The more behinder I get.

Wow, life is moving a bit too fast as of late. As luck would have it, things seemed to slow down a bit Sunday night.

To recap: Lost my job, got new job, lost vacation, family went on vacation sans me. worked some 90 hour weeks, built a deck, built a shed on the deck, worked some more hellacious hours. School started, Tina went back to work, the kids retired from being Acolytes, we scrambled to get the collage paperwork in, Tina went down south to visit family (I had to work). Trevor went off to collage (didnt call for 4 days, then we tracked him down). I got the hooks and shelf up in the bathroom. We cleaned up the room the boys inhabit, I wired Diana and Connors room for internet. We had company over. I reloaded the OS on my old Dell Dimension 8200 for Connors use. The dishwasher seems to be leaking.

Now I just need to haul Trevors stuff downstairs. Then

paved with good intentions.

My nephew is a hunter. He went to a collage that had quite a few hunters enrolled. They had a gun locker set up. that required two people to open for access to the guns and ammo. Everyone knew where the weapons where, and everyone seemed happy with the prospect.

In comes a new person in charge of the school. She is shocked to find out there is a gun locker on campus so she bans it and all fire arms.

Now there was just as many weapons on campus but now no one knew where they were and practically anyone had access to them.


(story provided by my sibling)

Why would anyone?

Time and time again we see waste in government. Budget requirements that make you spend or get your funding cut. Systems where the actual service rendered is dwarfed by the bureaucracy. Common sense tossed aside for group by in.

Insurance companies themselves are pretty ponderous and lacking in efficency. So why would anyone want government to run healthcare?

Right now most healtcare is this:
I'm going to pay you money every week at some point I have to go to the doctor and you will pay for it out of the money I have given you. You keep the rest of the money for this service. You will have to fight with the doctors so they do not do stuff or bill stuff that isnt needed. Oh, and you cannot say anything to me about my own personal habits or health.

With Government it would be something like this:
We are going to take your money and determine who gets paid for healthcare.

Finally More Nuclear plants

31 possible plants being built

I see this as a great wonderful awesome thing. I just hope a couple of these are put in Oregon.

Code Monkey (Ronns kids fav.)

Ronn recently showcased this song done in an 'unplugged' setting. In the comments Toymaker says this version is the one Ronns boy likes bestest. So I thought to put it on mine.

Internet help Desk

Oldie but a goodie. Working at Dell phone in tech support I can really appreciate this guys bit.

L33+ talking.

Way back in my early days of the internet I happened upon Internet Relay Chat (IRC). So I was introduced into a world of Slang. LOL, AFK, BRB, L8R and so on.

As the newness wore off of just chatting and online games with other people took my interest, quite a few of the slang terms moved over and a bunch of new ones have entered my lexicon.

FTW = For the Win!

AoE = Area of Effect (some kind of offense that works on a location instead of an individual Think of a gernade .vs. bullet)

Gank = Taking out (sending to the graveyard), another player who has no chance against you. (Think of Mike Tyson .vs. one of Jerry's Kids.... TYSON FTW)

WTS = Want to sell

WTB = Want to buy

LFG = Looking for group

pewpew = Dealing large amount of damage (think of old laser fire sound effect)

PUG = Pick up group

Agro = Getting the attention of a creature by it attacking you.

lots of others, and as time passes I dont even notice its slang. It's just WTF? another TLA needing defined, LOL n00b.

All your base are belong to us.

A bit of background on this all time web classic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base

Satoko Shinashi (someone not to fight...)

Hugh Laurie's Protest song.

Pachelbel Rant (5min and funny)

Rob Paravonian going off on pretty much the music industry as a whole.

Happy Anniversary Honey

19 years ago this day I made my best choice ever. And got married. I had met Tina at a Church Dance. Two days later we went skating and aside from a minor bout of insanity I had, we have been together ever since.

Life does have its twists and turns, good times and bad. I am pretty lucky that our worst times are pretty dang good in the overall scope of things. If I do have times when things get me down, Job loss, bad day at work, etc. I just have to sit back a minute, think of Tina, and the rest of the day is easy.

It's pretty cool being in love.

First day at work

And what a day! Still have a lot to go over and more to learn.

but, its fun and I am being handed quite a few projects. So its all good.

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance

They say that there is a series of mental processes you go through with a loss. My call center closing was not any different.

One minute I'm helping a customer on the phone, next moment I'm cleaning out my desk. I just grabbed the personal stuff and left. I thought it was acceptance, but it was denial.

Next day it hit me harder and I got some anger and some depression. Prayed a lot, which is your classic bargaining. Weekend was the Anger, Bargaining, Depression bits.

Monday I interviewed for the job I accepted this thursday. Closer to home. Better money and a pretty challanging occupation.

There are bunches of questions about what exactly happened that will never fully be answered. Even though things seem to be working out pretty good (nice bonus from the severence that we dont have to dip into). I'm still not in that acceptance phase.

Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. There is a great comedy act on that in the 1979 movie All That Jazz. I tried to find that video link but wasnt able too..... yet....

