http://jeckles.shittyblogsclub.com/

I hate my job. I know… who doesn’t? But here’s the rub, I like what I do. I like my job description, I like the projects I’ve been assigned. I even like many of my co-workers.

But my peers, the other Network Engineers, they are ruining it for me. Of course, I can’t go around blaming other people for my problems. (I mean, obviously, I could… but then I would be like all those other assholes.)

It’s my own fault. I found an opportunity to design a very large project for the department. No one cares about the details, but our core servers are all on an outmoded platform. There had been discussion of bringing in consultants to migrate us to a newer platform, but the cost was prohibitive.

I looked at the situation and decided that it was possible for us to do this migration in house. I started scoping and planning the migration. I presented my plan to my boss and got her approval. So I presented this plan to my peers.

I had this stupid idea. This belief that they would somehow step up and take ownership of this project. They always complain that management doesn’t trust them with large projects. They always complain about be saddled with of date servers. This was gonna be a chance for them to solve both of these problems. As a team we could totally kick this project’s ass.

What was I thinking? Needless to say, that’s not how it went at all. Instead of a team effort, what I got was an assload of petty bullshit, resentment from my so-called team mates, and a bunch of assholes who were more interested in throwing a roadblocks, than finding solutions.

I should have seen this coming. I should have known better. And maybe if I had seen it coming, it wouldn’t have weighed so heavily on me.

I’ve been working on this for a year. And as of today I now have 2 sites (of 42) running on the new system and the infrastructure in place allow for the rest of the migration. This should be a proud moment. This is a real major accomplishment.

Instead, I feel tired, useless and generally miserable. The whole thing did not go as smooth as I would have liked, of course that is no surprise. I would have liked to have had a a team of eight engineers working on this. Instead, I carried the load with only grudging support from my “team.”

I first saw Ratdog in 1996.

It wasn’t because I was a fan, hell I had no idea who they were.

My buddy told me that we just had to go to Further Festival and who was I to argue. I was 24 years old and an all day hippie festival at the Virginia Beach Amphitheatre in June sounded ideal to me. To be real honest, I wasn’t that interested in the music. The only names in the line up I recognized were Bruce Hornsby and Los Lobos. I only new Los Lobos for their cover of La Bamba and Bruce Hornsby was a little bit ‘Adult Contemporary’ for my taste. I’d never heard of the Headliners, billed as the Ratdog Revue. I was going for the party. A bunch of hippies, outcasts and potheads converging to take the concert experience “Further” in the tradition of Ken Kesey. You know, the guy with Electric Kool Aid Acid Tests.

A few days before the concert, some one tipped me off that Ratdog was the name of the band fronted by Bob Wier and Rob Wasserman. Now Bob Wier I had heard of, the great rhythm guitar player of the Grateful Dead.

Six years earlier, I was in college. My roommate freshman year, Matt, was a true Deadhead. He had concert tapes for dozens of shows. I was familiar with the Dead, of course, Truckin’, Casey Jones, and Sugar Magnolias. But Matt’s tapes contained another dimension of the band that I had never heard before. Extended improv jams in songs like Fire on the Mountain and Eyes of the World. Matt would tell me all kinds of things about the band, perhaps he was trying to convert me. And I heard a lot of Grateful Dead music that year.

I had several opportunities to go see the Dead in the early 90’s, but I never did. I guess I kind of assumed that I would catch them on the next go around of the tour that seemed to never end. But when Jerry Garcia died in 1995, the Grateful Dead dissolved and I would never be able to see them live. I still regret that.

But in 1996,I was going to have the chance to see Bob Wier. I was excited, if I would never see the Dead, this would be the next best thing.

The festival was great. I had a wonderful time. And considering the amount of drugs and alcohol flowing, the people were incredibly laid back. No pushing and shoving, no rudeness, everyone seemed to be happy to be there and happy to be with each other. The music was pretty good too, especially Ratdog.

We had no idea what to expect from them, would it just be the Dead minus Jerry, or would they avoid grateful Dead songs altogether?

They opened with three good old Mississippi Delta Blues songs; Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Howling and Wang Dang Doodle. Then they played the Dylan classic, Maggie’s Farm. As the music played my mind wandered back to my freshman dorm of all of those songs on Matt’s tapes the one I liked the best was Looks Like Rain. I loved the way Bobby and Donna sang and forth to each other at the end of the song. After Maggie’s Farm, Bruce Hornsby came back on stage and sat at the piano. I can’t express in writing the surge of joy I felt when I heard the opening chords to Looks Like Rain. I got up and danced. And for the rest of the night and continued to just feel the music and dance with it.

The band continued into a smoking version of rhythm and blues classic, Juke. Next a Bob Wier tune, The Winners and then into a nice Easy to Slip/ Supplication jam. A bass solo, featuring the Star Spangled Banner, set up Turn on Your Lovelight to round out the set. For an encore Bob and Rob came back out with Hornsby and Mickey Hart (and probably some others, but I’m not sure) and played Wilson Pickett’s In the Midnight Hour, Dylan’s immortal All Along the Watchtower and Buddy Holly’s Not Fade Away.

A few weeks later, I went to a Smashing Pumpkins concert. The crowd was rude and there was plenty pushing and shoving. Billy Corgan stopped playing in the middle of one of their most popular songs and threw a temp tantrum cause some one from the audience had manged to throw a glow stick up on the stage. The whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth. I swore off concerts, figuring that perhaps I had simply got too old for them.

I didn’t even consider seeing a concert for over ten years.

Yes, one of those days.

You know the ones? The kind where nothing really goes right. Nothing goes very wrong, but nothing really goes right. I shouldn’t even complain, there are a lot of people in the world who have it so much worse than me. But I can’t help it… today everything just seemed to be conspiring against me.

Where to start…

Work? Oh yeah, work is great. Well, not great, but actually shitty. Why? It’s hard to put it in words really, its more of a feel than anything in particular. For example, today we had our one of twice weekly project meetings. We got through the agenda, my boss said that we were done. I packed up my shit and went to my desk, cause I had shit to take care of. After a while, it dawned on me that the other Network Engineers were still in the conference room. My boss had left, I had left but they were still in there. They remained in there for about 45 minutes.

I don’t know what they talked about. What I do know is that what ever it was, they didn’t feel the need to consult or ask me about it. Nor did they feel the need to update me on what ever it was.

Wow. Don’t I feel like an important and integral part of my ‘team?’ No I don’t. Not even a little bit.

My made up club, the shitty blogs club’s domain name seems to be parked at godaddy. The fact of the matter is The domain name and hosting were gifted to me. Same thing for shitty blog radio. I think the SBC domain name expired. The SBR one will be next. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I’m not 100% sure why it happened, but I’m fairly certain that there is more than a reasonable explanation for it. Hell, I can’t complain about that part at all.

The problem is, since it I didn’t register it, I can’t renew it. Whois shows it as expired, but none of the registration places will let me purchase it. Is this because of a bit of lag in the whole registration thing, or did some one else buy it? I don’t know. I am powerless to do much about it. I could register .net domains, but I’m not sure if it is worth it.

The bigger issue will be when shittyblogradio.com goes… I can register the domain, but I can’t afford to replace the level of hosting I’ve been enjoying. I’m not sure what I am going to do about that either.

At the gym, I was just stiff enough to stop me from running well.

My car was in for regular maintenance, so I couldn’t drive home for lunch. So I skipped it.

So on and so forth.

Just one of those days.

I hear people complain about the injustice and the difficulties caused by the beginning of daylight savings time. I, on the other hand, couldn’t be happier about it.

I mean I hate having an hour cruelly plucked away from me in the middle of the night as much as anyone. And I get irked by the whole ’spring forward, fall back’ thing.

“How am I supposed to change the time?”
“It’s spring so we SPRING forward!”
“That’s wonderful but it doesn’t help me. Sunday Morning at 2:00 AM what time will it become?”
“What do you mean?”
“Will it be One or Three?”
“Three.”
“Why couldn’t you just say so.”

I guess I’m just to literal, but it’s much easier for me to remember what exactly it is I’m supposed to do, instead of have to decipher some cutesy little phrase.

Still, it’s worth the minor inconveniences.

The Beginning of Daylight Savings Time marks the end of my annual battle with the cold dark days of winter. Sure there will still be some cold, maybe even some snow, but it won’t last. Today I walked out of the gym at seven o’clock and it was still light. It gives me hope that summer will be here soon.

And I’m not a big fan of the Congress, but moving it 3 weeks earlier was brilliant. Way to go guys! Now if you can just address this stupid war and the failing economy, you’d be on the right track.

From me longer days signal the coming of spring. And spring means being outdoors. Camping, hiking, boating and backpacking. A few of my favorite things.

And suddenly, I don’t feel so bad.

I had plans for this weekend. I really did. They revolved around watching Sci-Fi shows I’d DVR’ed and reading comic books.

There were a few productive things I meant to squeeze in there, but I was ready to do a whole lot of not very much.

Of course, I should have known that couldn’t happen. I’m not very good at doing nothing. Saturday morning I reached the final straw with my PC. One too many little quirky things had happened. I had no doubt what the was wrong.

The computer is almost four years old. The hardware is still very usable, I over-spec’ed it when I bought it for just that reason. But in the course of four years who know what the hell I’ve installed and uninstalled on this thing. I’m a geek, a tinkerer and a bit of a hacker. If there is something new and nifty I’ve probably checked it out. Installed it, tried a few things got bored and forgot about it. The cumulative effect from that alone would cause issues sooner or later.

But let’s be honest. Not everything I do on this computer is exactly on the up and up. Nothing terrible, but I sometimes have occasion to go to undesirable sites and sometimes even brave a download or two. And sometimes I get more than I bargain for.

Whatever the root cause was, I was done with it. I took an inventory of what was installed that I actually use. (Which was a pretty short list compared to what was installed.) I moved the data that was on the C: drive to the external drive. And then I formatted the damn thing.

I seriously considered loading Ubuntu. There are some real advantages to that, but in the end laziness won out. I know what I need in XP and how to set it up pretty quickly. I didn’t want to spend the time or energy configuring Linux to see my mixer and get shoutcast working; or make it see the RAW files from my camera so that I can manage my photo.

I installed XP, the drivers, SP2 and pulled down a shitload of patches. I joined the PC to my home domain and then started installing software.

That’s when things got ugly. I was trying to install a piece of software that I had… ahem… lost the key to. I proceeded to visit some shady sites that might be able to give a key I could use… since mine was… err… lost. I wasn’t having any luck, so I downloaded a key cracker. I know that this is risky business. It wasn’t a cracker but a trojan horse. Fuckers.

To make matters worse my Antivirus engine (but not the definitions) is a couple of years old. It was one that I had a license from my last job. It wasn’t picking this thing up. I went to antivirus.com and used Trend Micro’s House Call to do an online scan. It was seeing the buggers.

I wasted no time downloading Trend Micro’s Antivirus software and installing it. It was able to get a bunch of the bastards, but some of them couldn’t be deleted. I booted into recovery console and got rid of them, but when I rebooted there were new ones. It went back and forth like this until I was able to find where it had changed the registry and hack it out.

At least I think I have.

And I haven’t so much as read a comic book this weekend.

I really am pathetic. For the last 9 weeks or so, I’ve been walking around, more often than not, angry, depressed and just plain miserable.

Today the sun comes out, the temperature climbs close to 70 degrees and I feel great. Everything is looking up.

Am I that much not in control of myself? The weather dictates my mood and I have no say in the matter?

It doesn’t seem reasonable. I think it’s been this way all of my life, although I’ve only recognized recently.

And for the last several years, I’ve asked myself the same question. If the gloom, cold and sort days of winter make me so fucking miserable, why don’t I just move some place that stays warm and sunny all year? Like Florida or Arizona.

There is no good answer. Except that uprooting my whole family and quitting a perfectly good job to move hundreds of miles away on the hope that better weather will cheer me up, just doesn’t seem reasonable. Yet… I still think about it.

There is no doubt that I will end up some place where the sun shines more often than not. It just may take till I retire and that won’t be any time soon.

At least, for now, I know that winter is nearing the end. Around here winter doesn’t seem to just stop and then spring magically starts. It seems more complex than that.

It starts with a day like today. A day that seems like spring has finally arrived. But I know better. Winter will re-assert itself. Spring will continue to pop up. Here and there. And each time, it will last a little longer, and winter will be weaker each time it tries to make itself known. Till finally winter just never comes back.

I can’t wait.

… but I think my chi is all fucked up. Or maybe it’s karma. Or maybe it’s just shit.

Things aren’t right, but I know that the root of all of it is me. There are some external factors fucking with me, but mostly it’s just me.

Nothing seems right. And I can’t fix it. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite. Whatever attempt I make to fix things, seems to make it worse.

Some times, when shit is off like this, I rage a bit and then feel better. But we’re well beyond raging. I don’t know what to do when this happens. (Yes, it has happened many times before.) So I get manic. And obsessive.

So far this week, I’ve updated my long lost forum. Well, a little bit. I’ve imported a number of Ratdog and Dead shows into my iTunes. Edited, organized and tagged several hundred photos. Researched alternatives for streaming my stupid radio show. Cleaned the kitchen. And all of that in my free time. I’ve spent most of my time at work.

Don’t think that it stops when I’m at work either. I’ve organized my files. Updated my address book and calendar. Updated all kinds of documentation.

Even my dreams are fucked up.

It’s this same manic behavior that leaves me with 4 or 5 blogs, a radio show, a forum, a (defunct) club and I don’t even know what else.

I don’t enjoy any of this stuff, I just need to DO something. Anything.

It doesn’t work.

I tend to interrupt myself to jump from one obsession to another.

I suppose this will pass, but I don’t know when. Consider yourself warned.

All the TV Weather Persons agreed, freezing rain would continue all day; effectively turning the world into a dangerous sheet of ice. All the schools were canceled. Then the government offices were shut down. Hell, my office even closed for the day.

And then… nothing. Nothing happened at all. It didn’t even rain. Much less freeze.

Nothing like a 3 day work week to throw a wrench into everything. I have no doubt that I will pay for this dearly next week. I’m also very glad that I did not put off all this paperwork till today like I was thinking about.

So I had a productive day of ‘organizing’ my iTunes, watching Doctor Who (Doctors 2 and 10) and generally doing nothing.

We did go hiking last week, and it was a great trip. I may try to find the motivation to write about it.

There should be a rule that limits the amount hype that local news channels are allowed to have about weather. The more they warned me away from go out in this freezing mess, the more I knew it would be nothing.

It happens every year.

I take my last backpacking trip in late October or early November. I say to myself, last trip till Spring…

And I mean it, when I say it.

I go on with my life. The busy holidays in December. The short, but cold and dreary days of January. And then it gets to be February. The days begin to get longer. There will be a mild weekend. And I get the itch. And it won’t go away.

Next thing you know, I’m packing my pack; wearing layer over layer of clothing; getting ready to go out backpacking in sub-freezing weather. This invariably leads to huddling in a sleeping bag, shivering, hoping to make it through the night with out having my extremities fall off.

Well, maybe it’s not quite that bad. But it gets cold. In this day and age, most of us just ignore cold. Cold is something we endure between the house and the car. And again from the car to inside of an office building, or grocery store, or whatever. But when you are out in it, with no where to go in to, it is a different thing. A persistent force to be reckoned with.

