2004

Oh joyous day! Julie Brady has joined the blogging community! You'll notice her link over there on the right hand side with the others. I'm not a huge fan of the color scheme, but hey, we can't all be perfect. As long as she blogs a little more often that some of those other bloggers...I'll be happy.

Anyway, speaking of Julie. We hit up the Jeremy Camp[Stay] concert last night at Lancaster Bible College. I only own one CD of his, but it's good, and so was the concert. I'm pretty sure I can say that it was the best concert I've ever been too. Now keep in mind it's only the third one I've been to, but it will be tough to beat. Next time I hear he's in town, I will definitely have to go hear him again. We were only about 6 rows back from the stage and it was quite the show. It's great to see artists actually worship instead of just sing. In my mind it's two completely different things. Last night was just pure worship and sometimes that's just really hard to find.

Finally, I was doing the normal reading in the bathroom stall today and came across today's quote of the day. For me, these words seemed to sum up parts of my life. I hope they may be as meaningful for you as well.

Quote of the Day: We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't.

Saturday, November 06, 2004

The state traveler has finally come to a stop . . . For a day. Thursday I left for Buffalo, NY for a business meeting Friday morning. The drive was pretty awful. Ever travel on Rt. 219 for 4 hours straight at night an in the rain and blistering wind? I wouldn't recommend it. Anywho, after at least 2 U-turns, we got to our hotel where we checked in and then headed out for some dinner. Luckily, The Boss is a wing fanatic just like me and his theory is the same as mine, "The hotter the better!" So when you're in buffalo, the place for wings is the Anchor Bar, the birthplace of the Buffalo Wing. Luckily, they had 4 different styles of wings, mild, spicy, hot and my favorite, suicidal. The Boss and I got 25 suicidal to split between us and another 25 of hot to cool our mouths down. Those were some good wings! The nose was running, the eyes were watering and the finger tips were burning. Even though The Boss and I were both sniffing for the whole meal, we both agreed we were a little disappointed with the suicidal. I was told there's a place in Altoona that has much much hotter wings. I may need to hit that place up next. In any event, I had great wings and beer at the original Anchor Bar.

So yesterday, after our meetings, we left Buffalo for The Workplace. Then I immediately left for Annapolis, MD to place some volleyball with my head coach from camp, Kelly. After a total of 8 hours in the car, and 25 buffalo wings digesting, I didn't play too hot. In fact, I think it's pretty safe to say I just about embarrassed myself on the court. Here is what I blame my horrfically awful playing on.

1) I was in the car for the last 8 hours straight!
2) It was 1100PM and let's face it, the later it gets, the worse I get.
3) In 3 hours, we only played 2 games to 11. When do you even have a change to get in the grove?!
4) I hadn't eaten since 1200PM while still in Buffalo.

So those are my excuses. We tried to drown the evening out with a little Duck Pin Bowling afterwards, but someone was misinformed about times and we only got to bowl for 30 minutes. Oh well, This morning we're heading out to IHOP so hopefully I'll get a chance to drown my sorrows there. In any event, tomorrow it's back to PA for a Jeremy Camp concert at 700PM! Hillner will be there so it should be interesting.

Finally, Don't forget to root for the Stillers! GO STILLERS!

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

So I've been watching Decision 04 for the last 2 hours and 45 minutes and I am still just as clueless about how they project the winner of each state now as when I started watching. Some of these states have only 2% of their ballots recorded and they have a projected winner! Does anyone else find this incredibly inaccurate?? I keep hearing about these computer models. Now, if you don't remember Hurricane Ivan, well you've been living in a dream world. If you know even a little bit about weather technology, you know that computer models also project hurricane storm tracks. If you kept tabs on all the hurricanes this year like I did you would know a new computer model for the storm track came out many times a day! Many times Hurricane Ivan was projected to not even touch Florida! But, eventually you're prediction time frame becomes so small that my pet spider monkey could make an accurate projection. Let's hope these computer models choosing the president are a little more precise (though I don't know how, and keep in mind I am a computer engineer by degree) than my pet spider monkey.
Let's talk about the election, as it is election day here in The States. It's all over the news, so I figured I'd put in my two cents worth, with an outcome prediction to boot. First of all, we all know the results of the presidential election are going to be close, but it's going to be a different close than 2000. Back in 2000, the election was close because no one really cared. Just like any random samplings of two different options results in a 50-50 split, so too did last election. Most young adults my age didn't vote because they didn't care. "What does politics have to do with my life," they would say. Unfortunately I had some friends who thought like that. I won't mention any names here, but I was a little disappointed in them. Anywho, most young adults didn't vote and older adults didn't care. They were just happy to be rid of Clinton, but they knew it was their duty to vote. So the outcome basically turned out to be a draw with the victor going to Bush (Thanks to a little help from my buddy Ralph Nader).

This year, the election will be close for a whole new reason. Finally, [most]young adults are noticing that politics does in fact affect their lives. They have learned the issues that they care about and have finally decided that they can control the leadership of this country with their voice. So, half my friends and millions of others set out to register before the election because 4 years ago they hated politics and failed to see the point in registering. Now, mostly thanks to the War on Terror (in no means am I praising the War on Terror) young adults care about their future so they set out to vote.

Now here comes my prediction. It turns out that most young adults my age have fairly recently graduated from college. As it turns out, I think most of them are pretty darn liberal (in no means am I using this term as negative; like everything else, it's just a label). Heck I'd consider myself pretty liberal on a lot of issues. But most young adults register Democrat, 1) because their Baby Booming parents are Republican and like all kids, they tend to disagree with their parents opinion and 2) because they want to be "part of the group" and not be cast out as in independent (again, I am not criticizing Independents; I myself have no party affliction).

