Entry 400

So I realized that I was coming up on weblog entry 400 a few days ago. Rather than be all dramatic about the number and going on navel gazing, I will simply do an update. Of course I may lose a few of you as I wander through my mind, but that’s tough for you. It all makes sense to me.
Michele left for her latest quilt event in Virginia on Tuesday. She’s there. I’m home with the girls. Coordinating the pickups and dropoffs is a little hectic, but I’m managing. The toughest part is when they get a little tired and cranky. Not much I can do when they say ‘I want Mommy!’ besides ‘I do too!’.
I finished reading my book, Fallen Dragon, by Peter Hamilton. I had checked it out of the library and renewed it once, so I felt the need to finish it soon. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Hamilton’s touch for hard sci-fi is light, but enough to keep my inner geek intrigued by the tech in the story. The end seemed a bit rushed like the Reality Dysfunction, but it wasn’t unsatisfactory.
On the home tech front, I finally fixed the audio problem with the girls’ computer. After doing quite a bit of messing about, I finally realized it was the BIOS. I d/led the latest version, flashed it, and viola, clean sound in all the girls games. The first rule of computer fixing has got to be ‘check for BIOS upgrade before freaking’. On my own computer, I broke down and got the l33t Western Digital 120G hard drive with 8MB cache. They are getting quite popular and have gone up in cost $20 in the last few days. I’m glad I bought Ghost & Partition Magc for cheap off of eBay. It was pretty straight forward to install, partition, and ghost the old drive onto the new drive. Of course I had to upgrade the BIOS. The old Epox 8HKA+ BIOS wouldn’t recognize the WD drive. I have to say, the speed of the drive is noticeable. SCSI elitists have nothing on me. Once I decide to buy the Romtec drive selector, I can get linux running at home. I must curb my techno lust.
On the political linkage front, thanks to Radio Free Blogistan, I found this interesting image on plasticbag.com. Hi-larious. It also seems that Bush’s Energy Cabal planned the takeover of Iraq even before he was president. Wake up America! Big Oil is running the country with moronic puppet sitting in the Oval Office. Lastly, the new term of the season is chicken-hawk. Vote these fuckers into a lame duck administration in November.
I found a new spoken word artist to listen too. Somehow I ended up in the site of Earnest Kline. He talks a little faster than I’d like, but the content is worth it. Take a listen to The Geek Wants Out. The insane thing is that I get every single reference in the clip. If you like his stuff, buy it. It’s only $10. We need more of this and less of that stupid shit on TV that sucks minds dry. The Dance, Monkey, Dance clip is fantastic too, but he doesn’t have that MP3 available online. I only regret he only has one CD.
Oldschool – I had found bash.org a while ago and enjoyed much of the humor that a long time IRC user would enjoy. I especially like this one. Of course my knowledge of the internet reminds me of my age. Today on Genmay I saw this:
Usenet?
Where can I go find the Usenet or the Usernet?
I heard it is a P2p program or a similar program where people download games or what not.
Do we need classes in net history?
OK, it’s 12:27AM and I need to be up with the girls in less thant six hours. More as I think of it.

10:38

The Sopranos is over and the dish washer is running.
Part of me wants to climb into bed and read my book, part of me wants to play games, part of me wants to file some paperwork, and part of me wants to write up the geocaching trip.
The girls will be awake in 7 & 1/2 hours… What to do, what to do?

Wireless

We just finished a geocache with the Diggs. I am sitting in a park tapping on the laptop as the kids play on the equipment, I’m testing out the new Sprint PCS wireless internet connection and it rocks.
I was a huge pain to get working, but now it’s pretty good.
I think after the park, we will go have some ice cream.
Life is good.