As I type this, my pack is packed and I have several layers of clothes laid out. I’m going backpacking. Tomorrow will get up to about freezing. On Sunday it will be warmer, in the high 30s, of course it will probably rain. Guessing the weather is aways hard. The mountains, even small mountains (like the ones we’ll be hiking this weekend,) keep their own weather. But I don’t think it’s gonna be pretty.

I don’t care. I can’t wait till late March. I’ve the itch. I need to get out there and be away from everything else. Even the huddling and shivering is therapeutic. It’s not much fun while it happens, but when you get back to work and deal with the everyday annoyances, they don’t seem so bad.

At least that is what I’m telling myself tonight. Monday, when I get back, I may have a different story to tell.

I do hate January. I hate the short, cold gray days. I hate that everything is dead. It’s a stupid time of year. One of these years, I’m gonna say, fuck it and move somewhere that is warm and bright. Florida, Arizona, Somewhere.

I get depressed. I don’t want to, but it seems to be out of my control. I’m sure this has to do with the general deadness of everything. And the lack of sunlight. Every year, I struggle through it.

On the bright side. I have a new toy.

After two and a half years and 100 plus episodes of Shitty Blog Radio, it seemed like it was time for some better equipment. It took me a few hours to get it all working, but after a good test drive tonight, I think I’ve got it.

Of course, new mic or not, Shitty Blog Radio will still suck. You can increase the sound fidelity but it won’t fix the content. You can (of course) tune in Thursdays at 10 PM EST to decide for yourself.

Work has been a drag. Budget cuts and bullshit politics have ground my project to halt. I am beginning to wonder if I am working in the right place.

So, to amuse myself, I follow the Ravens hunt for head coach and watch as the Patriots march on to history. And the good news is… by the time they get there, this god forsaken month will be over.

That last post was relatively upbeat. Mostly this is how I feel, but there is another side to all this.

I’m reminded of this as I sit here at a party, by myself, blogging on my phone.

In spite of my various successes, I still seem to end up alone in the crowd. I’m sure you think that I separate myself, but its not true. I really make an effort to fit in and be a part of things. It just doesn’t work.

So I find myself ending 2007 the same way every year ends. Sitting alone in the crowd. I’m doing my best not to let it get me too down.

It is, however, a reminder that there is still more work to be done in ‘08.

2007 is on the way out. In reality, this doesn’t mean much, but we seem to need to break up time into these imaginary segments. Why should I be any different.

2007 was pretty good to me. I got promoted and put in charge of the project that I felt I was suited for. I got to do plenty of hiking, even a few of those trips didn’t go as planned. And I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect. But the good more than outweighs the bad.

As for the New Year, things look good. Who knows, maybe I’ll even find time to tell you about it.

I’m a dork. I know it. I can’t help it.

I am sitting here in my big comfy chair, tapping this into my new phone.

I took a break to eat breakfast and I think that may be the point.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that blogging irritates me. It seems to me, that blogging should be a way to share your life with the world at large. Instead, it becomes a ritual of sharing your blog with other bloggers.

You end up, at least I did, spending your time connected to your computer doing blog things. You can’t share your life, because you don’t have one.

It may be dorky to update your blog from your phone, but at least you can do it while you are out living your life.

I was going to post something.

I guess technically that I am posting something.

I thought I knew what I wanted to say, but it devolved into yet another rant about how I don’t really like blogging. And that didn’t really seem worth posting at all.

So Fuck It.

I’m just not feeling it.

A tale of two hikers.

7:36 AM

We pull in to a gravel parking lot and begin to get our packs ready for a 3 day hike that would take us from Blue Mountain (just southeast of Palmerton, Pennsylvania) to the Delaware Water Gap; where the Delaware River cuts through Kittinany Mountain at the PA-NJ Line. After some last minute adjustments and finishing our coffees; we start walking north on the Appalachian Trail.

Northbound would actually be more accurate. The Appalachian Trail stretches from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Maine is obviously north of Georgia, but it is also considerably east of Georgia. The stretch of trail we plan to walk on actually runs West to East.

7:57 AM

I sit down on a rock to catch my breath and wait for dad. We’d only walked a half mile or so, but we had climbed nearly 400 feet. Like much of the trail in Pennsylvania, the climb was extremely rocky, not so much a trail but stepping from boulder to boulder. The mountain was covered in a thick fog this morning and visibility was limited. After a few minutes, Dad caught up. He didn’t sit down.

“Are you good or do you need minute?”
“I’m ready.”

We start walking. To our left, the trees opened up and an exposed outcropping of rock jutted out over the side of the ridge. Beyond the rocks there was nothing to see but swirling white mist. “Beautiful view,” I note to Dad before moving on.

The next time I would see my dad, he will be standing on crutches.

8:07 AM

After a stretch of trail that was more rock than trail, the trail improves. I pick up my pace to take advantage of the improved terrain. The trail dips and then climbs and eventually levels out at 1500 feet or so. The weather is gloomy, but the walking is good.

8:09 AM

Dad walks across a rocky section of trail, ahead he can see a better stretch of trail. He comes to a large boulder, it had a flat surface but was angled relatively steeply. He considers going around briefly, but instead steps on the boulder.

The difference between tragedy and trivia is so small that sometimes its hard to find at all. It’s difficult to accept that what will occur hundreds of times without incident, will occur another time with serious repercussion.

As he steps on the boulder one foot slips, he slips two, maybe three feet. His other foot, however, remains firmly in place. His left foot ended up laying next to his hip. Although he had felt a stab of pain when he fell, he isn’t in any pain as he lays there. He tries to lift his left leg, but it simply doesn’t respond. He calls out for help, but no one answered.

He picks his left leg up with his hands and moves it to a more natural position. He tries to stand up, but the left leg still isn’t responding.

8:12 AM

The trail is level and in good condition. I can’t believe it. Pennsylvania has a reputation for being rocky and treacherous. I had walked, at one point another, every step of the AT in Pennsylvania except for this stretch and had experienced the what seemed like every kind of rocky trail possible. I had expected this section to be as bad or worse than any of the others, yet the walking is easy and I am making excellent time. It looks like luck is on our side.

8:14 AM

Dad sees that his knee is beginning to swell rapidly. He rearranges himself so that he can lean on his pack and elevate the knee.

8:19 AM

I stop for a drink of water. I estimate that I’ve walked about mile since I’d stopped at the top of the climb.

8:27 AM

The swelling has gone down, but it is becoming increasing clear that this isn’t a problem that is going to get better by itself. Dad pulls his cell phone out of his pack and dials my number. It goes to my voicemail.

“Jeckles, if you get this message you may want to turn around. I’m in need of some assistance.”

He hangs up the phone. He knows that my phone would be turned off to conserve battery and that I’d have no reason to check it. It is unlikely that anyone was going to find him and even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to move him anyway. He needs help. He dials 911 and explains his situation. The 911 dispatcher took the information and says that the search and rescue operation will start immediately.

8:36 AM

I stop to take a drink. The trail is good, the walking is easy and I feel great.

8:42 AM

Ed, a 12 month employee of nearby Blue Mountain Ski Lodge, finds my dad. He radioes the others searching for him and soon they are putting a make shift immobilizer, made of cardboard on his knee. They bring a gurney and proceed to put him in it. They then begin to discuss the best way to get him off the mountain.

“You guys are gonna have fun carrying this 220 pound body off the mountain.” jokes Dad.
“What? How much did you say?”
“220 pounds.”
“That’s a shame, our limit is 219. Let’s go fellows, nothing we can do here.” retorts one of the rescuers.

9:02 AM

Five good old boys carry Dad on the gurney on the AT till they reach a clear cut that allows power lines to run to the ski lodge. They tie a rope to the gurney and slowly lower it down the steep slope that is the side of the ridge.

9:34 AM

After being lowered, Dad is put in the bed of a pick truck. They drive down a gravel road to the waiting ambulance.

10:15 AM

Dad is admitted to the ER at Palmerton Hospital. He is one of two patients.

10:37 AM

I take off my pack to take a break. I’ve walked just over five miles and there is supposed to a spring near here. I eat trail mix and jerky, while looking at the map. I estimate that we will arrive at the shelter around 2:00 PM.

11:02 AM

I’ve snacked and I feel rested, yet dad hasn’t shown up yet. He should have been here by now. I decide that if he doesn’t show soon, I will backtrack and see if he isn’t stopped some where behind me.

11:04 AM

The Carbon County 911 dispatcher tries to contact me on my cell. Volunteers coordinted by the Fire Chief attempt to locate me on the trail. They don’t know my exact location, but Dad has helped them to narrow it down to a ten mile stretch of trail, between where he fell and the shelter we planned to camp at.

11:21 AM

I grab my trekking poles, but leave my pack, and start back tracking. I reason that maybe Dad has stopped for to take a break somewhere behind me. I walk a mile without any sign of me. There is no longer any doubt in my mind, something is wrong. Dad is hurt or lost.

I fight down the panic and the urge to sprint down the trail that comes with it. My backpack, which has my cell phone and my car keys in it is a mile in the other direction. I decide that I will need, in all likelihood my keys and phone, so I turn around and walk back to my pack.

11:56

I return to my pack and immediately get my phone and turn it on. I check my voicemail first and hear Dad’s message. I hang up and try to call him but there is no answer. I leave message to tell him that I am on my way.

That panicky feeling begins to rise again, his call was from 8:27 he’s been hurt and alone for over three hours. Leaving my phone powered on,I strap on my pack and begin to walk as fast as I can. Before I’ve gone a half mile, I misstep and painfully roll my ankle. I fight down the panic, telling myself that I can’t help anyone if I hurt myself.

12:02 PM

The ER doctor gets the X-rays back. Dad has separated the tendon that connects his patella to his femur.

12:09 PM

I’ve walked a mile and still see no sign of Dad. I fairly certain he must be near where I had last seen him, but I have no idea what his condition is. I stop and try to call again. Still no answer. I call my voicemail again hoping to pick up some detail I had missed in his message. I discover that there is a second message.

“Mr Jeckles, this is Carbon County 9 1 1. When you get this message please call 9 1 1!”

I feel a sense of relief that 911 is aware to the situation, while at the same time it confirms my fears that Dad is injured, perhaps severely.

After a few attempts I am able to connect to 911. The operator seems to be aware of our situation and transfers me to Carbon County 911. The dispatcher informs me that dad has “wrenched” his knee and is at Palmerton Hospital. He believes that they will release him soon. He wants me to get off the mountain so that they get me to my father.

I tell him that my truck is about four miles from my location and that I can get there in about 2 hours. The 911 dispatcher would like me to be off the mountain, sooner than later. After a brief discussion, I help him pinpoint my location. I’m near a clear cut for a large set of powerlines crossing the mountain. He asks me to follow the powerlines down the north side of the ridge. He’ll have the Fire chief meet me at the road at the bottom of the ridge.

I follow a rough ATV track down the slope. Before I’ve gone far, the Fire Chief calls my phone. He confirms that he will meet me at the bottom. He says that it will take him 30 minutes to get there and that he will lose signal as he drives down the mountain. He will call me when he arrives.

12:15 PM

The trail I had been following ends. I start bushwack down the side of the ridge. This section is extremely steep and very overgrown. I consider calling 911 and telling them that I can’t go down this way, but in a funny way, I don’t want t let them down. So I push on. I can see below where another ATV trail picks up, I just need to get past the steep descent.

The further I go, the mover overgrown it gets. I slip and fall several times. I now know I should not have proceeded this way, but I’m too far down to go back. I have no choice, I’m committed. As I near the end of this steep section, the Fire Chief calls. They’ve spotted me and they are sending a local up with a “four wheeler” to meet me. All I can pitcure is myself strapped to the back of an ATV, but I don’t argue, I’m exhausted.

12:39 PM

I reach the bottom of the steep descent and begin to walk down the ATV trail. My legs are shaking from the exertion of the climb down to this point. I am bloody from countless little cuts from the brambles I made my way through. And I am luck that I didn’t hurt myself worse going down that slope.

I don’t walk far before I see an old Ford Ranger spring from the tree line. I throw my pack in the bed and hop in for a hair raising ride down the side of the mountain.

12:46 PM

We reach the road and I get out. The Fire Chief is waiting for us. He shakes my hand and looks me over. He apparently decides I’m okay.

“So… you guys drove all the way from Maryland to walk on a trail on this mountain?”

I have no doubt that he has no idea what the extent of Appalachian Trail really is, even though he lives within a few miles of it.

He drives me to my truck, and then I follow him to the hospital.

1:05 PM

After a little re-arranging, we get my dad situated in the back seat of the truck and begin the four hour drive home.

He will need surgery to put his knee cap back where it belongs, but he’ll be fine.

So I sit and try to relax, but my mind spins with work and other shit.

I can’t seem to clear it out. And it is times like this, that I get overwhelmed with a feeling of great futility.

Maybe there isn’t anything more to life than this. Just working on shit that no one cares about.

I spend hours and hours of my life doing things that few people care about. That few people understand.

Setting up an Exchange Server isn’t the kind of accomplishment that makes a deep and lasting impression on people. In the long run it is utterly meaningless. The impact I make on the world through my work is null. The impact I make otherwise isn’t much more.

I write these words that impact less people than my work does.

Somewhere in there, I suspect that there is a Zen simplicity to all of this that I am just missing.

Maybe making an impact is just an illusion. Maybe it’s just a matter of going through the process, not for others but for ourselves. Which process doesn’t matter, just going through a process.

If that is true, even the I know it, I can’t seem to separate the stress and anxiety of trying to succeed from the process.

Maybe I need to go backpacking.

It hit me around 8:00 PM Thursday night. I’d been doing it wrong. And I’d been doing it wrong all week.

What it was that I was doing, doesn’t really matter. It’s a mindless but tedious task that I had been doing to help out. The mistake won’t make any difference, really.

But still I had been doing wrong all fucking week.

And it was 8 o’clock at night. I’d been at work for 13 hours. Again.

And I started to question things.

Why do I bother?
If I’ve been messing this up, is it even worth it?
Things are still not caught up, even for my all my effort. Again why Bother?

I packed up some shit and went home. And I was in a foul mood. The few who bothered to tune in to SBR can attest to that.

My mood was no better in the morning. I went to work early, to make sure I was there and ready when the help desk opened.

My mood got worse as the day went on.

The CIO was going to buy us pizza, to thank us for all of hard work. And while it was a nice thought, I found myself getting angry as the same people who have been coming in late and ducking out early are the ones who can’t wait for the pizza.

I stayed and covered the phones while they ate pizza. I had no desire to be near them. The thought made me sick. Hell, the hour I was there by myself was the best one all day.

I could feel the overwork and lack of sleep catching up with me, and I knew that was really most of the problem. But my anger is real.

As a rule, I try very hard not to worry about how other people do their job, I do mine and I do it as well I can and leave it at that. But I’m finding hard to ignore that one of our Network Engineers, a peer of mine, has come in late and left early every single day last week. Our busiest support week. He worked, on average, six hours a day. To contrast that, I worked an average of 12 hours a day. I worked twice as much as he did.

It’s a fucking crime that our paychecks don’t reflect that. He makes significantly more than me. The joys of working in the public sector. Seniority trumps skill. I could complain to my boss, but she knows. She frustrated and doesn’t want to hear it from me. It’s not like she can fire him. It’s the public sector. Seniority trumps everything.

I don’t remember ever needing a three day weekend like I do right now.

Sometimes, I like my job. I really do. I get to do interesting work. The more that I do, the more my bosses come to trust and depend on me. I like that.