So, after all that, it is my belief that Kerry holds the victory to this year's election. It will be close, not because no one cares, but because everyone cares! There will be record turnouts at the polls and a nation will be divided not by hatred, but simply by opinion. It will be days until we will know the results, but since Generation X has finally made a stand to voice their opinion and stand up for what they believe instead of just watching the world roll on by. Frankly, I'm just thrilled that there will be no more TV ads, radio ads, phone ads, billboard ads, and every other sort of ad you can imagine after today.

To wrap things up, realize that my thoughts on this matter do not necessarily reflect my actual vote. Like the title of this blog reads, this is merely life as Jimmy sees it.

Monday, November 01, 2004

As it turns out, I'm not the only person who enjoys hitting volleyballs at high school girl's heads. One of the many Mikes (I'll refer to this Mike as "Java Mike" (he's a Java programmer, **shudder**)) that works in the IT Department at The Company had the great fortune of doing such a thing for his high school's girl's volleyball team. He said it was a complete blast! Java Mike is less than a year older than I, and when he found out he wasn't the youngest guy there 6 months ago, he was quite ecstatic (as I said before, I am no longer the youngest thanks to another Mike (I'll call him "HelpDesk Mike" since he works the HelpDesk) that started a number of weeks ago). I told Java Mike that if he gets to do it again tonight to be sure to check with the coach and see if they need another person to "help out." Turns out Java Mike's (he's not a coach, just a fan of his old high school) high school girls made it to districts and their coach wants some hard hitters drilling at their heads. I told him to "Hook me up yo!" Okay, so it's not the nicest thing in the world, but hey, they have to learn some time to stop being afraid! Jimmy is always up to teach a lesson.

Sunday, October 31, 2004

If Vikki cried tears of joy when the Red Sox won the World Series, she must have had tears of sorrow when she watched her beloved Patriots get pummeled by the unbelievable performance of the Pittsburgh Stillers. Yes Vikki, now you too can bow down to the mighty Stillers and be in awe by their butt whooping ability. Maybe, just maybe, someday your puny little Tom Brady can be as good as the rookie Ben Roethlisberger. But until then you'll have to settle for your 21-0 streak being ended by a rookie QB and a guy nicknamed, "The Bus." It's just a shame really. Maybe if the Patriots could have turned at least one turnover things might have been different, but not. There was just shear and utter defeat. Look out Eagles, the Stillers are ready to end your little steak too! Shhhh, can you hear that? That is the sound of a future Super Bowl victory!

Saturday, October 30, 2004

Okay, so the party last night was quite the party! There was drinking and dancing and drinking, more drinking, and yes, even more drinking. Luckily I had to drive myself home so I took it easy on the booze. However, the party organizer who plays on my volleyball teams was quite wasted. Now, when I say wasted, I'm talkin' completely Joed (for those of you who are not familiar with this term, you'll have to talk to Joe Blake for an explanation)! But it was tons of fun. They had good and I knew the four people that I went with. I found some ripped up jeans and blue shades and that old purple vintage shirt and went as a hippie. If I had longer hair it might have been more ideal, but it was a costume. The more disturbing incident of the night was when they started to play The Thong Song and the overweight biker dude dropped his drawers to show everyone his thong. "Oh my gosh my eyes! My eyes! It didn't help either he didn't pull his pants up until the song was over. Again, it was quite the party.

So today I had an eye appointment. It's been the third year in a row without a prescription change! Very nice. I even asked about LASIK surgery since nothing would make me happier than to wake up and be able to find the bathroom without putting my glasses on. My eye doctor said I'd be a good candidate so I'm sure I'll pursue this further. It's a bit expensive but then I'd recoup that over the years with not having to purchase contacts, glasses or solution, all of which can add up fairly quickly.


Finally, I ended the morning getting my new driver's license. Boy they've got some interesting people working there. One guy looked at my birth date, did some quick mental calculations and told me what day of the week I was born on. I was impressed. Luckily it took me a whole 5 minutes to get a new photo and driver's license printed up. The people may be a little out there, but they got me on my way in no time. That's all that matters.

Thursday, October 28, 2004

So how do old you have to be before people start listening to what you have to say? 30? 35? 40? I guess 23 is just too young for someone to have anything of worth to say. Heck even if he is very experienced in what he does, why should others take into consideration what he tells them? Maybe that's why there aren't any 25 year old politicians. No wants to hear them. They are too young so obviously they don't know what they're doing. People today wonder why this country isn't developing as fast as it used to or as fast as other counties over in Asia. Here you have to wait until you're middle aged for people to believe what you speak and take to heart your ideas, while over seas, you've got 20 year olds managing corporations. But hey, what do I know. I'm just a 23 year with an IQ in the 99.9 percentile. Oh wait, that must 9.99 percentile . . . obviously.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Lunar EclipseDon't forget about the lunar eclipse tonight! Partial begins at 9:14PM EST, totality at 10:23PM EST.
The funny thing about Andy's post is that I play volleyball with a Kerry, Barry, and Garry who are all brothers I might add. It was a real doozie getting to learn their names, especially since two of the three look alike (they are twins, how in da hell?)! For a small period of time, I thought they were the same person. Good God, they looked so much like the same person. I would say to them, "You want ice cream cone?" Both of them say yes!