Out of Work

Thursday August 2nd we were called into a meeting, I was about two hours into my shift. Earlier we had received an e-mail that 'big-wigs' would be out and about today. At the meeting they announced they were closing the call center and handed us our final checks.

This took everyone by suprise. Not even the upper management seemed to know what was going on. Now in retrospect you can pierce the veil and see what happened.

Dell went after the home market with a vengence. The $399.00 pc. They expanded the sales force and went after other electronic markets. MP3 players, Plasma Televisions, Home Entertainment technologies. This was all under the tenure of Kevin Rollins.

The stocks tumbled, the company did some cost saving measures and outsourced a bulk of the customer care and technical support. Quality all around slipped. The Bloggers really went into overdrive and the bad press etc. Kevin 'left' the company. If you look at his parting gifts compared to other CEO's you can read between the lines.

IMHO it was a line on a spreadsheet that delivered our fate. Anyone looking for a smart tech savvy guy with excellent personal skills. Dependable and loyal.

I'm looking,.

mini-Trampoline

Connor, likes to jump. It used to be he would jump on the couch or bed. This is not what those are designed for, so Tina went out and found him a mini-trampoline (two actually).

Mini-Tramps are usually found at garage sales and they are in pretty good condition. You do not see one that has heavy use. They are in-fact, near perfect condition.

The only one I have ever seen used... is connors...

It has had the legs welded on (he stripped the screw on legs) I have replaced about 1/4 of the springs. It may be time to start looking for a new one.

Joanne Rowling

So I'm pondering what is Ms. Rowling going to do next, insofar as writing goes?

There is an issue with 'topping' what you did before. Seeing as Harry Potter is a best selling juggernaut the likes of which has never been seen before in the history of publication. It kind of puts one hell of a height of the bar for her.

Of course she really doesnt 'have to' write anything else ever. Broke single mom writes seven books and becomes the richest woman in England. She did mention she was going to take her notes and make an encylopedia. Which sounds fun. She also mentioned she wanted to 'fall in love' with a new project.

Personally, If I was in her shoes I would probably write a series of childrens books for kids just learning to read. Something that cannot be savaged by those icky people who wait for someone to fail and pounce upon them like vultures.

Have the proceeds go to 'reading is fundamental' or some such organization that helps kids learn to read.

Just an idea out there for ya Ms. Rowlings...

They say its your birthday (Beatles)

title is the answer to the question below....

Yup 46 trips around the sun. Woot! Not that I have really cared or payed attention too much. I figure the aches and pains that I do not recall from my earlier years are all the reminder I need. Anyways, it was an interesting day.

I came into work and was slammed because we had a lack of techs and I try to do my utmost to answer questions and review notes and come up with possible solutions for folks. At one point I had three people at my desk and six messanger windows open. (King multi-tasker here). I survived.

The morning was rather uneventful as everyone slept in. So I watched a bit of tube and decided I wasnt going to walk in on my b-day. The family met me for Mexican food. I overate and felt stuffed the rest of the day. Headed home to a light dinner of Greek peppers, feta, hummus and spinich puff thingys (insert proper greek word here).

Then it was phat lewt time. I got Ultimate x-men trade novel, Modern history of comedy (with DVD), new running pants, Comic book holders, work shirt and a Jet Li DVD (Fearless) so all in all a good haul.

We had some cheesecake for dessert with fresh blackberries. And watched some of the comedy DVD then Doctor who.

After all had settled down I perused some Doug and the Slug music videos.

So next another trip around the sun...

Here's another clue for you all.

Today is:

Opening track on the Third side of the White Album. (first song 2nd CD)

Busy work

I play World of Warcraft (W0W). It has largely taken the place of TV for me. That is to say instead of plopping down on the couch. I'll log in and visit the people online. It's more social and with all the bad shows on TV (American Idol, Survivor, that housewives show, etc.) I am not missing much.

Some people I work with have been getting together recently. So I have been meeting up with them on a different server then my usual haunt. Blizzard, the company behind warcraft has 210 different servers (realms) with identical worlds. They would put up a new server when the others got full. With 8 million accounts you could see why they would need multiple worlds.

It is a Sword and Sorcery setting and you design a character to play or portray. You start out doing tasks and gaining abilities and learning about the history past and current, along the way. Warcraft has a fairly deep storyline that goes back various incarnations of the game. You do not need to know the 'Lore' to play but I find it does add to the Entertainment.

Anyways, my new character is a rogue, they sneak around, pick-pockets, open locks and do a bunch of sneaky attacks that build up. I am on a Player versus Player server (PVP). Which means you can find yourself under attack by players of another faction. In WoW there are two factions. The evil, imperialistic Alliance, and the noble, accepting yet rough Hord.

Recently I have been upgrading gear as I have outgrown my old set. So I have my character travel to various points in the world and gather items then find someone with the skills to make the leather armor and daggers. As you gather up various stuff you can put it up for sale in a server wide auction house. The build in economy means you buy, sell and trade for items that you cannot or willnot get.

It can be quite a bit of busywork. Or you can ignore most of that and just plod along. In the course of 30min you can log on, do some stuff, laugh with some people and log off. I find it much more satisfying then sitting alone on the couch trying to find something worth watching on the Tube.