But of the engineers I work with, only one other works with the kind of dedication that I do. He support our WAN and works on his, mostly. The rest of us are a ‘team.’ One is working towards retirement and just wants to maintain the status quo. Troubleshoot the symptoms, ignore the cause. Another is not far behind him. One researches but never acts. Paralysis by analysis. One, as a mentioned works part time (or so it seems) and spends more energy figuring why a plan won’t work than look for the solution that would make it work. And the last hates my boss. He invests his energy into criticizing and undermining her.

Some team.

My plan remains unchanged. We are currently running a Novell Netware network. We need to migrate to Microsoft Active Directories. There are some budget and political issues, but it will happen. I can make it happen. These other assholes would sit around and wring their hands and figure out why it wouldn’t work. But I will make it happen.

And once I do, it will be my network, cause I will have set it up. More than that, putting a migration of an enterprise class network on my resume won’t hurt either.

Once it is done, I’ll take a look and see how I feel about my job.

It’s only Tuesday, but I’m exhausted. These long days at work add up.

I wish I had something interesting to add. but I don’t.

People keep asking me why I’m putting in so many hours. I don’t have to. It’s not required. But things need to be taken care of. This is our busiest time of year for support. So I stay and do what needs to be done.

But there is more to it than that. This time last year, my co-workers and I got overtime if we stayed extra. It was a nice perk, but really our jobs had no right to collect overtime. You won’t find many IT departments that offer it, especially to their higher level employees. The powers that be came to that conclusion, and made us exempt salaried employees. This means no over time. To make up for this, we got nice fat raises.

My coworkers, for the most part, have responded by leaving promptly at the end of the day and/ or showing up late for work.

This is not how it is supposed to be. When there is stuff that needs to be addressed, we should be there, taking care of it.

And I am. Think of it as a statement.

I’m not sure if anyone notices, but it is a statement nonetheless.

Last week was a long one. Not bad, but long. I can’t believe that it has been only seven days since I was at the concert.

Long hours and a hectic pace at work contributed to this. The fact that one of our ‘team members’ can’t seem to do his job, didn’t help.

I don’t know what’s up with this kid. He’s assigned to be the technician at some of the sites that I am assigned to as a Network Engineer. He won’t close calls. He seems to be paralyzed by the amount of calls out there right now. He works on calls that are more complex for days, with out elevating the call to an engineer or even asking any questions. When he does choose to ask, he sort of just tells me to do his job for him. Meanwhile, his calls keep piling up.

He doesn’t understand that there is more to his job than just knowing how to solve these issues. Unlike comparable positions at other companies, he isn’t assigned a list of calls. He pulls all the calls for his sites out of the Help Desk and addresses them as he sees fit. When things get this busy, being able to prioritize is paramount. He needs to let the complex calls sit (or elevate them) and take care of the simple calls. He should be able to close 15 to 20 calls a day. He is closing about 3 or 4 a day. Meanwhile 25 to 30 calls are coming in each day. This pace will slow down, but by the time it does, he will be in a very deep hole.

I’m not his boss, but I am ultimately responsible for these sites. If he doesn’t get caught up soon, I’ll have to go out there myself (and maybe pull resources from other sites) and bail him out. If that happens, I will have to explain to our boss why I’m out closing calls instead of working on my projects.

This just causes me stress I don’t want or need. I hate it when people don’t just do their jobs. I hate it more when it messes with my job.

One a more positive note, my niece is going to be a senior in high school this year. Her school requires that seniors arrange to have their senior portraits taken by a professional photographer on their own, instead of having one come to the school. I guess she didn’t take care of arranging this when she first found out that she was supposed to, and by the time she got around to it, the photographers were booked up.

My wife mentioned to my sister-in-law that I am capable of taking those photos. And they asked me if I could do it. Last weekend we went out to a few scenic spots and took some shots of her and a few with her boyfriend. I also shot a few traditional head and shoulder shots of her, but I don’t have access to a professional backdrop so I just shot her against a wall. I was able to use Photoshop to cut the wall away and put her in front of a background that looks very much like a pro backdrop.

I thought I did a pretty good job, but this isn’t the kind of photography I usually do, and I’m not really very good in Photoshop (I really need to take a class on it.) I began to become concerned that the photos would not be up to a professional level. I knew they looked good, but there is a reason people pay a pro.

I went to get some proofs printed so we could choose which pictures she wanted to use. When I came back to pick them up, the little girl at the store says, “I’m sorry Mr. Jeckles, we cannot print these pictures.”

I began to panic, I start to try to think of what I might have done that would have caused this problem. Did I do something wrong in Photoshop? Did I use the wrong format? I couldn’t imagine what I had done wrong.

“We can’t print pictures taken by a professional photographer without his permission.”

I smiled, thanked her and assured her that she had my permission.

I can’t think of a better compliment.

Today I had the pleasure of attending a mandatory presentation.

It was a motivational speaker. Even for motivational speakers, this guy was awful.

His dad didn’t love him when he young. That rejection stayed with him his whole life. He found that he pushed himself harder to try gain the approval of a distant and cold father. He became successful, rich and women loved him. But somehow it all seemed empty, useless like life had no meaning.

As I sat and listened, all I could think was my Dad was pretty good as far as dads go, but I’m not rich or powerful. Women tolerate me at best. And many days I feel like life has no meaning.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU CRYING ABOUT?!?

Almost makes me wish my dad had been distant.

He recommends that I keep a list of affirmations and read them every morning and every night. So I created a list and we will give it shot, starting right now.

I am a great fake radio DJ.
I am a good blogger.
I rule at the help desk.
I can install an OS in no time flat.
I know more about comic book characters than many people know about their own families.

Somehow I don’t feel better.

It’s probably the weather. This cold rainy shit is making me wish I was dead. I really need to move somewhere that is always summer.

He also suggested having my own personal Mission Statement. I can’t believe we paid this asshat to come talk to us.

I don’t know if I’ll have time to play the Ratdog Set before SBR tomorrow or not. I’ll post something if I’m going to do it.

I’d love to tell you all about the concert, but I don’t have it in me right now. Maybe later. It was awesome though.

This week and next are the two busiest weeks for tech support at work. And, of course, management is always trying to find ways to maximize our resources to handle the onslaught of calls we get.

This year, the grand plan is too let the engineers handle the phones, so that the support guys can all be in the field closing calls.

On paper, it’s a good plan. The reality is the support guys will, to various degrees, slack and not keep up with the pace and that some of these engineers aren’t cut out for phone support.

The number one job in phone support, at my job any how, is to address small simple problems and to create calls for larger problems and then route them to the appropriate group. I had to cover the desk for an hour (or so) on Monday and all day today. The engineers I was working with did not get it. They would try trouble shoot complex calls over the phone. I looked over at one point and saw the other engineer logged into a server checking something.

Not me. I can reset your password. I can tell you to make sure there isn’t a floppy in the a: drive when you try to boot up. I can check to see if your user has the correct rights. Anything else: “I’ll create a call for you and forward it to the right people who will help you shortly!”

These guys will help one or two users in an hour. But others will ring through to the voicemail. Users hate the voicemail.

I guess a lot of these guys think that doing this is beneath them and they don’t want to do it. Not me. I think it’s a blast. It’s easy work. I get laugh at the users. And I have fun with it. We have a bunch of seasonal help coming back right now. Many of them already have accounts, but they forget the password.

“Tech Services, this is Jeckles.”
“Uh… yeah. I think there is problem with my computer.”
“Go ahead.”
“Well. I try to login and I get an error.”
“Does the error say ‘make sure you used the correct password’ or does it say ‘I can’t find the server?’”
“It was saying check your password, but now it’s saying my account is locked.”
“Sounds like you haven’t used the correct password.”
“I think I may have forgot it.”
“Forgot it? Do you know that you are the first call for a forgotten password that I’ve had this week?”
“Really?”
“No. I’ve unlocked your account and changed your password to ‘password.’ It will prompt you to change it to something else when you login. Have a nice day!”

I’ll be on the desk all day tomorrow and three days next week. And I’ve been staying late so that I can catch up on the rest of my work. So I’m tired, but it’s okay.

If I have time on Thursday, I may broadcast the Ratdog set before SBR. Perhaps around 7:30 PM EST. If you are interested, that’s awesome. If not, who cares.

Thanks for calling the Help Desk!

It seems odd to even to talk about it, but I’m going on a Road Trip. But just about any measure, I’m too old for this, but it is exactly what I am doing any how.

Shutter and I will hop in the truck Saturday morning and and drive for about 4 hours till we reach the Mountain Laurel Pavilion, located in Bum Fucked Pennsyltucky. It is there that we will watch Ratdog and the Allman Brothers, who are sharing the bill. I’m very excited about Ratdog, I saw them in 1996 and loved it. By all accounts, the band has done nothing but get better since then. I’m not really an Allman Brothers fan, but they are reputed to be one of the best live bands out there.

I’m excited and a bit nervous. I haven’t been to a concert in over a decade and, like I said, I’m a bit old for this kind of road trip. We don’t have any arrangements made other than the tickets. I don’t really want to try the four hour drive home at 1 or 2 A.M. This pavilion is located squarely in the middle of nowhere, as far as I can tell. I don’t know if we’ll stop at cheap motel and crash for the night or if we will just try to catch a catnap in the parking lot with the Deadheads.

No matter what happens, it will be very different from the road trips of my youth. If for no other reason than the fact that I’ll be sober. And I’ve gotten wiser over the years. The trip probably won’t be as wild as some of the ones from my misspent youth, but that’s necessarily a bad thing at all.

It should be a good time.

And I’m tired.

The weather was as good as you could have hoped for this weekend. But it was still hot. Yesterday was a long day, and I’m very tired. It was a great hike. Well for the most part. I may write about it later.

This tiredness seems to have made me crankier than usual. I know. That’s saying something, isn’t it?

I’d take a nap, but naps just don’t work for me. I doze off for a few minutes, wake up disoriented and grumpier than when I fell asleep.

I guess I’ll just watch Star Trek.

Man I suck.

We had two massive thunderstorms today. One around lunch time and the other was just a few minutes ago.

I love thunderstorms. All that power and fury shows up out of nowhere. It’s awesome.

With any luck, it will cool things down for this weekend.

Have you noticed the effort to blog daily? It won’t last. My streak will be broken by my backpacking trip tomorrow. Still, I’ll try to post on a very regular basis. Why? I don’t know. I don’t know where these compulsions ideas come from, I just try to run with them.

I should be preparing for SBR right now. Oh fucking well, it’s not like it’s a real radio show.

Okay. The show is over now, I guess I can finish this post. Like I was saying, the show isn’t very good. Listen for yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Also, there may be an tiny bit of profanity.

I really shouldn’t get so caffeinated during the show… It will be another sleepless night for me.

I’ll see you losers on Sunday.

My sinuses are still bothering me. I feel much better than I did the weekend of the blogathon, but I’m nowhere near %100. I can’t breathe. Which makes everything difficult. Especially the gym.

On the flipside, I’ve found a podcast that doesn’t suck. It’s called Podrunner and it’s an hour long mix of techo-ish music all set at a constant beat rate. It’s awesome for running or whatever.

I’ve been told that if I want Shitty Blog Radio to be successful, I have to promote it. It sounds like good advice, but I really suck at self promotion. It seems like bragging or something. Regardless, you should check out Shitty Blog Radio tomorrow night at 10 PM EST. It is the ‘Worst Show on the Internet’ or at least that’s what I’ve dubbed it. What is is mostly is some rage filled nonsense. Or something. Actually, it’s kind of hard to explain. You’d have to hear it.

Thanks to the magic of DVR I’ve seen 3 episode of Star Trek in the last 36 hours. I hadn’t watched good old original Star Trek in years. In my minds eye I had reduced it to not much more than Kirk… speaking in.. intervals that. Make. No. Sense. And paper mache sets, Red Shirted Ensigns and special two handed future punches. It, of course, has all those things, but in spite of that it’s pretty good show. It’s been fun to discover these episode all over again.

Right now I should be packing to go backpacking on Friday. I’m just throwing that out there.

This concept of a two year build up to the Presidential elections needs to be rethought. There is no reason for it. Of course, whenever I say that some asshat speaks out and says, ‘but I love this stuff.’ That’s the whole problem. I can’t help but believe that the only reason this process has spread out like this is to give CNN and FOXNews programming. That’s not a real good reason. There is no upside. It makes campaign insanely expensive driving the candidates into the waiting arms of the special interest groups. Meanwhile they all just dig up dirt about each other. This is a stupid system.

You would think that I would do something fun while I have all this time to myself. At least, you would think that if you didn’t know me. For fun, I’m broadcasting make believe radio on the internet. I suck. But I do take requests.

Other than that, I’ve just worked and watched Star Trek on DVR. I know, you’re jealous. You wanna be just like me. I’m sorry, but not everyone can handle this level of dork cool.

Oh… for the record, Expert Level on Guitar Hero II is fucking stupid hard.

I’m not a gamer. I never have been. I hear my friends talk about spending hours playing this game or another. I just can’t imagine doing that. My kid has an Xbox 360, so I get a chance to try out a game every now and then. I enjoy it for a bit, and then I’m over it. The only game that had come close to holding my interest was Madden Football.

We got Guitar Hero II yesterday. I’ve been hearing and reading about people getting all kinds of worked up about this game and it’s predecessor for some time now. And today, I can honestly say I understand what the fuss is all about. I play guitar. Not as much as when I was young. But still, I can hold my own. I can’t say that this game is just like playing, but it does capture the feel of playing. I couldn’t help but rock and bob with he rhythm as I powered out “Possum Kingdom” or “Heart Shaped Box.” I think I need to just not play it. Otherwise, you may never hear from me.

In other news, my wife took the kids and left me. I love telling people that. They look at me, think about it, decide it seems reasonable, look at me again, think that maybe I’m too calm about all of this and then ask me, Really? I tell them that they will be back in a few days.

They are going for a little more vacation at the lake. I have to work, but that’s no reason to stop them from having some fun. Besides, the kids have been restless, they need to get out and do something. I will do my best not to spend the entire time they are gone, playing Guitar Hero II.

Instead I’ll put my effort into designing an online store. It’s not for me, I have nothing to sell. My brother asked me to give him a hand, and I can’t turn down a challenge this geeky. I’ll tell you more about it, once it is set up.

Oh, and I’m sure this will shock many of you, I’m going backpacking this weekend.

I have struggled with this blogging thing nearly as long as I have been doing it.

I like the idea of putting my ideas down in html and putting them out there to so if anyone gives a shit. On one level this has worked well for me. There have been a surprising amout of people who seem to want to hear what I have to say. On the other hand, it doesn’t work the way I thought it would.

Blogging has become (or maybe it always was) about communities. These are my blog friends. I have to read what they are writing. And we will be like a group. We will join the same traffic generating scams. We will play the same meme games.

I don’t like that. I came here to say something. I hope you’ll listen. But I dont want you to expect me to listen to you. If you have something interesting to say, I’ll listen or I’ll move on. It’s not personal. Or it shouldn’t be. Maybe it should be, I don’t know, but that’s not what I wanted out of this.

I’ve been more frustrated than usual with this recently. This is why I have posted so little.

I was going to shut it down.

Not quit. I still have the urge to express myself in this way. But I was extremely close to shutting it all down and starting somewhere else. And no, I wouldn’t have let you know. Not even you. It’s not personal. But if I let you know. Then I’d let him know. And before long, we’d be right back to here. Just ask Mango. He knows.