So aside from that matter, it is poop spreading day here in The Cove! The tractors are out full force spraying crap all over the fields. The real kicker to this mess is that the farm across the street has this huge tub of dung that has been smelling for months and now that Farmer Brown is spraying that feces all over the place, it stinks even worse from a greater distance! It's the pits! As one fella once put it when referring to what my dad calls (small children please hold your ears) The Shit Kicker, "Hee hee, look! That thing is flingin'' poo!"

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Again, up in arms with The Workplace, but still truckin' along (pun intended). You know what I was pondering today? Why do I do what I do? I mean, I look at what other people do and I think, "Yeah I could do that." I can make cabinets for a living. I can teach students for a living. I can landscape, I can design roller coasters, I can dig for fossils. I can do it all! Of course all of that stuff would require more education, but that's easy enough. Why should I sit around coding all day when I could be off in Outback, Australia tending a bar, or Antarctica researching . . . Well, whatever it is they research there? It really makes me ponder if I will ever find a "true calling." Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but I can hardly think of something I wouldn't love to do. I'll tell you this, with all that's out there waiting, and all the time I've got to live, I'm going to experience one heck of a lot of stuff!

Monday, October 25, 2004

Okay, so Friday was quite an ordeal at The Workplace. However, I have vowed to not criticize The Workplace due to that fact some day, somebody, somewhere might come across this that also works for The Workplace and that could potentially make my life pretty bad. So, if you wish to know what is going on here in more detail, please feel free to ask me about it. I'd love to tell you.

So, in other news, I went to my second high school football game ever this weekend. Can't say it was any better than the last one I went to. How people can get caught up in high school football is beyond me. I mean, are they watching the same thing I am? I don't think they are! I'm seeing penalties out the wazoo and no flags! I see more penalties when I play NHL '03 with Andy (comment here is funny because Andy turns the penalties off)! There was definitely no such thing as roughing the passer in the game I watched. Also, Should it really be allowed to have a player that is 2 feet taller than anyone out on the field, including the coaches?! Heehee, you should have seen that kid run!

Finally, what is it with flies falling dead from the air at The Workplace. If you remember, I commented about this last year as well around the same time. It sort of freaks me out. I mean, how would you like it if you were coding along, minding you're own business when suddenly a fly bounces right off your computer screen and falls dead on the keyboard right on top of the home keys? What the heck! These flies have to be dead in the air! Honestly, how many times have you seen a fly in your house bounce right off a window and fall dead to the sill? I don't think so . . .

Thursday, October 21, 2004

So maybe I can finally get some rest! It's been well over two weeks now since I've had more than 6 hours of sleep a night. Most nights probably border on the 5 hour slot. If it weren't for stupendous baseball, friends, volleyball, and business trips, I'd be a little better off. Oh well. What good is life if you just sleep it all away? I'd much rather experience life tired than sleep it all away.

By the way, if you decided to go to bed early last night and not watch the end of the Sox game, what was your deal? It may have been the most nerve racking game yet! But it was good. I now expect Boston fans (particularly Vikki and Megan) to just calm the heck down. Let's face it, the World Series is going to as exciting as a snail race thanks to the ALCS. I'm not making any guesses right now as to the victor. In my book, Boston has won way more than they ever have expected and my guess is this whole World Series deal is going to feel pretty surreal for them and all of their insane fans!

Does anyone else know that YOU'RE RISKING A PATIENTS LIFE!!

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

I take it all back! Baseball Jesus has finally proved his worth! Six to nothin' baby!
So I dediced to do some link cleaning today. This is what you get people when you don't keep bloggin'. Or when you only make comments about how cool only one person is.
So here we are. One game away from knowing who the AL Champions will be this year. Will it be the interfering, home run complaining Yankees, or the heart and soul, stick it out playing Red Sox. I'd love to see the Sox finally win it. Though I think Boston might be upset they have nothing left to complain about again. All I have to say is that if the Sox win tonight, the Yankees fan sleeping a few doors down from me who also goes by the name Dad is going to be woken up by door banging and obsessive shouting! It should be good!

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

So, I found out why I need a QuickTime plug-in to view Xanga blog pages. Apparently there is music playing in the background of the blogs. Doesn't make me want to install it. I try to keep my PC Apple-Free. About the only thing worth viewing in QuickTime is the short Troops and trailers from Episode I. Which, by the way, were way better than the movie itself.

So how about them Sox?! I watched all 14 innings last night to be absolutely encapsulated by the 8th inning. There was no turning the station at that point. I'll tell you what, the World Series is going to bore the crap out of me thanks to the Sox-Yankee series. The question on everyone minds tonight is, "Can the Sox win 2 more and make some serious history??" I'll root for 'em. Go Red Sox! Down with the Yankees!

Hey, by the way, did anyone else here that there will be no professional hockey played this year? What's up with that?

Monday, October 18, 2004

So homecoming was this past weekend. I made it this year! If you check back about a year ago to blog entries around homecoming last year you'll notice I didn't quite make it there due to stupid wet roads and police locations. Though it was raining on Friday I was determined to make it this year. I did and it was tons of fun. It was great getting to see some people I hadn't seen in years and thought I'd never see again. People like Jeff Bryant (who by the way, if you're reading this, drop me your email) and Steve Shaffer. For a while I questioned whether or not I'd ever see Amy again, but I did. Even though she did run off to talk to Shoe Stealin' Kim during the volleyball game, and was rooting for the Yankees during Saturday night's game, It was still a fun time!

