I am at the in-laws house and using a laptop with a wireless link to the DSL hub. OMFG, this is sweet. I can walk around with the computer and surf the web simultaneously.

Currently, I am lying on my back in bed typing while chatting with my wife in the bathroom. Ecstasy.

I cannot be allowed to buy a laptop and hook up 802.11 in my house. I would never be off the net...

Since this Segway news has been made public, I can now post this.

My Segway Adventure

OK, Newspro is updated and I am good to go.

I have been considering new blogging software, but have no firm opinion yet. Movable Type looks interesting, but more research is order. My brother uses Blogger Pro on his blog and loves it. But I dunno. Running the weblog through a third party site is a little risky for my tastes. If anyone has an opinion, let me know.

Before the road trip I finished Sleeping Dogs. I liked it as much as Butcher's Boy. It is strange to be rooting for the hitman to get away in the novel. He is a stone cold killer, yet Perry makes him the protaganist.

In the condo we were staying at was a few shelves of crime/mystery novels. I picked up Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard. I finished the book in a day (what else am I supposed to do while the wife is at the quilt show?). Leonard is a master of characters and dialogue, but in this novel he just didn't end it well. The pace and intertwining stories all kept me pulling through the novel, but the end was curt, unexpected, and left many loose threads untied.

Am I at the end of my reading binge? I dunno, I have another plane ride on Monday... The new Jedi Knight game arrives Tuesday or Wednesday, so I will be preoccupied soon enough.

At first it looked like I wasn't going to get into the Burn Baby Burn CD swap, but now I am!

Even though my loathsome brother tried to kill my participation, I managed to get involved anyway. Muah-ha-ha-ha...

Once I get home I can start pouring through my CD collection to find appropriate songs for the compilation.

I'm in Cincinnati. I was a little blurry in my last post. Actually, we had made it from Santa Fe to Rolla, Missouri on the first day. A little over 900 miles in a day.

After five hours sleep, we got up and drove from Rolla to Cincinnati, Ohio. It rained on us most of the way so the last 450 miles was a pain. We arrived in Cincinnati around 6 PM, just in time for dinner.

More later. I'm tired.

We are just outside Joplin, Missouri. We travelled roughly 760 miles yesterday.

Gotta go, Waffle House for breakfast...

I'm in Santa Fe. I'm working off a sweet 24,000 baud modem connection. I miss broadband.

Well, the trip started off well.

Michele and I hopped into the Super Shuttle at 9AM and headed toward Burbank Airport. We get in line for the Skycap check-in and bask in the sun. When the guy takes our itineray, he says, "You flight is out of LAX, not Burbank..." Michele gets that 'I'm fucking pissed' look on her face and we head inside to the counter.

The Southwest people reticket us to leave from Burbank and after a cool $100 fix it fee, we are on our way. Michele starts to blame ME for the mishap. Supposedly, it's my job to check the tickets and realize that her telling me we are leaving from Burbank is wrong. I respond that she bought the tickets, not me, and she should know.

We get to the bar and both have a double Jack Daniels shot with a Coke back. The warm fire fills our bellies and we hop on the plane.

After a brief stop in Phoenix, we get to Albuquerque, rent a car and drive to Santa Fe. New Mexico looks dry and dusty. It's not hot, but I can't imagine it in the summer. I'm sure that the Sun will melt you.

We meet up at the quilting convention with Michele's friends and I get to enjoy the banquet. When the lights went down for the slideshow, I snuck out to a hallway and read my book.

Things not to do: Attempt to load a Fark page over a modem connection. It's been loading the page for about 45 minutes now...

A consultant I work with was heading to England for a project we are working on. He asked what I wanted. I gave him a $20 and asked him to bring me back British candy.

Look at my booty!



Yum!

Well, in a short 21 minutes we get picked up for our jaunt accross the US, well, most of it.

Michele & I are going to be driving a U-Haul from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Cincinnati, Ohio. Why? It's a quilting thing, you just wouldn't understand.

I'll try to update from the road...

I saw this cartoon in the Pasadena Star News, it's by Daryl Cagle who draws editorial cartoons for Slate.



Hilarious.

What more could I ask for in life?

Drew Barrymore is remaking Barbarella and will be taking the lead role.

The only trouble is that I can't pre-order the DVD yet.

I finished up the Elmore Leonard book, Tishomingo Blues, that I had been reading. It wasn't the best book I've ever read, but it was an interesting mix of civil war reenactment, high diving, and the dixie mafia. The ending put a nice twist on how I expected the book to end.

Continuing in my crime theme, I'm now reading Sleeping Dogs by Thomas Perry. It's a sequel to the out of print Butcher's Boy. I'm only on page 15, so no firm opinion yet.

I loaded up a box with linux at the office and it appears to be running fine. Supposedly, Evolution, the Gnome mail client, has connectors to Exchange. I intend to find out if it works.

BTW, I played Urban Terror last night. It appears that they turned Quake 3 into Counterstrike. I don't really like the graphic style, but the gameplay is good. Of course, it doesn't compare to Wolfenstein, but it's worth the download.

After not changing the front page layout for about a year, I finally did. The change is striking, no?

At the office, I saw the little red light on my phone meaning I had voicemail. I logged in and heard hte voice say "You have ELEVEN messages." Fuck. Between voicemail and email I am swamped with info. Perhaps I need extra RAM in my brain like Johnny Mnemonic.

Urban Terror a Counterstriek styel mod for Quake 3 is d/ling now. Hopefully it will be good.

For about the 20th time I got this:



This morning it had 3 messages with this virus attached.

C'mon people, update your anti-virus software and kill this thing.

I had a quiet weekend with Michele at the Quilt Show and the kids at my parents for an overnight.

Did I use my free time to revise the Cruft front page, decide on upgrading blog software, get cruftbox.com running, or even sort my bookmarks? No. All I did was play Wolfenstein, DaoC, bake a coconut cake, and make bacon wrapped water chestnuts. I did catch up on my Tivo viewing and watched and deleted all the stored programs.

No, you cannot have a flat screen monitor.
No, I cannot finish that five year plan by Friday.
No, I will not pay for that.
No, you have to listen to me, I'm the boss.
No, I haven't read your email yet.
No, you can't have a raise or a promotion.

Yes, if I ask you to make something work, I expect it to work.
Yes, I'm busy.
Yes, I expect you to make a decision.
Yes, I have a problem with that.
Yes, that plan will piss people off.
Yes, I already told you the answer.

On the way to work I saw a women putting on her makeup while driving down the freeway at 60 MPH. She was holding a mirror in her right hand and mascara brush in her left. WTF?

Sometimes I wish I could spraypaint "Moron" on people's car legally.

I just finished watching Jeremiah on Showtime. Actually, it was last weeks episode. I liked it. We'll see if this take on the post-end-of-the-world sci-fi will take off. There is a little x-files feel to it.

Long weekend. Finally picked up the exer-cycle my parents are graciously lending me. The test will be tommorrow at 6Am when I hope to rise from blissful sleep and use it.

Anyone have an opinion on weblogger software? Between Movable Type, Blogger Pro, PostNuke, NewsPro, etc. The options are wide open. Let me know if you have an opinion.

More to come...