But I didn’t. I have some sort of pride in this meager collection of shit. And I don’t want to start over.

I have to refocus. Beside the community aspect, I didn’t fully think out the implications of publishing. It’s on a micro scale, but this must be what columnist deal with every day. The comments are a both wonderful and awful. I love the feedback. I love to know what you think about what I write. But I hate it. Sometimes I want to scream, who asked you? I can never decide if I should respond to the comments or not.

The reality is, this is publishing. On a small scale, but still it is. I’m putting it out there and for that I have to live with the consequences of that decision. I can’t pick and choose who reads this. I can’t do anything about it if you don’t understand what I mean, even though I’ve been as clear as I can be. I can’t censor any reaction, in the comments or else where, that results from what I’ve written. And I can’t worry about those things as I sit to write a new thing.

Like I said, I’m amazed that as many people have listened to me as have. Yet I look around and see that, all things considered I don’t get much traffic. Most blogs get 10 times what I do. I’m told that it’s quality over quantity. I’m told that it’s cause I don’t play the ‘game.’ This is probably true. But I can’t help wonder, why not me? Why shouldn’t people want to not only read this, but urge others to? But it doesn’t work that way. Not for me. And if I’m going to be true to me, then I need to accept that.

I’ll keep it up. At least I’ll try to. This blog and the stupid radio show. I think that for some reason, I’m more comfortable with the Radio thing than the blogging. I guess it’s a matter of expectation. The SBC, I’m not so sure of. I think it’s time has past. I look at the blogs who request membership. I don’t think they get it. Maybe I should let it fade away. And don’t worry, if I do I’ll run Shitty Blog Survivor from here. I do like that. It’s been fun this year.

Still, sometimes I hope that people will ‘get’ me. That I’ll have dozens of readers instead of 5. But I’m full of shit. I’m not cut out to be popular. I never was. And I never will be. There’s more to popularity than people liking you, you have to play the ‘game.’ And I quite simply can’t do that.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have 18 hours of Star Trek on my DVR.

6:04 AM Wake up to the sounds of the Grateful Dead coming from my iHome and the buzzing of my other alarm clock. Hit Snooze.
6:37 AM Sit in front of laptop with a breakfast consisting of a bowl of grits, a low fat key lime yogurt and coffee. Check my personal email, bloglines and Misftopia.
7:05 AM Get another cup of coffee and head to the bathroom for a long shower.
7:42 AM Shave and brush teeth.
7:55 AM Kiss the wife and go to work.
8:11 AM Arrive at work. Fashionably late.
8:23 AM Check Work email.
8:37 AM Get involved in an impromptu discussion about how we are distributing new PCs.
8:42 AM While still keeping an ear to that discussion, IM the UberBot and the WAN-Man about upcoming backpacking trip.
9:05 AM IM Shutter cause I’m bored. He’s too busy to talk to me.
9:17 AM Look at management console of New Update server that I upgraded yesterday.
9:22 AM While still checking out update server, fill out monthly mileage paperwork.
10:01 AM Check the status of the backups on the Netware servers at the 9 remote locations that I am responsible for.
10:12 AM Begin researching a plugin for Exchange to support smart phones.
11:19 AM After almost an hour, find an mobileadmin.msi thing and install it and still don’t know how to make it work.
11:24 AM Read Microsoft’s ” Step-by-Step Guide to Deploying Windows Mobile-based Devices with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2″ Still I don’t know how to make this work. Begin to think that this would be easier to figure out if I had a Smart Phone to test with.
11:25 AM Pack up my shit for lunch.
11:49 AM Eat a Quesidilla for lunch
12:22 PM Pace, check watch, look out the window and wonder why the Dish Network Tech hasn’t shown up.
12:32 PMDrive back to work.
12:48 PM Look at PDA to get some clue about mobile connectivity for Exchange.
1:03 PM Think I may have found something. Need to figure out how to install rootcert on PDA.
1:16 PM Install a copy of our Root Cert on my PDA.
1:37 PM Send an email from my PDA over wi-fi to my gmail account.
1:45 PM Send instructions to an engineer who has a smart phone to try it.
2:17 PM Create new Exchange account for one of the Developers.
3:02 PM Send email to CIO on how to set up his smart phone.
3:19 PM Start documenting the changes I’ve made to Exchange.
4:24 PM Pack up my laptop and go home.
4:42 PM Watch new shiny HD Channels.
4:44 PM Tell the DVR to record anything that looks like Star Trek.
5:12 PM Eat dinner.
6:04 PM Run to convenience store for Red Bull.
6:11 PM Drink Red Bull.
6:34 PM Go to side job.
7:26 PM Realize that PC is infected with a virus.
7:57 PM Realize that virus scanner can’t find it.
8:23 PM C:\Format
10:36 PM Collect less money than I should because I feel bad I that I had to restore the system.
11:18 PM Post blog entry that no one will find half as clever as I do.
11:48 PM Go to sleep listening to the Grateful Dead.

This sinus thing continues to kick my ass. I’m not happy about this at all. I go to work and deal with everything as though it were normal to have a headache 24 hours a day. I hate it. And I think I’m dangerously close to whining. I hate that too.

I had a heart to heart conversation with the Dish Network People. We decided that I didn’t really watch Showtime and HBO so we would cancel those. We also decided that I deserved a better HD package. Of course, I’d need a new receiver box, for $100.

No deal, says I.
You can get a get a $100 rebate if you commit to 18 months, they counter.
Sold, say I.
Or you could get the really nifty dual tuner box that will let you get true picture in a picture…
Mmmm…
And DVR….
DVR?
For $150…
I’m not so sure.
And you still get $100 back.
Sold.

Sometimes I love being upsold. Isn’t that odd?

To replace the HBO, we’re gonna get Netflix. The only bummer is that they do not have HD for my local channels. But I’m set up for it. If it becomes available… I’ll get it.

And let’s not think about how much money, I’m spending here. This is about the Football. Mostly.

Ravens Camp started this week. Which fills us with thoughts of FOOTBALL. The only good thing about the end of summer is the beginning of football season. I can’t wait.

Super Bowl predictions anyone? (Just off the cuff, I have the Patriots beating the Saints… but I think the Ravens have a good shot at going deep in to the playoffs)

First and foremost, thank you again to each and everyone of you that sponsored me. It really means a lot to me. In theory, the blogathon people will send you an email asking you to fulfill your pledge, but I’ll let you in on a secret. You can go to your profile at blogathon.org and click on edit next to this blog under “Your Pledges.” On that page you can simply push the button that says, “Fulfill this pledge directly with Freedom from Hunger now” and then fill out the Online Donation form at Freedom from Hunger.

I don’t really like to acknowledge it when I’m sick, I always want to think that I can just will it away, mind over matter style. But it doesn’t work that way. I have a sinus infection. And I don’t feel good at all. This made this blogathon much harder for me than it otherwise would have been. The headache that I had during the whole thing tested my patience and made me even grumpier than usual.

There are some aspects to the blogathon that really do irk me. I feel it could be better organized and designed to be much more inclusive to all participants. It also steams me that BE and Lewis get all kinds of plugs when they don’t even raise a cent for charity (at least not that I could see.) There were at least 2 stations involved with this blogathon were playing music and supporting charity.

In the waning moments of the blogathon, I had an epiphany. I am a lousy blogger. Occasionally, people try to swell my head by telling me that I am a good writer. Who knows, maybe I am, but that doesn’t making me a great blogger. I don’t need to be a great blogger, but I had never made that distinction before. The one thing I could do to be a better blogger is to post much more regularly. I’ll try. I’ve had some issues with this blog and I’ve been real tempted to scrap it. But I think I should keep it. I mean it’s over 3 year old, I’d hate to start over.

Who knows, after a good night sleep all this may seem very different to me.

Thank you:

WK
Anonymous (even though I know who you are)
Wickedgal
Debi
Utopia
Sparky
Shutter
imagined-community

I’d like to give special thanks to Mango for thinking of me, when he had every reason to forget.

And finally I’d like to thank Monty for tolerating my neurosis, keeping me company and being a great friend.

Overall this was a pretty good blogathon. I raised money for Freedom from Hunger. I have a bunch of great sponsors. And I had a few friends who kept company and kept me out of trouble.

I can’t say this was a great experience. There were things that could have been better. But I suppose this still isn’t the time or place to get into that.

The big question is will I do it again. I don’t know. Obviously the concept appeals to me. This is my second successful blogathon. But I have reservations.

Fortunately, I have plenty of time to think about it.

And let’s face it, I’m in no condition to make a rational decision right now.

And keeping up my end of the bargain, I just made a pledge for %10 of the total… $30 dollars.

We are just about done.

I’m listening to Tears for Fears.

Just thought I’d share.

Also, beware the Snaeking. I’d like to tell you more… but I can’t.

Don’t worry about it, I stopped making sense an hour ago.

I feel sorry for the people in the real world that will have to deal with me. They will have their hands full.

I think that perhaps I have had one Red Bull too many.

I am listening to Guns an Roses and I keep forgetting what it is I was going to do. This is so 1991 all over again, except I’m so much older.

This thing is winding down and it’s a good thing. I’m sure I could stay awake a few more hours, but my ability to form a coherent sentence, much less type it is getting extremely challenged.

I may have to drink one more Red Bull to get me through.

Thanks to all of those who sponsored my charity, Freedom from Hunger. Kirsten L. Forsyth, from Freedom from Hunger asked me to tell you guys about ‘Freedom from Hunger Day, which will be held on September 28, 2007. This is an online event. You can participate at www.freedomfromhunger.org

Mark it on your calendar.

Mango has donated $60 in honor of his Grandmother, Meta Conway. She passed away this past week.

I know that this has been a difficult week for Mango and I am touched that he has decided to honor her memory is this way.

Hell, I’m as close to speechless as I get.

Thanks, dude. Be well.

Yes I see daylight.

I have the temptation to say cheesy about the light at the end of the tunnel, but I think I should let it go.

I might go for a walk out side.

Hopefully, I’ll remember to put on pants. Ahh, who cares, it’s not like the neighbors like me.

Come on dudes, how about one more sponsor (or two smaller ones) to put me over 300?

It would make my morning.

Those last 2 post were pretty good… all things considered.

Unfortunately, I don’t know if I have anything left.

In retrospect, I should have paced myself. But I got excited and well… the whole thing is kind of embarrassing.

See you in 30.

Back when Mango Radio was the only station that I dealt with, Mango some how found this guy. He had a station of his own. And he wanted some advice from Mango.

Of course, Mango tells me that I have to check this guy out. This guy is rocking out to classic Pink Floyd and proud of it. He asks us if we have any requests. We make a few, but he doesn’t have the songs, until we request some Zepplin and some Floyd. When he played the song, we realized we could hear him breathing. His mic was still on.

He asked us if we wanted to see his dog dance.

Next thing you know, we’re watching some ankle biting dog hopping around on its hind legs on a webcam.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get funnier, his wife walks in to the room. He turns to her, unaware that his mic is on and says, “Honey look, I’ve got professional DJ’s listening to me. They are going to give us some advice. This great. They are professionals from a REAL radio station.”

I had to turn it off…

I remember when I was younger. In college. We’d stay up all night. Me and a girlfriend. We’d talk until the wee hours of the night.

Then we’d go to Denny’s. It was always an odd experience. We seemed to hit the transition from night to day every time.

When we showed up there would be a few drunks and other night owls. We’d get a big breakfast and then chill with some coffee. The tired and bitter night shift waitresses would leave and the young and pretty day shift waitresses would come in.

Before the sun even though of coming up, the business men would come in. One or two of them. Wearing suits and reading the paper.

Everything about them felt different. They had places to be. They were awake. Rested.

We were tired, out of it.

The contrast always seemed very staring to me. I always wondered what those guys in the suits thought of us. A couple of dumb kids with out the sense to go to sleep.

Of course, that is what is going to happen here shortly. The wife and kid will wake up. Fresh and rested. I’ll be here almost functional and spaced out.

I don’t even want to know what they’ll think of me… but I hope they bring breakfast.

Yep… That’s just what I need. A nice healthy snack.

Some people, like my wife, are freaked out by the fact the Yogurt is made up of an active bacteria culture. It doesn’t bother me at all. I eat it all the time. It’s good low calorie snack with protein. What could be better?

Monty played Gwar followed by ‘Rock around the Clock.’ Don’t you think that there should be laws about this kind of thing?

I guess I’ll end up in the chatroom. Not cause I want to, but ought of sheer boredom.

I remember being tired last year, but I don’t remember being bored. I have no idea what this means.

This is lame I’m blogging about my snack. And the worst part is this may be the best post I’ve had in hours.

I did not take a walk.

My eyes are still… tired.

And I thought of nothing to write.

I suck. I’m loser and no one likes me.

Of course, we already knew that. A walk and a snack. That’s what I need.

And a few more sponsors. I know it’s late, but I’d really like to hit $300 in pledges.

I know I’m a loser, but my cause is good.

I will probably stop broadcasting soon. And listen to Monty again. Unless she plays more country music. Then all bets are off.

Can some one remind me how staying up all night helps charity… I’m a little lost on that point right now. Of course, I’m a bit confused and distracted in general.

My posts might be longer if I didn’t have to spend so much time backspacing out typos.

We’ll try again in 30.

This is such a weird time of night.

I feel like I should explain that statement… but I have no explanation.

I guess my mind is just sort of free-associating here, but am I the only guy who feels uncomfortable when another guy uses emoticons when IMing? It’s just me, isn’t it?

I’m a freak, I guess.

I might be hungry. Maybe I should find a small snack.

My eyes are exhausted. I had to lose the shades. I’m back to my regular specs now. I may have to take a walk away from this PC and give my eyes a break.

And think of something to post. Cause I don’t know if I’ve ever been this boring before.

The good news is that my headache is getting better.

Unfortunately, I still can’t think straight. I get easily distracted.

So we can expect that the shit that I’m writing here will make less and less sense as this goes on.

I’ll drink another Red Bull and see what that gets me.

I really wish I had a thought in my head that I could put down here. And I wish I had the concentration to actually type it if I did.

We have a new super hero and not a moment too soon. imagined-community came through with a donation at just the right time. I was beginning to feel like I wasn’t getting to through anyone new.

This is good. Cause I needed some good news.

I’d write more, but somehow my thirty minutes is up… again.

Still grooving with the Dead.

Yeah.

It’s me. That’s not a real surprise.

I’m plucked. About a number of things, But I guess this isn’t the appropriate time or place.

I think that Red Bull was good. But I may need another one.

I’d be happier if more people were coming around.

Or maybe I wouldn’t. Who fucking knows. It is very unfortunate that this sinus infection lined up with the blogathon. I am quite simply no where near my best.

For that I apologize.

We are chilling with The Dead. Let your inner hippie come out and play.

Which is odd, because I didn’t think yo could smell me over the internet.

I guess the idea is that it will wake me up. But I’m not much for quick showers. I think that I’ll just skip it… although it has some appeal.

I think this sinus infection is making this harder than it should be, but that doesn’t really matter.

It’s really hard to bother with these posts, when I know that no one is reading them. Yes, Monty, I know that you are reading… but I could just IM you.

I’m fucking freezing for some reason. And I don’t like it. I’m all bundled up and it’s July.

Would you believe that i haven’t got around to raging yet, I think I keep putting it off cause, I have no idea what I’ll do after that. For now, we’re just chillin’ with some Cat Stevens.

I haven’t got around to the raging yet… don’t worry I have all night.