The drink of the weekend was Woodchuck. Heck even Andy didn't mind it too much. You know you've found a keeper if that's the case!

Speaking of Andy (and Julie for that matter); it's too bad your Cowboys couldn't handle what Roethlisberger had in store for them. Maybe Testaverde should learn to hold on to the ball a little tighter next time. Two friend's teams down, one to go. Though the Patriots may put up a fight, you're Still(ers) (HAHA! Get the pun??!!) going down Halloween day Vikki. You'll be scared silly! Maybe if Megan is lucky, Big Ben will spill some beer and champagne on her shirt. By the way, is it really that great if someone who has been 1 for 18 in their last at bats and has forgotten how to cut his hair has spilled beer on your shirt?

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

So after a nice O'Brian Burger at the Pittsburgh airport, the Automation Posse(Me, Gary, and Randy) made it to the plane to Chicago with our clothes and luggage still intact. After a few attempts of trying to get the pilot to show the Stillers game for the in-flight TV show and being declined each time, we sat patiently in the plane, waiting for our arrival. Once at the Chicago airport, we hopped a cab to our hotel (the Hyatt) just a few blocks away from the Navy Pier. We checked in and went our separate ways to our rooms only to meet down in the exhibition area where the open bar awaited my arrival. Who new conferences had open bars? Well it seems everyone but me. Though I wonder how much faulty information is being sent and received with talker and listen alike both half sloshed with the fullest bladder you could possibly imagine (Hey, I had to celebrate the Stillers' victory (is Roethlisberger the next Tom Brady or what!)!)

With the exhibits over for the night, he pick up 2 other members of The Company and head out to some good steak eating! A nice 12 oz. medium rare filet, a few more beers, some mashed potatoes, ice cream, and coffee and I was darn near full! It was great! The best part was, it wasn't my money! Though I think the bleeding steak and 5 beers had a bit of a quarrel in the stomach (that or I just ate way too much) as the next few hours after dinner were quite uncomfortable.
For Sale: Red duffel bag-style suitcase. Contains some chemical that sets off the X-Ray scanner in the airport. Will be searched and chemically swiped whether you carry it on, or check it in at the airport. Provides hours of entertainment, or annoyance (depends on how you view the situation). Great for gag gift! Great for hated friend who wants to borrow your stuff to go on his trip to Australia!

Seriously now. I can't go anywhere with this thing! And the airport people won't tell me what's wrong with it. They open it up! Swab the thing with chemical cloths, swab my stuff inside. My shoes, my shirts, even my deodorant! Of course anyone's white powder Old Spice is going to look like crack in a plastic can, but hey I don't see you guys opening up Joe Cool's bag to do an inspection. Oh well. It was humorous to what them scratch their heads over this.

So there is so much to tell from Chicago if you can't tell already. I mean the story starts even before we board the plane! Now while my bag is being places into a large Ziplock bag for CSI to examine, Gary has set off the metal detector and is basically being felt and grabbed all over! He's got his shoes off and in about 10 seconds, his pants are going to be taken off next. After frisking him for 10 minutes like he was a drunk hooker, they find a small penny dug into his right pocket that was setting everything off. In the mean time, I was as the airport woman tried to decipher the flow chart in front of her as to what to do with this red bag and where to proceed next. She spends the next 5 minutes copy the information from my driver's license. Funny, I've never seen any normal worker struggle so much copying a driver's license. I guess the font was hard to read. That and her pen moved really slow. She should probably get a new one that moves a little faster.

In the mean, Randy has a very suspicious looking plastic fat suitcase that contains a whole mess of wires, prox switches, magnets and even a sharp screw driver! Of course, he zips right thru the X-Ray scanner. I mean what is suspicious about a suitcase full of that stuff? Funny, the sine there at the security showed items that would not be allowed on the plane. I though the one object looked like a screwdriver, but I must have been mistaken. I mean it's pretty easy to mistake a screwdriver for a gun!

Finally Gary is given his clothes back, I get my bag and license back and we sit down to board out prop plane to Pittsburgh. Once on the plane I reach into my wallet to discover a nice big 50 cent piece and my metal belt around my waist. Never once did it set the alarm, but a penny! Whoa look out!

We decided at that point to check all luggage in on the ride home. You can only guess the excitement then, but that will have to wait! Stay tuned!

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Out to Chicago! Be back Wednesday.

Friday, October 08, 2004

As a side note, I read your blog Roscoe, and I know those people!
So the trip to The Subsidiary went over quite well. They 5 guys I wrote software for pretty much fell in love with the app. There were a few bugs and some minor changes, but they accepted it without any problems. And I'm told those guys do not handle change well. They were even ready to trash their old program today! I told them to quit being stupid (though in a little nicer way) and to test out the new stuff for a week before they trash the old. I will say though, having people like your work that much, pretty much makes it all worth while. What can I say? It makes me happy to see other people happy.

So because of my trip, I missed out on the first few hours of the weekend, but that's okay. I'm going to Chicago on Sunday for a few days anyway, so it's worth it. At least this business trip I get to go with some other people. I wonder how many beers The Workplace will pay for . . .

Thursday, October 07, 2004

So I'm heading down to The Subsidiary tomorrow for the day. This will hopefully once and for all rid me of my dreaded web application for work. I'll be releasing the first official version. I'm sure they'll want more bells and whistles, but, you never know, I might not be up for it. I'll fix the bugs, but I may just have to pass off new features onto someone else. I wrote the documentation for the beast Monday and Tuesday. All 20 pages of text. And that was without screen shots. Though once I handed it off to our technical writer, she was more than thrilled that I had done such an efficient job on the documentation and really all she had to do were the screen shots and play with the app a little. It made the endless hours of writing this week worth while just to have someone appreciate what I've done. So anyway, let's hope all goes well tomorrow and I won't be back to The Subsidiary for Project TS (the web app is an online application that allows the company to dispatch their trucks) EVER!