Friday Five

I thought I’d do the Friday Five tonight.
1. What are your favorite ways to relax and unwind?
I like reading, playing games, and goofing around with the kids. Being outdoors is always a plus. The key to me being able to relax is some peace and quiet. If everything around me is loud and busy, I have trouble relaxing.
2. What do you do the moment you get home from work/school/errands?
I put down my briefcase, unload my phone, wallet, keys, etc. Then I talk to the girls and see how there are doing. Usually it’s time for dinner, then the girls bath, then putting them to bed and reading. By around 8:30 or so, I get some time to myself.
3. What are your favorite aromatherapeutic smells?
I don’t like a lot of smells. I do like a hint of vanilla, coconut, or mint. Anything too strong is irritating to me. Poor Michele, she can never wear much perfume or I complain.
4. Do you feel more relaxed with a group of friends or hanging out by yourself?
Hard to say. Some times I like the peace anf quiet of solitude, but having fun with friends cures much stress.
5. What is something that you feel is relaxing but most people don’t?
Playing videogames. Michele refers to it as ‘killing nazi’s’. When I play games, my mind is focused on doing well on the game and nothing else. My thoughts of work, money, and other stresses disappear for the moment and I am in the moment of the game. I don’t think Michele or the rest of my family understand the relief I get after playing games for a bit. They all want me to sleep. Sleep sucks. As Warren Zevon said, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

Back

Being Daddy is being updated again.
Don’t tell Michele I had Der Weinerschitzel for lunch today. I had my hair cut at the stylist she makes me go to these days. Much hair, odd smells, wierd people, and other strangeness. I felt the need to get in touch with my manliness. I felt a chili dog would be just right to recalibrate me from the trip.
The company store is out of Kingdom Hearts. Dang nabbit! I was hoping to score the discount on the game. The girls finally asked for a Playstation game unprompted by me. When I say the girls, I include Michele. She wants Kingdom Hearts too.

Linux Success

At the office, the five day attempt to install Gentoo Linux ended in victory. After giving it a good try, I continued to get a kernel panic upon boot. Our resident hacker, Yoshi, was unable to unfuck it as well. I gave it a shot and I like the idea behind Gentoo, but unless you are already a *nix guru, don’t attempt it.
I pulled out the Mandrake Linux CDs and reinstalled that. Fairly smooth. I struggled a bit the rpmdrake software manager. On a whim I installed the Ximian/Gnome Desktop. I loved the fact that the install was a command line instruction for lynx to run a script remotely. That install was smooth as glass. I then checked out Gnome for the first time in several years. Holy Finland! IT looks great now. Back when I chose side in the great KDE/Gnome debate, Gnome looked terrible. Now it looks great. I played with the Red Carpet software manager. Red Carpet is incredible. It is, dare I say, easier to use than Windows. More today in my quest to get Evolution working as a corporate mail client with our Exchange servers.
I finally got the license for Spam Assassin at work yesterday. I’ve been using it at home and it does a fantastic job of blocking Spam. Hopefully this morning I will find a small Inbox and full Junk Mail folder. It’s well worth the money.
This morning I spent my 30 minutes on the stationary bike in the garage and watched the end of the Better Off Dead DVD. THe movie finished with about 5 minutes left to ride. I was quite pissed off that there were no bonus materials on the disc. What a ripoff! You know there were some good deleted scenes and outtakes from that flick.
The weather here is quite strange. It’s foggy, there is ash falling from the sky due to the fires in the hills, and it’s supposed to hit 90+ degrees today. When does Autumn arrive? I’m ready!
Lastly, there’s a great movie from Ikea. It’s worth the download wait. Click on the TV.

So I know…

So I know I should be working, but what the hell. The fargin plans for the email migration and the latest round of signatures can wait.
So I ask you all if you like the linkage at the top of the page. What response do I get? My mom posts that she likes the old way better. I’m shocked! Mom isn’t down with change? Who would have thunk? Brad walks into my office and says he doesn’t like the link of weblogs on the top. Just two people?
In any case, after looking a few other sites, I realize that my design skills are PATHETIC!
Take a look at Escribitionist, Very Big Blog, and Doc Evil. Go ahead, look. I’m be here when you get back…
See how their shit just sings style and attitude? My stuff sings ‘engineer learning basic CSS’.
Enough bitching, I need to finish up around here.
Lastly, I finished creating my mother’s weblog last night. The URL is supra-sekkrit until she want’s it public. Heaven help us.