And I think the coffee isn’t cutting it. I need Red Bull and I need it … well soon.

This 30 minutes has been a waste.

I blame Monty.

Maybe the next post will be better. But I doubt it.

If the power goes out… I guess I’m screwed. There isn’t a window in the geek cave, so I can’t tell how bad it is. But I can hear the thunder over the music.

I’m back on the air. Not that you care. I’m playing a power block of Pop Punk. You know Blink 182, Green Day, that kind of shit.

I keep catching typos. They are pretty bad. I’m very concerned about the ones I’m missing.

It is now tomorrow. Or at least it’s after midnight. It feel much later. I’m not sure why. Probably because almost none of the freaks I talk to online are online.

Rage upcoming on the Mango Radio.

More lame posting in 30 minutes on this blog.

You haven’t seen shit.

As predicted the wife and kid came home and went straight to bed. Which pretty much sucks. I thought we would have an ice cream snack or something. And you know what… I don’t even feeling like fucking with the ice cream by myself.

I’m not having a lot of fun right now. Which also sucks.

As a matter of fact I may have nothing nice to say at all. So I suppose that I shouldn’t say anything at all.

I’m planning to have a full fledged rant on Mango Radio in about a half hour. But you won’t be there. Cause you suck too!

Let’s see if some more coffee improves my mood or intensifies my rage.

I’ve heard rumors…

But I’m not buying it.

My wife claims that her and the kids (at least one of them) are returning. Of course, they probably just go to bed. Losers!

Sleep is for pussies.

Monty is torturing me with country music and Adam Sandler songs. There is no accounting for taste I guess. At least she’s good in bed. (Not that I’d know, but that’s what it said in the men’s room.)

Is then when I’m supposed to post whining comments about how tired I am and how hard this is? Or does that come later. I can’t remember. I’ll just drink more coffee. It won’t be pretty, but it will work.

I’d feel bad about the lameness of these posts, but it’s not ike anyone is reading… so what the hell.

Be proud. Be Shitty!

The coffee taste good… but I don’t now if that will be enough.

I didn’t do a single fucking thing since the last post. I’ve pretty much just sat here and stared at my computer. This isn’t healthy. And it’s a bit dumb.

I’ll have to come up with something to entertain myself. I have some comic books to catch up on. Given the lack of anything else going on, I may just read them. That seems kind of anti social, but I need to do something.

In an hour or two… I’ll do an all out rant on the radio. That will get my blood moving.

See you in thirty.

Yes. I’m brewing pot number 2. I drank most of pot this morning and I think that it is hight time that I drink some more.

At this point in my life, I have abandoned most of my vices. All I have left is Coffee and Swearing. And I do plenty of both.

I’m stilling hanging out in this chatroom. It’s odd. Somehow all chatrooms seem the same. The people are saying the same stupid shit.

I don’t think that I’m cut out for chat rooms. Besides, there are so 1997.

So since the chatroom isn’t entertaining me, I’ll need to find something else to entertain me. Soon I’ll have to resort to the porn. Or something.

I’m sitting here, with my shades on. I’m in the MPYR radio chatroom. I fucking hate chatrooms. They fill me with rage. Even more than normal.

Shutter is our most recent Super Hero.
Without babbling on like a little girl, this one means a lot to me. Thanks, dude.

I’m getting tired. I’ll blame this sinus infection. Staying up usually isn’t a problem for me. I guess I have no choice but to make some coffee.

I love coffee. I guess I wouldn’t be so bored if people were visiting. But as I’ve said before, I’m not one of the cool kids. Just my destiny, I suppose.

That’s ok, I’ll just keep posting. The 2 or 3 of you that are reading, will keep reading. And later, in the wee hours of the morning, I’ll rage to no one on SBR about how the rest of you suck.

Have a nice day.

Instead of taking a break and walking round, going outside, doing anything… I’ve been sitting here IMing with Shutter about what I missed at work on Friday. Does this mean I have a problem?

At least Monty is Playing Duran Duran. I Like Duran Duran. And Rocky Horror Picture Show songs!

Soon, I’ll have to put my shades on. I don’t know why, but I do that every Thursday Night, when I do Shitty Blog Radio. It’s just a geek thing, I guess.

I think I need to find some thing to keep me occupied. I’m bored to tears.

I feel like now would be an appropriate time to wow you into sponsoring me. But I don’t know how much ‘wow’ I have in me. And I’m not just saying that because my ass has been planted in front of this PC for 12 hours.

I’m just not a ‘ wow’ kind of guy.

Here are the facts:

I’m blogging for Freedom from Hunger.
They are great Charity Dedicated to end hunger worldwide.
I will match 10% of the total pledge amount.
I am, by nature, an angry bitter son of a bitch. Yet I am doing this thing.
If you want to pledge, click the shiny blue button.

At 9:00 PM, I’m turning off my stream for a bit. I’m gonna listen to my friend Monty. But don’t worry I’ll broadcast some more later.

So I decided on a block of Floyd. Since my only listener doesn’t get the difference between real Floyd and new Floyd. We consider this to be educational programming. Besides the Floyd makes me happy.

I’ve got this Red Bull in front of me still, but I’m trying to hold off on drinking it…

Never mind. I drank it.

I have no idea what the fuck I am going to post about now. So this could get ugly. Or boring. Or just plain lame.

I can hear what you are thinking… (Lame… How can I will the difference?)

Very funny.

Don’t look now… I think I got a second listener.

I may have to resort to watching TV and telling you about. Or should I read comic books to you?

As I was saying, I found myself in charge (if not officially) of setting up an Exchange Server and getting my department using Exchange/Outlook without fucking up the existing Groupwise environment.

This is exactly the kind of thing I got into this industry to do. And I’m good at it. Not just the technical parts either. There is another side to these things. I had to get this group of engineers to do what I, a lowly tech, wanted them to do.

I did what I do well, I listened to them, heard there concerns and wants. I put together a plan that took those things into consideration. That part went perfect.

I’d love to tell you that the technical part was flawless, but it wasn’t. There were snafus and things that I hadn’t anticipated. But nothing that set the project back. I was able to make all work.

While this was happening, other things were changing. Our CIO shook up our pay scale and our Org Chart. He made it so he could promote people with out waiting for people to die. One of the people he promoted with this change was me. It went into effect with FY08 (July 1,) but I knew it was coming almost 2 months ahead of that. There was also an extremely healthy raise that went with that.

The only thing I can complain about is I never got to confront my boss. And I had planned the whole thing out.

And now you are all caught up.

So should I play a block of Floyd or a block of Green Day?

I’m still picking at my dinner here. I’ll get back to my narrative about the job. We’ve got all night.

In the mean time, if any of you are in Oklahoma, please call 911. Monty has just eaten something called a Chocolate Fried Pie. It makes my freezer Burrito sound like health food. I’m guessing it will give her a heart attack. It’s probably wise to have the paramedics on hand just in case.

I have sitting in front of me SF Red Bull #2. I’ll drink it soon.

In other news, my feet are cold. Have no fear, I got some wools socks to warm them up.

I think I’m bored. I think I need to play a block of Ska soon.

We are going to wait a bit to pick up the very interesting story of my job. Ok, it’s not that interesting. I can’t help it. I’m boring.

I’m having dinner now. Freezer burritos and taquito, with salsa and sour cream. Total bachelor dinner.

While I’m eating, let’s thank Sparky for becoming the latest super hero to sponsor me during this blogathon.

What super hero would you be?

As I was saying, I was ready to demand a promotion (or at least an increase in the level of my responsibilities) or find a new job.

Before I got a chance to confront my boss, things started to change. The changes were gradual, and I didn’t recognize them at first. I became more involved with the AD migration. You have to understand that there isn’t an actual migration at this point. It’s more of a discussion of a migration. Most of the time it is bogged down with management and how its going to happen and how much it will cost.

But I was more involved in the Administration of the backbone AD infrastructure that exists. In April, opportunity knocked and leaped to answer the door. Our CIO, my boss’s boss, decided migration or not, he wanted to use Outlook for his email instead of Groupwise. And he wanted it right now.

My boss dropped this bomb on the engineers and they reacted predictably. They started listing reasons why it wouldn’t work and pointing out problems with the idea. I said, I don’t think that this is going to be that difficult.

A couple informal meetings later, I was unofficially in charge of this project. This was exactly the kind of opportunity that I had been looking for

To be continued…

I haven’t blogged about anything but blogathon or backpacking for a long time it seems.

So I’ll update you on the other shit that’s been going on. Or at least some of it.

A number of months ago, in November or December, it occurred to me that my job was falling into a rut. I was hired as a Network Technician. Meaning that I provided second tier onsite support. (That didn’t really clear it up, did it?) If you worked in the same company as me, and you put in help desk call, and the monkeys at the help desk couldn’t fix it remotely, the call would get routed to me. It’s not a bad job. I got to drive around and fix stuff. The users loved me cause they knew I would take care of them.

But I was overqualified for this. The engineers meanwhile, were planning a migration to Active Directories. This happens to be my area of expertise. They would hit me up for ideas and shit, but since I had to be out onsite, it left me out of the loop.

I decided that something needed to give. I understood that politics of our bureaucracy didn’t really give much of a chance to get promoted. For that to happen, one of the existing engineers would have to quit or die. I planned to demand of boss, during my review in the spring, that she, if not promote me, let me take on Network Engineering duties. If there wasn’t more money for me, I could live with that, but I needed to have my skills put to use.

And if that didn’t work out, I was prepared to start looking for a new job.

To be continued…

I can’t even begin to describe to you what just happened to me.

It just wouldn’t make sense.

Here’s what you need to know.

It sucked. It’s a good thing that there is no one else home. I’ll survive, but it’s not going to improve my mood.

On the positive side, I’m enjoying a power block of Three Dog Night right now. And yes, I do take requests. IM me (jeckles1@Y!.) Email me (jeckles@gmail.com) or even call me (206-339-9147) and leave a message.

What the fuck am I going to do about dinner.

It’s times like these that I wish I didn’t blog anonymously. I could raise so much more money if I approached my friends and family with this. But I can’t do that.

Most of them don’t even know that I blog. I don’t even want to think what it would be like if they knew about it at work.

It wouldn’t be pretty. I hear them make comments sometimes.

“God, she is such a freak. I bet she’ll go home and blog about this.” And then they’ll all laugh. And I laugh too. I don’t need them to know that I do this.

If they knew, they’d start reading into everything I write about work. I’d blog about using a sick day for a ‘metal health day,’ and I have my boss call me into her office.

It would be bad. I just know it. So I’m a closet blogger. It’s best this way.

I know that plenty of bloggers are very open about the fact that they blog, I don’t understand how that works for them.

Just one more thing to hate about blogging.

For the record, I think my monitor hates me.

Yes. You missed a block of Disco and Rage on Shitty Blogathon Radio. I know you don’t care. I don’t care that you don’t care. So there.

Mango was there. He eggs me on, you know. He tries to get me to do bad things. Very bad.

I think I have been in front of the PC too long. I mean I’m used to being in front of a computer, but this is relentless. At least I work, I get interrupted with meetings and phone calls and Shutter. All I have here is Geek Blog, Misfitopia, IM and Shitty Radio. It may be making me a bit crazy.

Mango informs me that CBS is broadcasting an XBox360 GuitarHero Championship. This is fucking retarded. Do I really need to elaborate.

Mango is going back to whatever it is that he is doing in Buffalo. So I’ll be back to being kind of alone. Again. He says he’ll be back in the middle of the night. I’ll play Enya and GnR to celebrate.

And maybe some ‘All Along the Watchtower.’

What was it that Tyler Durden said about ‘the Happy Place?’ You know… when he was giving the narrator a chemical burn?

Nevermind.

I lost a post. Temporarily. I found it again. (It was the time stamp thing. It’s fucking with me.) For the brief time it was gone, I though I had lost what was left of my fragile mind.

Also, Thank you Utopia!

Thanks, for not killing me. Cause we all have a healthy fear respect of your mad scientist skills. Also thanks for the pledge. YOU ARE A WINNER!

I saw that one of Mike Vick’s co-defendants is going to cop a plea. This doesn’t look good for Vick. To add insult to injury it looks like Nike is going to severe their ties with him. They didn’t do that to Kobe. This is going to get ugly. Which is good, cause I was out of Paris Hilton news.

The Ravens report to training camp in just over 24 hours. I can’t wait.

I can’t believe it is after 3:00 PM. I seem to be unable to keep track of what’s going on. I’ll blame Mango for no discernible reason.

This just in… this post sucks. Hell, this blog sucks.

And that’s OK, I didn’t really want suggestions for Shitty Blog Survivor tasks… (Yes I did. That was sarcasm.)

At least the Red Bull was tasty.

I think I need to find my happy place.

I suppose that this means we are over a quarter of the way through this. That’s something.

I have no idea what to write about.

I could tell about you about how I got banned from Blog Explosion.
Or how fucked up the Radio situation was last year.

But that stuff will only get me in more trouble than I already am.

I could tell you about Shitty Blog Survivor. Yes that’s what I should do.

I have this club. The Shitty Blogs Club. It’s kind of like a joke, except it’s a real club. It’s difficult to explain. Every year we play Survivor. Like the TV show.

Except that I have never seen the TV show, so maybe it is way different.

We start with say 10 or 12 bloggers. They are all given a stupid task to perform by a set deadline. Like ‘Carve a Watermelon like you would a Pumpkin’ or ‘Dress Up in 40 different Items of Clothes’ or ‘Compose and Sing a Song about Survivor Island.’ You get the idea.

Actually, you could help me. There are currently 3 Survivors left on Shitty Blog Isle and I owe them a task. I have no idea what to give them.

Any Suggestions?

Did I tell you that I’m going to a concert?

I’m too old to go to concerts really. And I’m not willing to spend the $500 that it costs to see U2 or the Stones these days. But I heard that Ratdog is touring again. A quick search on the web told me that they would have a show in driving distance of where I live.

A long drive, but still.

They will be playing in some amphitheater in the Poconos. Capt. Shutter and I will be making a road trip of it. We’ll drive, get a camping site, and then head to the concert…

What’s that? You don’t know who Ratdog is? That’s ok, most people don’t. It Bob Weir’s band. You know, Bob Weir the rhythm guitarist from the Grateful dead. After Jerry Garcia died and the Dead were no more, one Weir’s side projects evolved into Ratdog.

I saw them in 1996 at the Further Festival in Va Beach. It was awesome.

It will be great. We’ll go hang out with the Dead Heads and watch a great show. The Allman Brothers will be playing too. It should be a great show. And then we’ll head back to the camp ground and chill.

You must be jealous. You should be. This will be the first concert I’ve been to in ten years. And at least I won’t have to worry about feeling old. I’m guessing the median age there will be north of 50.

It’s for a good cause…
It’s for a good cause…
It’s for a good cause…

I might cry if no one else sponsors me during this thing. I realize that this would make me a big pussy, but it is what it is.

In my refrigerator, there are four Sugar Free Red Bulls. I think it will soon be time to help my self to one of those.

I also think that my plan to write quality posts is getting shot to hell.

Look at this post for example. It sucks.

If I were a daddy blogger, then I could just post cutesy pictures of my kids. Which they would find when they were older and resent me forever. Well… resent me more.

So this is all about charity, right? And that’s more than jsut money, am I right? It’s about action and practicing what you preach.