With that said, I'm getting ready to head off to St. Patricks Elem. School for some Thursday night volleyball. After this past Sunday, I'm really cravin' some nice hits. Tonight's setter treats me a little better, not that my other setter doesn't, it just seems whenever I get the set . . . well, it's not a good set.

Oh yeah, I hate the Yankees!

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

You know, I can understand not wanting to support the Rally Monkey because your favorite sports team of all time is playing against him right now. But to tell me the Rally Monkey is dead, and for no apparently reason is just plain rude! Let me tell you something! Telling me that the Rally Monkey is dead, is simply telling me you don't believe! So, you go ahead and cheer on the big guys. But, let me say this, if you're gonna root for the underdogs in one sport, you sure better have some good excuse to not do the same for baseball.

So winter is apparently just around the corner! What are the tell-tail signs?

  1. The grass has a nice glossy frost on it

  2. It looks like you're exhaling a cigarette as you walk out your front door

  3. Every time you touch a door knob or get out of your car, you get a nice little shock!

  4. When you run, it takes about 3 minutes for your throat to be completely dry making you swallow ever other step

I love fall and winter!

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

So it has been brought to my attention that space boy (that's me) hasn't brought up the whole Ansari X Prize deal. Well, the truth is I'm a little saddened that someone has won it and the race is over, but also I'm saddened by the media coverage. The fact is, if SpaceShipOne (and come on! Couldn't they have spiced up the name of the ship even just a little?) hadn't spun out of control on their first launch it probably wouldn't have even made the Today Show or Nightly News. It's saddens me that people would rather focus on the depressing war in Iraq and the confrontations of Kerry and Bush than on this exciting new frontier we have just taken on. I guess it's hard on someone that loves science while the rest of the world just thinks he's crazy. Oh well. You won't see me in space anytime soon. I'm not quite ready to fork over $200,000! But over time, that price will go down and space flight will become more popular and I'll get there some day. I just hope that with the X Prize finally won, private space flight becomes as big a push as they hoped. With the new X Prize Cup in the works, I think it will get there eventually.

Monday, October 04, 2004

Hey where are you going? I'm not done yet! The stupid thing is you'll read this before the first entry. Anywho, I got hooked up with yet another volleyball league starting in November. The team is pretty much people that went to Rehoboth, but the younger of us, me of course still being the youngest. But only by a month, and hey, what do I care? That just means I'll be playing longer than anyone else out there. Our team should be really good! With me also being the shortest guy on the team, I'm seeing a lot of victories here!

So my friend Kimba from high school got engaged this week. I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this, but I was to wish her a congratulations anyway. With any luck it will be the first not-dry wedding I've ever been to. And I've been to at least 5! Come on now people! Let's think a little.

I also picked up the Star Wars trilogy at the mall yesterday as well. It was just sitting there discounted staring at me in the face. Of course I had to get it. And of course I'll have to watch it and say every single line before it actually happens! Hey! Don't you call me a mindless philosopher you overweight glob of grease!
So after eating pizza and watching the Stillers for a few hours yesterday with great company I headed off to the mall to get myself some new kicks (that's shoes for you old timers reading this). I started getting some killer shin splints while running a few weeks ago and did some quick math and determined it had almost been a year since I had a new pair of running shoes! That's way too long! So I liked the pair I had had for the past 10 months so I just figured I'd get the same kind. Well, Fate told me that they didn't have my shoe size in that style at Foot Locker so I went with something new. I took them for a test drive last night at the Sunday Volleyball League. Well, at least I thought I was going to. It turned out I didn't really do a lot of moving. For whatever reason, my setter thought I just wasn't set worthy last night as I'm not even sure I got 10 sets the whole game! I didn't even break a sweat! The gel was still keeping my hair in place for crying out loud! And it wasn't as though the team we played against was super stinky, the ball just never came to me, whether it was offense or defense. So the shoes didn't get a real good workout, but the little I did play, they seemed pretty darn spectacular. Though keep in mind I've probably been running around on wooden planks for the past few months.

Saturday, October 02, 2004

I have way too much time on my hands! Refresh my page in awe as you watch the picture of me randomly change! Oooooooo! Ahhhhhhhh! Feel free to steal my code!
By some amazing act of God, my dad and I got done trimming all the shrubs and cutting all the grass in just one day! Grant it we started at 900AM, but we were done by 400PM, just in time to watch some football and take a short nap. I'm sure the pain will set in tomorrow. Usually it's in the arms and the back. That's fine with me really. My back is constantly in pain from playing volleyball, so might as well throw the arms in there as well.

Penn State plays tonight at 800PM. I'd love to watch a victory but their -14 point favorability just doesn't provide me the confidence I need. Oh well, I'll root them on anyway. Let's hope they are able to keep their #1 QB for longer than 1 minute this game.

Friday, October 01, 2004

This just in! Beside the fact that I'm home at 900PM on a Friday night, check this juicy tidbit of information out. It can be found here.