You want to do some good today? Really good? Go over to Mango’s blog. And say something nice. He deserves it. No one should have to go through what he has the past few days (even though most of have or will.) I’m serious, I’m talking about a guy who is dealing with loss and all that comes with it, and he sends me an email apologizing that he can’t be around for the blogathon. Please.

So go do that. It won’t cost you a cent. And it might make you feel good.

So if you hate this… it’s only going to get worse.

For lunch: 3 hot dogs, with Yellow Mustard and Dill relish; some tortilla chips and a Diet Mountain Dew.

Excuse me a moment while I chew.

OK. Yellow Mustard and Dill Relish. It’s the only way to go. I’ll never understand why everyone wants to use sweet relish. Almost everyone likes Dill Pickles. Why not dill relish? I go to the store and there is like an entire section dedicated to relish, but only like 3 jars of dill relish. The Fuck?

I know. You don’t care. But I’m eating the hot dogs and that is what is on my mind.

To think I promised to fill you in on the boring fucking details of my life, and all you get is me babbling about lunch. I can’t help it, lunch is important to me. And just think later when I get around to talking about my boring life, it will actually seem interesting in comparison.

While, I’m babbling about lunch, I’ll get this off my chest. People make fun of me for drinking a diet soda with a less that healthy meal. Why? Cause it would make more sense to pile 140 empty calories on top of my 3 hot dogs. I always drink diet soda. although I don’t drink much soda in general. I’m a coffee and water kind of guys, with a nasty Red Bull habit. Sugar Free Red Bull that is.

I hope you enjoyed lunch as much as I did. And no mustard stains, thank you very much.

Like most days…

It’s lunch time and I am filled with rage. Don’t ask. It just seems to work that way. Maybe it’s techno music I’m listening to. Wanna listen. Go to SBR and click on one of the links on the sidebar. To the best of knowledge, they work.

I’ve get left over hot dogs on the menu. Who wants to figure out the over/under on me spilling mustard on me. It’s pathetic. I know.

To expand on the point that i was failing to make earlier. All I’ve wanted to do was to be popular. In high school and college that would have never happened. It’s not likely to happen at work. But, You would think… at least I would, that on the Internet, I’d have a chance.

The playing field should leveled. Looks don’t matter. Background doesn’t matter. Yet, the blogosphere (and elsewhere on the ‘net) makes its own cliques. I hate it.

Wanna know what else sucks? I really though it would take long for me to be reduced to rambling, babbling.

I’ll babble some more after lunch.

That would be the flaw with not having a plan for the day.

Just two hours in and I have no idea what the fuck I am going to write about. Go me!

The wife and kids are going to pack up soon and leave me here chained to my computer. It’s probably for the best.

It’s not like I’m any kind of company right now.

I’m not a good writer by any stretch of the imagination, but I for whatever reason, I keep doing it. I don’t think I could ever do it on a deadline. This makes me a little bit nuts.

Ironically, or maybe it’s not as ironic as I think it is, I work better on a deadline. Go figure.

I’ve been a really shitty blogger the last few months, not a Shitty Blogger, but just plain shitty.

I suppose, I could spend the next few hours writing about what has been going on with me, since I’ve neglected to blog about it. Of course, those who listen to SBR already know most of this shit.

My head hurts again. I hope it’s lunch time soon.

As I was saying…

There is plenty of food, more than enough.

I truly believe that there is enough food out there to prevent chronic hunger forever. It’s just not all in the right place.

We can fix this. (No smartass, I don’t want you to mail that left over piece of pizza to Africa.) A relatively small amount of money can help not only feed people who are starving, but help to education them on how to manage finance and improve infrastructure.

And if it is possible to fix this, and I believe it is, then we must do this. How can it be that there are people starving, when it can be fixed?

So I picked Freedom from Hunger for my charity. They believe, as I do, that hunger can be eliminated.

Hey, you can help too! Five dollars can make a difference. $25 is huge! And $100 would be AWESOME! You want to be awesome, don’t you?

And I’m putting my money where my mouth is. I’m matching 10% of the total pledges. I want to get up to $500 in pledges before this is done. I know it is unlikely, but I would love nothing more than to have to shell out $100 to match a $1000 in pledges.

I’ll be back in 30 minutes. Hell… I’ll be here all day.

Do you ever wonder how people come to choose a charity to get behind? I mean not just blogathon either. How do celebrities end up sponsoring this charity or that charity? I guess they have people for that. People who go find charities that match their interests (and will best serve their PR people.)

I, believe it or not, don’t have people. Yet I still had to pick a charity. For me, this wasn’t easy. I am passionate about many things and there are dozens of charities that address these things. How to narrow it down to one that I am willing to give up a day of my life for. How to pick one that I am willing to ask friends and strangers to support?

It wasn’t easy. But I think that one of the things that upsets me the most is this: I live in a country that thrives on excess. Super-sized fast food, big-fucking-sodas at the convenience store. And Junk Food. Everywhere I look, there is food and too much of it. More than we really need. And that’s fine I guess.

But here’s the rub, if we have so much extra, how is it that anyone, anywhere is starving?

I think this thought is bigger than the time I have… I’ll finish it in the next post!

I am always amazed when I read about people’s plans for the Blogathon. Some of them throw parties or watch movies. Some of them set a theme for their posts or have contests.

Not surprisingly, I’m not doing any that shit. It’s not that I don’t approve. (OK maybe I don’t, but that’s not why.) It’s that typically when I blog it takes me almost 30 minutes, sometimes longer, to put my posts together. I guess my posts are longer than average and it doesn’t help that I can’t really type. But the real problem is that I simply think too much about it. It’s just the way I am.

The really sad part is that for all the time and effort, this is the end result.

So my plan is simple. I will sit here and write 49 posts over 24 hours. I will try to give each post the attention that I would to any ‘regular’ post. (In other words, I will do my best not to give you the “Wow I still 12 hours to go.” post.)

Honestly, I’m not criticizing anyone else’s effort here. It is just my goal, again, to remain consistent to my style of blogging. It seems like the least I can do for my Charity.

In addition to blogging, I’ll do the radio thing, but that won’t take much effort. And I’ll drink coffee. And Sugar-Free Red Bull.

Man I suck at this.

I might as well get this out of the way early.

I feel like shit. I’ve got a sinus infection and a brutal headache to go with it. And that would be quite enough, but it’s not all. My stomach seems to be upset too. And I guess this ventures into that TMI place that bloggers love to go. But it’s not making it easy to planted in front of this computer for 24 hours.

But I will. Because I’m more stubborn than I am grumpy.

And while I’m complaining, I should probably mention now that I hate blogging. Yes, I do realize that is a contradiction. And no I can’t explain it. I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to explain this contradiction over the course of three years of blogging. I don’t expect that I’ll have any better luck in the next 24 hours.

Also. Why is it always a beautiful day when we do blogathon. Maybe we should consider doing this in January.

Did I mention that I have a headache…

On a completely different note, if anyone does listen to “radio” thing, you should that I take requests and have over 20,000 songs to choose from. Let me know if you want to hear something. The best way to reach is me is jeckles1 @ Y! Messenger. If you don’t IM I still do email: jeckles at gmail dot com.

Most of the readers that will cross this space today, don’t know me. (I’m not one of the popular kids.) So I guess maybe I should start by telling you a little about me.

I’m a 35 year old Network Engineer by trade. I’m into Sci Fi, Comic Books and music.

And I’m a bit grumpy. (Okay more than a bit, but I don’t want to scare any one off.)

Once again, I’m blogging for Freedom from Hunger in this blogathon. Sponsor me. It will make you feel good. On every post I’ll have a convenient button to make it easy sponsor me. IN addition, at the end of this thing, I will pledge 10% of the total amount of pledges that I have.

During the duration of the blogathon, I will be broadcasting on Mango Radio. Nothing special, just sharing the music that I’m listening to to keep me going. If you want to listen use one of these links: Winamp, WMP, RealPlayer Quicktime.

I guess that will do for now. There is no rush, we have all day and all night together.

I did two things today that I rarely do.

I called out of work. And I went to the doctor.

This headache hasn’t really gone away since Tuesday night. It would get less bad. I mean it would still hurt, but I could go about my business. Every once in a while it would become so intense that I wasn’t able to do anything but close my eyes and hope it got better.

It was like that when I went to bed last night. It wasn’t much better when I woke up. I called out of work and had Mrs. Jeckles make a doctor’s appointment.

I hate going to the doctor. I absolutely hate it. I’ve been known to say things like, “I think it’s just a mild case of strep throat, I think I’ll be fine.” Or, “It’s just a sprained ankle, I’ll have to keep my weight of it, but I’ll take it easy for a few weeks and see a doctor if it gets worse.”

But this headache was bad. The pain was bad enough. I have an extremely high threshold for pain, but this was too much for me. Advil didn’t have much of an effect. Like I said, the pain would vary in intensity, but it never really went away.

So I headed to the doctor, fully prepared to get bad news.

“Mr. Jeckles, it’s an aneurysm in your brain. You have 6 months to live.”

Or even worse:

“Mr Jeckles, it looks like you are having chronic headaches brought on by excessive caffeine use. You’ll be fine as long as you never have caffeine again.”

Needless to say, I was apprehensive.

Have no fear. It seems that I have a sinus infection. I’ve got antibiotics and hopefully as this improves, the headache will subside. Of course, if it doesn’t… we’ll do a CAT scan.

Staying up for 24 hours of blogathon with a pounding headache isn’t my idea of a good time. But it is my destiny, I fear.

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me. And if you have not…

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

You can sponsor me up until the end of the blogathon (and if I remember correctly perhaps a little later.)

And remember I’ll match 10% of the total pledge amount.

See you tomorrow. All day and all night. Stop and say hi.

In just a few days, I will be participating in the Blogathon.

Please help sponsor me to help fight Hunger.

Why?

Because it’s a good cause.
Because you want to make grumpy old me smile.
Because you live in a part of the world where people throw away more food in a day than some families get a week.
Because you didn’t know what to do with that 5, 10, 20 dollar bill folded up in your pocket.
Because you want to be a super hero too.
Because all the cool kids are doing it.
Because you want to help.

Seriously. Freedom from Hunger provides resources to 3.5 million people world wide. They focus their efforts on areas where the people suffer from chronic hunger. Can you imagine? Chronic Hunger? They help families in places like Ghana, India, Bolivia, Senegal, and Haiti. They provide Education, Assist families in obtaining Healthcare and help them learn how to sustain themselves.

Now really, don’t you have a few bucks to spare to help them out?

I’ll even pitch in. I’ll match 10% of the total pledges received.

Think about it. You can pledge any time between now and the end of the blogathon.

Thanks.

The wife and I… Well OK, just the wife.. but the first way sounded better. This doesn’t make any sense. Let’s start over.

My wife was going over the bills and stuff. She discovered that our Citibank Card had like a gazillion ‘Thank You’ points on it. With our points we ‘purchased’ a waffle iron, a quesadilla maker, a toaster oven/toaster combo, a movie and an iPod shuffle. Not too shabby.

Even though I already have the 30 gig iPod, I am psyched about the Shuffle. It is perfect for the gym. The best part of all… we ordered this stuff on Thursday and the Waffle Iron and the Shuffle showed up today.

I had been considering skipping the gym today, I feel run down. I mean really run down. But I decided that I wanted the Shuffle for the gym, so I owed it to myself to give it a real test drive.

After synching the Shuffle, I headed over to the ole gym and stepped up on the treadmill. I turned on the Shuffle and it worked like a champ. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for me. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t able to run for shit. I was winded, tired and my knee was swollen. I was off the treadmill after walking just five minutes and running less than three.

I figured the whole thing didn’t need to be a loss, so I headed over to the machines to lift. I sat down at the chest press machine. When I lift (no free weights for me… just the machines…) I lift till failure. In other words, I try to lift 3 set of 15 reps at a given weight, but I full expect to fail at some point. If I actually complete all 3 sets, I know that I need to increase my weight for next week. Last week, I had nearly completed all three sets, so this week I increased my weight. I knocked out the first fifteen with out any real trouble. I drank some water and after a short rest started the second set. Normally, the first week I am at a new weight, I don’t get far on my second and third sets, but this week I was doing great.

10, 11, 12, 13. Just one more. I pushed. It didn’t want to go. I closed my eyes and exhaled all the air from lungs as I pushed hard. It started to budge and then slowly I was able to extend my arms for that full 14th rep. As I let the hand grips fall back into the rest position, I realized that I was holding breath. I inhaled deeply.

The back of my skull erupted into pain. I drank some of my water, but the pain was unrelenting. The hell with the third set, I thought. I went to the water fountain and refilled my water. I went to try a few sets of flies on the ‘pec-deck,’ but my head was screaming and I felt weak as shit.

I decided to cut my losses and head home. After I ate, the headache started to fade and I began to get some strength back. But honestly, that scared the fuck out of me.

The Blogathon is on Saturday.

I’ll be up for 24 hours, posting a new original blog post every 30 minutes during that time. I’m doing this to raise money for Freedom from Hunger. They are a great charity and I’ll be telling you more about them as the blogathon gets closer.

You can help. You can sponsor me. No donation is too small. And to encourage you a bit, I’m not only investing my time into this, I’ll put my money where my mouth is. I’ll match 10% of the total pledges. In other words, If I raise $500 dollars, I’ll add $50 of my own cash to the total. If the total would get to $1000 (if only we could do so well…) I’d contribute $100.

But wait… there’s more!

To entertain myself during this blogathon, I’ll be listening to music the whole time. I’ll share what I’m listening to (and perhaps even entertain requests) on Mango Radio during the most (if not all) of the blogathon. Maybe I’ll even rant a little. Jeckles on no sleep and loaded with caffeine… I’ll probably rant a lot.

Do your part! Sponsor me.

Or I may do something drastic!

To the best of my knowledge, today is Tuesday. Which is wierd, cause I could’ve sworn that yesterday was Tuesday.

This isn’t going to get any better. I’m taking a four day weekend starting Friday. It will be August before I know what day of the week it is again.

I can’t keep a coherent thought in my head, so you are stuck with more of these stupid Random Thoughts.

Microsoft is revamping their Certifications. For Windows Server 2008 they will not be offering a MCSE Cert. Instead, it will be some Combination of Tech Specialist Certs. I do not feeling like laerning a whole new Certification path. Yet, I do want to have a current cert. A lot of people are unimpressed with MCSEs. I guess there have been too many asshats who have read enough books and memorized enough Cheat Sheets Practice Tests, that there is a population of MSCE that wouldn’t know DNS from DHCP. (Trust me, I just made a funny.) I’d like to upgrade, but it is unlikely that my job will pay for it. And I’m not sure if I want to drop a grand or so on a course to get me up to date. I guess I don’t even have to worry about it yet, Server 2008 isn’t even out yet.

I have a memory card full of photos. Some them good. At least one of them great. But I still haven’t bothered to get them inside of my computer.

I have, however, managed to grow my music collection to over 21000 songs. That’s almost 68 days worth of music, according to iTunes.

I may be set up a web page soon. And not another stupid blog either. And e-commerce thing for my brother. Could be cool.

I think I am going to see 1408 tonight. I’ve heard mixed things about it. Maybe we’ll just stick with Harry Potter.

Did I mention that my Brother-in-law want to do a stupid radio show of his own. I’ll have to make sure he keeps it a secret from my mom.

I got an anonymous pledge of $5 yesterday. This rocks. Every dollar counts. You too could pledge $5 or $50. I’ll tell you what I’ll do (and this will get me in trouble with the wife for sure,) I’ll match 10% of the pledges I receive. Right now, I have $150 pledged. So I’ll be in for $15. If it gets up to $500, I’ll pledge $50. You get the picture.

Sponsor me. You know you want to. It’s for a good cause.

And now I go back to work, to finish my Wednesday Tuesday.

I went backpacking. Again. I know, it’s almost boring. It was a great weekend.

I’m sure its just me being paranoid, but as the end of Dubya’s term gets closer, I keep waiting for some one to announce that they are extending his term indefinitely, citing terrorist threats and what not.

Thanks Monty, Mango and WK for sponsoring me in the blogathon. You can sponsor me too. Dammit.

Two weeks till training camp starts. I can’t wait.

I got a promotion at work. I am now, officially, a Network Engineer. But you can still call me Jeckles.

I’ve changed my gym routine around a bit. I’ve added more emphasis to muscle training. I’ve also added protein shakes to my diet. I’m seeing good results.

Shitty Blog Radio is stupid. My mother has never listened to it. (And this is a good thing.) But for some reason she keeps telling everyone in my extended family about it. I spent an uncomfortable 15 minutes yesterday, trying to explain to my nice Christian cousins what is I do on the internet radio. Maybe my mom should listen. I bet she’d stop telling family about it.

Shitty Blog Survivor is even dumber.

And now my lunch break is over.

Today is the day that all the Blogathon participants are supposed to post about the Blogathon.

I suppose the idea is that it’s supposed to generate traffic and interest to the blogathon. I guess that they just don’t understand about my blog.

NO ONE READS IT.

Okay… I know that you do, but you have to admit it’s lonely around here. It’s my fault. I know.

It always is.

I shouldn’t have gone for so long with out blogging. I just didn’t seem to have anything to blog about. Funny that, cause I always have plenty to say.

But, back to the topic at hand. Go check out the blogathon.

And sponsor me. Dammit. I mean it.

Give me your fucking money. No. Wait. That’s not right. Let me try again.

Pledge your fucking money to help end hunger.

It’s not perfect, but it’s better. I’ll keep working on it.

I know you feel you can’t afford it. I’ll tell you what, just pledge five bucks. You can do that. I know you can. And when your done, ask some one else to do the same.

Hmm.

Still nothing.

I’m asking here, I mean I really want to know. What do I have to do get your pledge? Let me know.

Blogathon.

Yes, I’m doing the blogathon. I’m sure some of you think that is out of character for me, and I guess in some ways it is. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m doing it. And I need your help. I want to make this worth while and to do that I need to raise some money.

Whenever some one asks me for money for some good cause, my first reaction is “I don’t have extra money for that.” I’m not saying that I don’t want to help, but if I gave money to every good cause that came my way, I’d end up in debtor’s prison. So I try to pick and choose and donate to things I feel strongly about.

Keeping that in mind, I feel a little bad asking you guys for money for this. So I’ve given it some thought, and have decided how I want to do this.

I’m not going to make a game of this, or offer ‘prizes.’ Let’s face it, that’s not me. What I want to do is this: If you read this, I just want you to ask yourself if you’ve ever been truly hungry. Has your life ever been in danger because there was no food to be had? Probably not. If you’re like me you probably suffer from too much food, not too little. So how about do your self a favor and don’t eat lunch out one day next week, or skip that triple caramel latte. Take the money you would have spent on that and pledge it fight hunger through Freedom from Hunger.

Sponsor me.

Thanks.

In other, more stupid, news… Shitty Blog Survivor is in full swing.

And yes, I am sitting in here blogging on my vacation. I know. I’m an asshole.

Be Proud… and all that jazz.

As it turns out the fireworks weren’t that great either. To put it more precisely, there were no fireworks.

We usually spend the Fourth at my parents second home. It’s in a nice private lakefront community. We go boating, fishing and swimming. It’s a good time. And every year, a few of the locals, armed with thousands of dollars worth of pyrotechnics, put on an ‘amateur’ fireworks show. It’s always very good.

This year we headed down to the beach, I brought my camera to try to get some fireworks pictures. But there was almost no one there. One of the other guys that had just got there was asking what the deal was. Apparently the management of the community had decided that having fireworks was a bad idea.

On one hand, I see their point, I’m sure there is some sort of liability issue. But on the other hand, you’ve got a lake front community whose busiest day on the lake is always July 4th. If your don’t want to be worried about some redneck blowing his hand off, I’m fine with that, but hire some one to do it. I’m sure you could easily raise the money.

We drove off towards the nearest town, in hopes that we would find a fireworks display, but we never did. At least not exactly. We did manage to see fireworks. It seems that the residents of Northwestern Virginia to blow shit up.

In other news, the Blogathon is scheduled for July 28th. Be there. I will.

Once again, I’ll be blogging for Freedom from Hunger. YOU can help.

Sponsor Me.

I hate asking your for money. It makes me feel bad. So we’ll look at this way. If you live in America and are reading this, you probably have never had to deal with Hunger. Do this, next week sometime, pack a lunch and take the 10 or 20 dollars you would spent on it and use it to help me help Freedom From Hunger.

We’ll talk more about this later.

It’s emabarrassing to me, that Americans don’t realize that this holiday is Independence Day, not “The Fourth Of July.” The fourth of July, just happens to be the date of the holiday. Perhaps I should start calling Christmas, the 25th of December.

Besides that, it’s pretty good holiday.

Well besides that, and the fact the right wing nut jobs try to confuse any celebration of this country with some sort of endorsement of their screwy version of the way things should be.

Other than that is all good. Although I am trapped here with crazy people. It’s okay, they related to me. I’m mostly used to it.

At least the food is good. And the fireworks.

Blogging sucks. Why do you read this shit?

Who knew?

So when I noticed that I hadn’t blogged for a month… well I had to do something.

I probably should have chose to delete the fucking thing, but I chose to write a post.

When I was in college, I would skip class for whatever reason, and then I would miss it again. If it was a Tuesday/Thursday class that would mean that I had missed a solid week of class. This would send me into a state of anxiety. The idea of walking in there after missing a whole week was unthinkable. So I wouldn’t go. Needless to say, I don’t have a diploma.

I guess this blog is kind of the same way. I don’t update for a bit, and then I don’t know where to pick it back up, so I skip it.

If all you knew about me was through the blog, I guess you wouldn’t think I’d done anything but backpacking in the last few months.

But I think most of you listen to the stupid radio show, or worse yet know me in person, so you know better.

If not… well, what can I say.

The blogathon is coming up, and I plan to participate again. So I have no choice but to get back in the blogging habit. Which is a shame, cause of blogging sucks.

11 days. An ambitious plan. I knew that it was extremely possible that I would not complete the whole trip. And I was at peace with that.

I did, however, think that I would make it further than this.

Details to follow.

For now, I am home a week earlier than I expected to be. I still have next week off, but I am seriously considering going to work. I mean what’s the point of taking Vacation Days just to sit around the house?

Still, I feel refreshed. I got some time off work and spent some time in the woods. These things are important to me.

The backpacking is something I need to think hard about. Be able to walk the Appalachian Trail from beginning to end is a goal I have had for a long time now. And I’ve been working towards being able to complete that goal. Every time I turn down a donut or cookie; every step on the treadmill and stair-stepper is towards that goal. And I’ve done well, but it has left me in a situation that I hadn’t considered before.

While I have prepared myself for this, most of my hiking/camping buddies are not physically or mentally prepared for this. I think that, realistically, if I want to be able to do a long section hike, I will have to do it alone.

I don’t like alone. I don’t care for it one bit. I’ve had times in my life of terrible loneliness. I never feel teh need or desire for long stretches of solitude. I enjoy leaving the world behind when I go backpacking, but I like a companion or two to enjoy it with.

This is a contradiction that I will have to deal with.

I feel that, on some level, maybe it would be healthy for me to come to terms with the solitude. To find a way live quietly with myself, to help me to appreciate the company of others more. But being alone in the woods for several days is a hard thing for to do. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about being a hermit or anything. This time of year, there are several hikers on the AT. I would not be completely isolated, but I would be alone.

This is something I will have to think on for a while. I may sneak out and take a weekend trip by myself and see how it feels, see if this is something I can do.

To be able to do this alone will take a new level of mental toughness, and quite honestly, I don’t know if I am ready for that.

I’m off for an eleven day 115 mile backpacking trip.

Not that you’d even notice I was gone, with the lack of posting at this pathetic site.

But now you know. I’ll be in the wilderness of Southwestern Virginia. The weather looks to be awesome and I am more than ready to get out there and go.

Maybe a few days in the woods will re-ignite my desire to write. Maybe it won’t. We’ll see. That doesn’t matter anyhow, I’m not doing this for inspiration.

Think of as re-boot of the mind and soul. I go out there for a bit, let the stress and clutter of the everyday world sweat out of me as I’m walking. I’ll enjoy the cool mountain nights and bright Virginia sun. The old woods of this part of the world are awesome. And while I’m out there, it is a magical feeling.

When I come back, the real world will infect me again, but at least I’ll be starting fresh.

Peace.

That’s what the tell me.

Snow, hurricane force winds, rain and other fearful stuff.

This, of course should have tipped you off that we had planned our fisrt backpacking trip of the season for this weekend.

No. We did not cancel it. Because… well… Capt. Shutter is insane. And our young hiking buddy, who I’ll call Bear Bait for now, is too young and dumb to know better. Actually, he pronounced himself as ‘fearless.’ And that leaves the WAN-Man and me. And I guess we weren’t going to be shone up by these younger guys.

So I’m packed. My new ‘light-weight’ pack has so much shit lashed to it, that it kind of defeats the purpose.

Wet, cold, windy.

This is dumb.

I’ll take pictures.

Stay tuned.

And if this does mange to turn into a blizzard. And you turn on the news and hear about 4 foolish backpackers stranded in Central Pennsylvania. That’s not us. It’s four other guys.

Have a great weekend, slackers.

I’m back.

I went camping. Not backpacking, but car camping.

Car camping is so different. We had so much stuff. A big old stove, a propane lantern, a cooler, camp chairs! The funny thing is, compared to the other car campers we were roughing it. We hardly had any stuff compared to most of them. But when you compare it to backpacking, we were living like kings.

Shutter and I took his kid and my younger child out for an overnight camping trip. We had fun, but I have to admit I prefer camping with out the kids. I’m a jerk like that I guess. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time and I’ll do it again.

Chasing kids around saying, “keep your hat on, keep your gloves on, don’t touch that” isn’t exactly a vacation for me. But I didn’t take my kid camping so I could get a vacation. My parents took us camping every year. I must ahve been about six months old on my first camping trip. Looking back on it, I suppose that economics had a lot to do with it. It is a hell of lot cheaper to go camping than go to Disneyland.

The result was that I (and my brothers too, I think) grew up with an appreciation for the outdoors. Many of my fondest childhood memories revolve around being out in the woods in the Adirondacks or the Blue Ridge Mountains. We would explore the woods near the campsite. I imagined that I was an explorer walking through woods that no one had ever set foot in before. There is something primal and satisfying about sitting around campfire at night.

The point, I suppose, is that I learned these things while camping with my parents. I feel a deep responsibility to take my kids out so that they can have the same opportunity.

To put it more simply, while backpacking is more enjoyable for me, I need to take my kids out to the woods so that they have the chance to learn to love it like I do. And I think they will.

As for this trip, it was a pretty typical camping trip ( except maybe colder than you would have expected in April.) We went for a walk. The kids “discovered” an amphitheater in the woods, a creek an d a pond complete with frog eggs.

We had hot dogs for dinner and S’mores for dessert. Only after feeding them the gooey combination of marshmallow and chocolate did it occur to me that the tradition of giving kids S’mores and then expecting them to be able to lay down and go to sleep is a bit stupid. But we must have worn them out enough, cause they went to sleep with out incident. We buried them in sleeping bags and blankets to keep them warm.

Having put the kids down, Shutter and I finally got a chance to sit down and relax. The temperature continued to drop, be we we dressed warmly and we built the fire up to a nice warm blaze. We sat and talked and laughed till midnight or so.

We woke up and ate a hearty camping breakfast of eggs, pancakes and bacon. And then set ourselves to the task of breaking camp. It is so much easier to break camp when you are backpacking.

We rounded out the morning by taking a fairly long walk up the Appalachian Trail. We walked to the point that is the “official” half way point on the trail. And then we headed home.

I think that it was a successful trip by any measure.

And better yet, I get to go backpacking next weekend.

I’m out of here.

You’ll be relieved to know that my decades long streak of bad luck is still in tact.

Today sucked. Like most days, I left work filled with and a dull throb in my head. I came home. My wife had already left for some sort of meeting, so I checked in and made sure the kids weren’t dead. The TV had indeed done a great job of babysitting them, although they did seem slightly zombified.

I went upstairs and got myself a drink and took some more cough medicine. I listened as the toilet ran in the bathroom, and couldn’t help but think that there was just one my thing that I’ll need to fix.

We nuked something for dinner and then ran out for comic books. (I don’t have a problem. I can stop anytime I want.) We came back and I went to check my computer.

Yes. I check my computer several times a day. To see if I got an email. Or if some one had posted something interesting in one the forums I go to. Or to see if one of my blogs has got a comment. I realize that for teh frequency that any of things happen, I could get away with checking my computer once a week, but I’m always hopeful, in a pessimistic kind of way.

As I was getting into my chair, a drop of water fell on my head.

For a moment, I was completely confounded. My mind ran through countless improbable reasons why water might be falling on my head. Then I remembered the running toilet. Located conveniently above my desk.

I ran upstairs and looked in the bathroom. There was water all over the floor. An overflowed toilet, I thought to myself as I grabbed a mop, I’m gonna kill some one.

I mopped and mopped, but the water seemed to seep out from under the toilet itself. A little investigation revealed that the bolts that attach the tank to the commode were loose. And water was seeping out at that joint. I turned off the water to john and flushed it to empty the tank. I grabbed some towel and threw them around the base of the toilet to soak up some of this water.

It was at this moment that I realized that almost all of my tools are sitting in my rental property nearly 20 miles away. I managed to scrounge a pair of pliers and tightened the nut that the bolt fastened into. The water stopped seeping. The crisi was solved.

Or at least I hope it is. There is still a lot of water in this ceiling. I have two trash cans catching drips and there are a few ugly stains that have spread. I could drill a hole in the ceiling and let some of that water out. Or I can wait and see if it manages to dry up with out making the situation worse.

Did I mention that all of this right over all of my computers and my comic book collection (which will be temporarily relocated until this situation has passed.)

How the bolts got loose, I don’t have a clue.

I’m not sure I even want to know.

I woke up mad this morning.

Not irked, not annoyed, but pissed.

I was lying in bed feeling too angry to get out of bed. The alarm clock buzzed (after what must have been 8 or 9 snoozes) and interrupted my rage. I responded by punching the fucking thing. As the pain seared in my hand i picked up the clock and threw it as far as its cord would allow.

I looked at my hand, it was already swelling and had a nice purlpish color to it, this only fueled my rage. I marched downstairs grabbed a piece of ice and wrapped it an a paper towel. I put the ice on my hand, announced that I would not be going to work and returned to my bed.

I assumed that I had broken a knuckle. For it to bruise that fast and swell that much, it had to be broken. I took the ice off and started poking. Swollen, yes. Sore, yes. Broken, no. I must have crushed the blood vessel that goes right next to that knuckle.