The only whale capable of swallowing a man is the Sperm whale and in 1891 a seaman named James Barley was claimed to have been swallowed alive by one and then retrieved after the whale was killed. Although mentally unbalanced for several weeks, he is said to have eventually recovered from the ordeal.
If you haven't checked out the Internet Movie Archive I highly suggest you take a look at it! There you'll find some great informative documentaries of the 60's, 70's and who knows what else! Now I'm talking full legal downloads here! Did you ever see those black and white dating videos from the 60's? Or wondering what to do in case of a nuclear attack? This is place for you. In fact, I may even think that junior high student's most favorite video can be found there, "The Miracle of Birth!" I'll tell you what, if that video didn't make me want to have kids, I don't know what did. If you ask me, it was a pretty good form of birth control. I guess most of my high school skipped out on the day they showed that in health class . . .
Ode to the weekend! So it hasn't been a really busy week, but it is nice to see the weekend here. Too bad I'm trimming shrubs tomorrow and Sunday. I don;t mind it too much, but the trimmer is a gas one and my arms just plain hurt a few days after I trim. Oh well I guess. So I'm hoping to get out on the weekend evenings maybe. Too bad there aren't placed around here where you can go listen to some good live music and down a few drinks. I guess if you down enough drinks you can imagine there is some live music playing. Though I try to stay away from places with that philosophy . . .

Thursday, September 30, 2004

So the first big presidential debate is tonight. I was looking forward to it until I realized I had a volleyball game tonight at the same time. Oh well, I guess Andy will just have to tell me all about it. I made up my mind anyway. Who wants a president who catches a football like my sister anyway?

By the way, look at the goon in the background of Kerry!

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Oh and by the way, if you haven't registered to vote, you've got a few more days. If you want to vote this presidential election, make sure you register by October 4th!
You know what I don't understand? We have all this medical technology these days; great stuff like artificial hearts, pace makers, robotic joints and limbs, even artificial eyes that can see! And no one has ever thought up the idea of a trap food door. Picture this if you will. You take a bite to eat of that delicious pie and as you swallow, you taste the delicious morsel sliding down your esophagus! Then, just after the tasting is over, you open the trap food door in your chest and out the food comes! Then, you take another bite and another and another for as long as you want and you never have to worry about eating junk and you can eat for as long as you want!! What isn't too like about this? Sure it may be a little messy, but you can eat all day long and never get full! I'm sorry, but I just don't understand why this isn't around yet. Maybe I'll give it a few more years before I go to the patent office and whip out the scalpel myself . . .

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

If Andy is mentally ill, then I might as well join the club. My legs hurt, and my back hurts, but I just keep playing volleyball! My knees have turned a nice permanent red and blue color and my right shoulder just doesn't feel good when I get out of bed, but does it all keep me from playing?! Heck no! Once a sport becomes a part of you and you can truly absorb yourself into it, you don't care if you win or lose, all you care about is playing and being the best you can possibly be, no matter what the cost. If that means you need to mentally ill, then so be it. There's a whole mess of us mentally ill people here in The Cove and it seems as though there's another down in North Carolina.

Monday, September 27, 2004

So another weekend has come and gone. I spent the majority of the time hanging out in Camp Hill with Kate. Though most of Saturday was still spent watching football on TV. I was highly disappointed with Penn State's performance. Once their second QB was knocked out, I figured the game was all but lost. And it sure was!

Yesterday I had a volleyball game and finished in time to watch to last 3 quarters of the Stillers game. Now the Stillers were playing in Miami. Why they didn't postpone this game is beyond me. Half the field was just complete mud that's to torrential downpoars and the baseball infield. Even with their nearly 100 yards of penalties and their rookie QB's first start, the Stillers still managed to pull some amazing crap out of their cracks! Hey, when you've got a room full of guys, pizza, wings, and one highly energized, talkative toddler, you're gonna have some interesting times!

Thursday, September 23, 2004

I would have to agree with Janet on this one. Though uniforms do make it nice in that you don't have to wonder what to wear for the day, it is nice to be able to express who we are by what we wear. And for some people, if they feel the need to express themselves as a teenage hoochie, then, well, that's their problem. Though I do think limits should be placed on how short skirts can go. Obviously if a junior high girl were to lean over to pick up a dropped pencil, I really don't want to be getting a glimpse of her underwear.

And why shouldn't girls be able to wear pants? If that's what they want. But, you have to keep in mind, that back in the day pants were a man's clothing. To be okay with women wearing pants, then the same people should be okay with men wearing skirts. Frankly it's not my style, but if that's what some people feel like wearing, and if men and women are indeed equal, then people really don't have an excuse to say it's only okay to go one way.

Volleyball is tonight. We should play a good team so it should be lots of fun. Let's not forget, that not only am I Batman off the court, but on the court as well!

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

I'm pretty sure it's inevitable. Wherever Vikki goes, she must find a Chinese place to hang out at. Gosh, what's wrong with the American places? I know we don't have those China Specials or whatever they're called, but personally I think that's a good thing.

So I'm pretty sure I have caught up on all the sleep I missed this past weekend. Which is good. It was a real struggle to wake up Monday morning. Last night I kept waking up, which means I'm getting too much sleep. Another bad thing that makes it a pain to get myself out of bad. Oh well. I'm still "Proud to be Snooze Free!"

I saw on NBC Nightly News last night a clip about bloggers and how we spread the news. Mainly it was concerning that CBS Document Report fraud, but frankly it's true about all news. Even though we report news about ourselves that really nobody gives a hoot and holler about, we do talk about important issues at times and it's nice to generally get a non biased opinion about an issue. To actually hear what the average person thinks is great! I'm getting pretty fed up with the media telling me what the average person thinks.

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

I still don't really have anything to talk about. Sorry.
Wow, so I'm still a little on Cloud 9 from this past weekend. And I am insanely sore! Running pretty much just plain hurt today. Oh well. I really have nothing else to say right now. Maybe you should check back later . . .

Monday, September 20, 2004

Why do I even click on Roman's link anymore? I have no idea.

Anywho, this weekend was the big Mid-Atlantic Volleyball Tournament down at Rehoboth Beach, DE. Hurricane Ivan didn't scare us away in the least! I wound up leaving here at 315AM Friday morning, meeting up with some people at Sheetz, then getting down to our room around 930AM. First of all, let me say that I only knew 2 person that we were hanging out with there. The guy who invited me, Earl and Kerry. So at Sheetz I met Darla, Kristy, Bob, Tim and his wife (forgot her name). So we stopped at Micky D's just before the Bay Bridge and got some breakfast, then when we got to the beach, we started playing volleyball right away! These people here could live, eat and sleep volleyball if they had the chance. So could I for that matter. So we meet up with more new people once we're down there, Brad, Wendy, Stephanie, Eric and Rene. We played some vball with each other getting warmed up for the tournament on Saturday.

Friday night was the night to end all nights! Keep in mind, I know just about no one here and they are all quite outgoing and just freakin' hilarious! Some of the girls have a lot to drink and get up and start dancing on the bar at the Summer House (not a gay bar by the way). Drunk guy over there can't even keep his eyes open anymore and the one bartender is kissing anyone who puts their boobs in his face! I did get picked on some for not talking too much, but I started warming up to them all by Sunday and felt okay to talk some smack to them. Needless to say they were pretty gung-ho on corrupting the young pup from Messiah College. They didn't corrupt me by any means, but it was pretty cool to hang out with people completely different from my normal crowd. I even got to know one girl, Stephanie, pretty well. Too bad I was only 1 month younger than her making me the baby of the group. Oh well.

So needless to say, I got about 3 hours of sleep Thursday night and then maybe a good 5 on Friday before playing volleyball on Saturday. I played BB division with Earl and we didn't do too bad, but we could have done better. 4 and 8 was our record that day. The morning was pretty nice, but come the afternoon, the wind was blowing around 20 mph and pouring rain. Volleyball in that kind of weather just isn't volleyball. But it was fun. Earl's wife, Lanett decided to go shopping and made Earl and I walk a mile and a half back to our room from the beach with the chairs, bags and umbrella in the cold wind and rain. My arms were blue by the time we got to our room. But it was fun (on a quick side note, I just got the new DMB live album in the mail just now!).

Saturday night was another late one at the Summer House, but Stephanie and I were pretty tired so we left early. Since Sunday was the co-ed doubles tournament, and her first teammate pulled his hamstring on Saturday, Stephanie asked me to play with her on Sunday. So I had to get some kind of sleep so I didn't disappoint her, since I'm told she is quite the player! And she was. Unfortunately though Sunday was a beautiful day, the wind was around 20 mph the whole day so we couldn't really play anything that resembled volleyball. We played okay with a score of 5 and 5. It was fun though. By 300PM we needed some food since the guys that said they'd get us some around 100PM weren't back yet. We went to the Ram's Head to get some burgers and watch the end of the Stiller's game. Of course they lost. Why would I expect anything less?

All-in-all the weekend was an amazing time for me. I met a slew of great people who'd do just about anything for you and with you, and who just LOVE the game of volleyball. I even got myself into some more tournaments come Turkey Day. The best thing is all these people live around here so I'm sure I'll get to hang out with them again shortly. Some a little sooner than other's maybe . . . Anyway, I'm sure I left stuff out about this weekend, so if you have questions, e-mail me! The next beach tournament is in the spring and you will definitely find me there!!

Thursday, September 16, 2004

The weekend started just a few hours ago! Well for me anyway. Tomorrow morning (around 400AM) I'm heading out for the Mid-Atlantic Volleyball Tournament in Rehoboth, DE. I'm pretty s(p)iked (just some volleyball puns!)! Though my beach skills don't quite match up with my indoor skills, I don't really care. The Boss let me take the day off and that's all I needed. Let's just hope that Crazy "I-lost-a-bomb-do-you-have-it?" Ivan keeps the rain a little further south.

Speaking of volleyball I've got a game tonight just outside The Cove. We are finally playing a descent team! I expect another 1-2-3 victory though. Although their one player is spectacular and has even been known to explode a volleyball upon spike contact, that is really all they have. I'll be blocking him most likely. Let's hope my fingers and hands hold out. The downside is, I'm not even joking about the exploding ball! The upside is I have seen him play and he hits low to the net, which means I can block him. I'll let you all know if I survive!

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

First of all, I want to give a big happy birthday to my boy Roman! Now you're old like me . . . until 3 months when I'll be super old!

Second of all . . . actually I don't really have anything else to say. Happy birthday big guy!

Crazy Giant Tim!
Click to view the giant picture!

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

So I found out last night that due to fossils found in 2003 in China, and other fossils found in China a few years before that, it has now become an accepted evolutionary fact that birds are the direct descendents of some dinosaurs. Of course, this didn't surprise me a whole lot as I thought that was pretty obvious 10 years ago! In case you didn't know, and I'm pretty sure none of you reader know, when I was but a boy I was obsessed with dinosaurs. Sort of ironic that they are still called dinosaurs as that name means "terrible lizard." There has been so much discovery in the dino-realm since I was a boy. Brontosaurus only existed as the head of one dinosaur and the body of another, some raptors were known to have feathers, and paleontologists even decided that an asteroid in fact did kill the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Now of course I realize I have readers out there that think all this evolution stuff is just garbage, and that's okay. We all have different views of the world around us. Who's to say what I believe is right anyway? But, it is interesting to me, so I will continue to study it and learn more.

So I got a little off the topic here. Back to dinosaurs. It's sort of neat seeing the evolution of information related to the ancient creatures. I remember watching videos and ready old encyclopedias about the dinosaurs in which the information then, would be completely incorrect. It's just weird thinking about what do we think we know now, that in 15 years we'll discover is just completely incorrect?

Monday, September 13, 2004

So supposedly someone forgot to give me the memo about not eating lunch today at 1200 PM. Ashley and I went down to the cafeteria at the usual time and there was no one there. We sort of cracked a joke about it and continued to get our food. So we were about half way thru the food way and Gary told us we couldn't eat then. "Didn't you read that notice?" he said. Ashley and I just sort of looked at other like he was kidding. I thought, "Well, I didn't get an email about it and no one said anything." Well it turns out the really high up people haven't realized that we have what is called an email server that can send an email announcement to everyone at The Workplace (all at the same time mind you) about any thing that needs to be announced. Like for instance not eating lunch from 1200 PM to 1230 PM due to a large external group eating lunch there. Apparently, other people found it more humorous to over hear Ashley and I discussing about going to lunch, then leave for lunch, and then laugh at us behind our backs. Why should I be nosing around the coffee pot looking for messages on paper about lunch when 1. I don't drink coffee every day, and 2. WE HAVE EMAIL FOR THAT KIND OF STUFF!!!

Sunday, September 12, 2004

Today's weather forecast: This morning, fog early, then clearing skies towards late morning with a 100% chance of James, Alan and Age. That's right, this morning, me and two college buddies jumped out of an airplane! And let me tell you, it was incredible! The dude I was strapped to jumped out upside-down so we did a nice back flip out of the plane followed by a few spins. We jumped at 13,300 feet which gave us nearly a minute of free fall! Then spent about 5 minutes chuting down to the ground. I can't wait to do it again! And believe me, I will do it again, and then maybe again, and then again and again . . .

Saturday, September 11, 2004

This week marked the one year anniversary that I started my job at The Workplace. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. I've learned a lot in the last year, but the thing that gets me is that it doesn't feel like I've worked there a year. I guess that's what you want? I mean, if you've worked at your job for a year and it feels like ten years, then that isn't very good.

Tomorrow morning I'm heading out to Grove City, PA. What for you ask? Well, there comes a time in a man's life when he needs a little thrill and risk taking. What better way of doing that than jumping out of a plane with nothing more than a huge piece of fabric attached to your back that supposedly will slow the descent thru the air. That's right. I'm talking about sky diving! I'm heading out with two buddies from college. Frankly I think one of them will chicken out, but I guess I won't know that until I'm half way between the stratosphere and the earth!

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Well, last night was supposed to be my good--night--sleep sleep. I was in bed by 945 and half asleep come 1015. Then, my Dad knocks on the door and says, "Sorry to wake you, but I need some help. The basement is getting water in it." Now, I really hate it when people overstay their welcome. But I really hate it when its storms by the name of Francis. Yeah yeah, I know was all welcoming for it yesterday, but this was NOT fun. I threw on some pants and stumbled downstairs. Now, our basement has only taken on water two times before and it was really just a trickle. A few water marks on the carpet, etc. And the one time was because we lost power and the sump pump wouldn't work. But this was different. By the time I got down there there were already a few water marks, but they were growing, and fast! Suddenly I realized how much stuff I had on the floor from building my arcade and what-not. So my dad and I frantically put stuff up on the furniture so it wouldn't get wet.

Well, That was all fine and dandy until we could watch the water steadily flowing into the sump pump hole and then suddenly just continue to back up. Yeah, we just stood there dumbfounded as the water rather quickly began to swell outside the hole. I could tell the pump was still working, but it just wasn't keeping up. Now, all the while it is raining outside like it's going out of style. I grab a flashlight and take off outside to where the water is pumped into the grass. There is a small grill over the discharge pipe to keep the mice from running up in it. But, the grill was clogged and the water was being forced out as high as 3 feet into the air. I get down on my hands and knees and unscrew the grill while water steadily flows around me and besieges my face. Suddenly the water is once again flowing, but it was too late. 30 minutes after the water had begun to come in, the basement looked like this:


I asked my dad, "So, how high can it get?" My father just shook his head in complete frustration and defeat and slowly looked at the ceiling. He didn't need to say anything at that point. I understood what was meant. We began hauling all the furniture from the basement upstairs. The 4x4's we put the arcade on was slowly drowning so we placed it on top of a 3 feet high desk. We brought up couches, TV's, computers, recliners, the bar was packed with stuff and our upstairs foyer filled. Keep in mind my dad and I are doing all of this in our boxes with water up to our ankles. Finally, 5 1/2 inches of rain and 2 hours later the rains slowed and the pump began to get a head of the rain. The water stopped flowing over the baseboard and began to slowly drain out. Tired, and utterly defeated by nature far out of our control, my dad and I made our way upstairs to bed.

The thing that really irked me was the fact that last night was my night for a good night sleep. Now I won't have another until next week sometime. I'll tell you what, if God didn't create irony, this world would sure be a dull place.