I laid there, even angrier for the stupidity of my new injury, and pictured myself laying there all day, getting more and more pissed.

So I got out of bed and got dressed. And went to work.

I’m too tired. I’m so tired. I worked for hours and hours this weekend on this apartment. Hammering in quarter-round. Patching holes in the walls and ceiling. Painting. Nothing hard. I did the hard work last weekend. But still, a lot of work.

And now I’m tired. I can’t seem to get untired.

The good news is that the first apartment is done, and has tenants.

The bad news is the second apartment still needs to be painted and some small repairs made. And that tenant will move in April 1.

I’m not just a blogger, I’m the leader of a group of elite bloggers. Elite might be too strong of a word. Shitty might be more accurate. It’s a joke really. A big self-deprecating inside joke for people who write blogs, but don’t take themselves too seriously.

Amazingly, there are over hundred semi-active members. It’s amazing that my brand of pissed off humor appreals to that many people.

Apparently, not everyone appreciates my sense of humor. There are these other shitty bloggers out there. I don’t know where they came from. I don’t care. We made a big stink about them having the same name as us. Well, not even the same name but close. We pretended to be all offended and a good time was had by all.

Wait. Not by all. Like I said, not everyone appreciates my humor or lack thereof. Someone complained to blogsome and they deleted the Shitty Blogs Club outright. Harsh. It’s okay. I moved to the back up plan. The blog is now located at shittyblogsclub.com. I was going to move it some day anyhow… it just seemed like a lot of work. I have all of the posts kind of backed up. Some of the images are lost and the template is gone.

I guess I should be flattered that my humor was so offensive that it had to be suppressed. I don’t get it. I really don’t.

Of course, I don’t have time for this shit.

I just bought a house. I am now a slum lord.

We spent like 3 hours and nearly a thousand dollars in Lowes tonight. I’ve got a busy weekend ahead of me.

On the list: Replacing a window, replacing some dry wall, boarding up the broken windows in the basement, cleaning (and I mean really cleaning) and painting.

I feel like I belong on one of those shows on HGTV. Of course, buying a bunch of shit is the easy part. Tomorrow I need to start making it fixed.

Hopefully, I’ll remember to take before and after pictures.

The replacing the window is going to be the most challenging task. The existing window is 28 inches by 60 inches. Replacement windows come in 28 by 54. I’ll need to make the hole smaller. I know what I need to do and I’m pretty sure of how I want to do it. But often times these things end up getting harder once you start.

If you’re not doing anything tomorrow, come on over. We’ll be happy to let you paint.

Captain America is dead.
Shot down in cold blood.

If that doesn’t make you a bit sad, then there must be something wrong with you.

And Marvel, if you think Short-Shipping Captain America #25 will create more ‘buzz,’ you are probably right. But Dammit, why? I just want to be a dutiful little comic book geek and run out collect it. But no. It’s already sold out.

Like he’ll stay dead. I remember back when Superman was dead. That didn’t last either.

I think that it is possible that I’m not really good at this blogging thing. I wonder why it took me two and half years to figure this out.

I’ve been invited to a party in Las Vegas. But I can’t afford to go. It’s just too expensive to fly out there for one weekend.

Doesn’t that just suck?

Don’t answer. That was one of those rhetorical questions.

Today alone, no less than six people reinforced my notion that most people are simply to stupid to be allowed to be left to their own devices.

Remind me to tell you what is wrong with Public Education today, but make sure you have plenty of time when you do.

Also remind me to tell you about my hiking trip from a month ago.

And it snowed. I was really ready for spring. All the signs are here. Daylight Savings is coming. The Orioles are looking good in Spring Training (they do this to more thoroughly crush our hopes in July.) And my narcissus have peaked up thruogh the mulch. Okay, they did that back in January, but you get the point.

I set up MAME on PC. All the better to enjoy Pacman and Burger Time. All I need now is a good, old-school joystick.

Do you ever wish that the Internet was harder to use, just to keep the morons out?

And lastly, I used Puppy Linux to rescue files off of a corrupted Windows Laptop. I’m like a superhero.

My head hurts. I’m tired. I’m grumpy.

And no one cares.

I think it the last part that bothers me the most.

How has it been nearly two decades since high school and I find myself facing the same problems. I don’t fit in.

I don’t make friends well. I’m no good at it.

I could make some dramatic statement about how hard it is for me trust people, because of the way my life has gone. But that doesn’t ring true. I couldn’t make friends in high school either. Or before them.

I’m just not wired correctly.

I guess most of teh time I’m at peace with it. I just sit around and do my thing. But some days I look around and se people hanging out outside of work. Doing shit together and I feel left out.

Maybe this head ache has impaired my ability to function like a rational human being.

I just want to yell at people. Be a real dick. Somehow that seems like it would make things better. It probably wouldn’t and I doubt it would make me feel better. But if I could make a few people as miserable as I am, that would be a small consolation.

I know.

Small.
Petty.

But it sounds good. It really does.

I won’t do it. I’ll just stalk around and grumble to myself.

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

My job is making me nuts. I’ve been there for two years. I had expected that I would move up in the pecking order during that time.

It’s not going to happen. Too much bureaucracy. To move up, a new job needs to be created or someone need to leave. I don’t see either of those things happening.

Which means the ball is in my court.

Excuse my while I walk around and grumble some more.

It’s snowing. Right now. And honestly, it’s beautiful, but I can’t enjoy it when I know that in a few hours it will change to freezing rain and sleet. I am so sick of winter.

This morning I moved my old stove and fridge to the house I am preparing to rent out. It is so nice to have a truck. It just is. Almost everyday something happens that makes me glad I bought this truck.

Friday night we went out. The kids were at my sister-in-law’s house and we could do anything we wanted. But we are not very exciting people. We opted for dinner and a movie. Dinner was good. We went to a Chili’s. The chicken and shrimp fajitas are awesome.

We got to theater a little early for the show so I killed a little time playing Pac Man on the original arcade console. Very little time. It’s much harder than the internet version, I’ve been playing.

We saw Ghost Rider. IT was pretty much what expected. The ghost rider comic book has always been… well… for the lack of batter word, stupid. Johnny Blaze is possessed by the devil, so he turns into a flaming skeleton at night, but somehow he used his demonic possession for good. Huh? But no one read that book for the depth of it’s plot. The appeal was always fire, skeletons, motorcycles and demons.

The movie was OK. Nicholas Cage had some funny moments, But the CGI Ghost Rider was very unconnected from Cage’s Johnny Blaze. The movie tried to work a struggle within aspect of this whole possession thing, but it was tedious. They would have been better served to forget explanation and had more fire, skeletons, demons and motorcycles.

Since we were without kids, we capped off the night by getting hopped up on Diet Red Bull and watching Mixed-Martial Arts fighting on HDNet.

Like I said, we aren’t very exciting people.

You would have thought that with a three day weekend, that I would have found the time and energy to update this site.

Shows what you know.

The sun came out today and the temperature rose about 50 glorious degrees Fahrenheit. It’s about time. Sometimes I lie to myself about the cold. It’s not that bad, I tell myself. But then it warms up and I remember how much I truly dislike the cold.

I’m buying a house. Did I tell you that? I didn’t think so.

Don’t worry, I won’t be asking you to help me move. I’m not going anywhere.

We, the wife and I and my parents, are going to buy a house as an investment property. Who am I kidding, we’re going to be slumlords. It’s nice little 2 unit house, that only needs a bit of cosmetic work. We’ll try this out and see how it goes. If it works out well, we will start building our slum empire.

As an added plus for me, this will give a chance to practice on some home improvement stuff, with out having to risk screwing up my house. One of the first things I’ll have to do is replace one of the windows. This is cool, because the windows in my house really need to be replaced also. And this will give me a very good idea of whether I want to try to do that myself.

The one apartment is lacking a refrigerator the other is short both a stove and refrigerator. As we discussed whether to buy new or used appliances to address this, I couldn’t help but think about my 15 year old, builder grade stove and refrigerator. Why would I buy new, if cheap, appliances for this property, when I really could use some new appliances myself.

Of course, this logic led my to Lowe’s and to know ones surprise we picked out a new stove and refrigerator for ourselves. And now we have a decent used stove and fridge for the one apartment.

The fancy new fridge came with a automatic ice maker. This requires a line to be tapped into my plumbing and run to the refrigerator. A simple do it your self kind of job. Except of course, when it comes to me and plumbing nothing is simple.

We got a saddle valve to ‘vampire’ into the cold water line under the sink. I drilled a hole in the cabinet, and ran the copper tube in. I fastened the copper to the valve on one end and the fridge on the other. I closed the valve, which pierced the the cold water line. I opened it back up and water flowed in to the copper line. Water was also slowly beading up where the copper line joined valve and where it was connected to fridge. I tightened the shit out of them and figured I was good to go.

I pushed the fridge back in to the wall. At this point, I should mention that I live in a townhouse and even though I bought the smallest Side by Side refrigerator they had to offer, it is very big in my kitchen. It just fits between the wall and the cabinet. When I pushed it back, it crimped the copper line. I didn’t drill the hole far enough back. I tried to pull the line out, but it was crimped to hard. It snapped.

I closed the valve and pulled it out. I drilled a new hole. But the tube had been flattened where it was crimped. I couldn’t fit the tubing into the fittings to fasten it. I won’t tell you how much time I spent trying to bend that copper tube back into shape, but I will tell you I didn’t get enough sleep last night.

Today on my lunch break, I picked the tool that is designed to cut copper tubes and went home. I trimmed the tube and fastened it. And now we have ice.

It never fails to amaze me how much easier it is to do this kind of thing, when you have the right tools.

I got a snow day today. Three or four inches of snow topped with a layer of ice have effectively shut down this town.

My wife did, however, have to go to work. I drove her in.

It’s ugly out there. The sleet has changed to rain. The rain combined with the snow melt results in lots of standing water that has nowhere to drain. And its still pretty cold so it’s trying to freeze as it sits. Tonight as the temperatures drop a lot of it will probably freeze up.

Some parts of the world seem to get these winter wonderland kinds of storms.

Here, we get mixed precipitation. Sleet, freezing rain. Slop. It’s ugly. The kids can’t go out and play in it.

And the roads are far more treacherous than the would ever be with just snow. Deep water, unexpected patches of ice, snow. And Mid-Atlantic drivers. Any thing that resembles weather puts these people in a panic. They brake going down icy hills. The don’t get enough speed to make it up slippery slopes. The can’t drive in this stuff. (This shouldn’t be surprising, it’s not like they drive great in good conditions.)

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy having an excuse to drive today. The truck did great. The Four wheel drive on it, is automatic. I don’t have to turn it on. It is front wheel drive anyway. So it drives with just the front wheels engaged, if it senses that either of those wheels is spinning or slipping, it will kick in the four wheel drive. It works like a champ. Besides that, it was nice just to have that extra height to the vehicle as I had to drive over spots where they had plowed side roads closed or through twelve to eighteen inches of running water.

I like my truck.

And I should, it cost me enough. (I would put a picture of it up, but would you believe I haven’t gotten around to shooting one.)

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that all of this slop is probably appropriate for Valentines Day. It’s a stupid holiday. Just an excuse for the Chocolate, Flower and Greeting Card industries to get more of our money.

The last few years I have helped the boys make a Valentine’s Cake for their mom. But that may not happen this year. Unless I decide to make a trip to the store. Besides It makes one huge cake. That would be a diet buster for sure.

Since at least one person cares about the back packing, I will see if I have it in me to write about it.

Oh! I did something nice again today, I may need to go see a doctor or something about this.

To the disappointment of many, I did not freeze to death in the woods.

I might write about the trip, but who knows, I may not. I don’t actually think anyone cares about the details.

While I was out there, I did lot a of thinking. It’s easy to think when you have nothing to do but walk.

I remember thinking to myself; these are good thoughts, I should write about them in the blog. Would you believe that I can’t remember any of it?

It’s true. I suck like that.

I’ve been back two days and already I feel as stressed and miserable as I did before I left, or worse.

I think that there is something wrong with me.

And I have no idea what to do about it.

I feel like I need a new job, or a second one. I suddenly feel like I need to be making more money.

I was going to write about the nice thing that I did today, but I no longer feel like it.
Nice went out the window a few hours ago.

Yes. I’m going backpacking this weekend.
Yes. I realize that I’ll be lucky if it gets much over freezing while we are out there.
Yes. I remember that I said that I wouldn’t go backpacking in February again.

No. I don’t care about any of that.

I need this.

You won’t understand that, but trust me. It’s true.

So excuse me while I go get my fix.

now nimble fingers that dance on numbers
will eat your children and steal your thunder,
while heavy torsos that heave and hurl
who crunch like nuts in the mouths of squirrels.

I have a head ache.

I don’t know if it is lack of coffee or that extra peice of pizza I ate last night. Maybe I didn’t sleep well. It doesn’t matter, but it is killing me.

I don’t know if my current lack of motivation is caused by the headache or if they are both symptoms of the same problem.

Six days till backpacking…
Six days till backpacking…
Six days till backpacking…

So to avoid to the real world, I’ve spent my energy on the Internet. I’ve added an anti-spam mod to my stupid forum and made some tweaks to the SBC and SBR domains. I’ve uploaded the radio show from Thursday.

And I’m listening to the show. It’s funny, a year and a half ago I cringed every time I heard a recording of my voice. Now, I’m very used to hearing it. Isn’t it sad that I enjoy listening to my own podcast. I’m such a dork.

I keep thinking that I will update you guys, both of you, on my progress with the ole home network. Then I remember that no one cares about that but me.

I bought a new cook kit for camping trip. It’s small, titanium and very light. Less than half a pound light. I also purchased a Buff. What’s a buff you are asking yourself. Check it here. Click on the link on that page to watch the demo movie. It’s cool as shit. It makes me happy.

I guess I need to get off the computer and do something… get dressed, take a shower… something.
But first, I think I’ll play one more game of Pac Man.

I come home for lunch each day. I only live a few miles from work and I find it to be the easiest way to go.

I am counting my calories these days. With great success, I might add. I have lost 15 or so pounds in the last month. I have twenty some odd to go to reach my goal. I have a ham and turkey on rye with cheese, every day. Heated the toaster oven. I prefer hot meals, for some reason. It is about a 400 calorie meal and it is quite filling.

It must be annoying to people around me when I start talking about calorie this and gym that, but when you are focused on that stuff you think about it a lot. You have to. It is too easy for me to start rationalizing why I can eat this or that. So I stay focused. I eat (give or take) 1000 calories a day. They tell me that I need to eat more. They tell me that my metabolism will slow down to much. I think that they are full of shit and more interested in selling me stuff than they are in me just losing the weight.

My metabolism is fine, thank you very much. I go to the gym nearly every weekday. I get on the treadmill, walk for five minutes to warm up, run for thirty minutes and then walk for five more to cool down. Then I go work some of the weigh machines. I doubt I’ll ever build any muscle worth noting, but I’m told that building muscle burns fat. So I do what I can.

I think about this stuff at lunchtime, because it is the best defense I know against just breaking down and eating out. I have a goal, and I am focused.

Next weekend will be the first big payoff for my efforts. By bringing my weight down, I should have a lot my more energy and stamina when hiking. And since my robot like friend will be coming, I’ll need all the energy I can get.

Other thoughts:

I don’t hate my job today, nearly as much as I did yesterday. But I still don’t like it. If anyone knows of a company hiring Network Engineers in Florida, let me know. Thanks.

I truly hate blogging. Why I do keep doing it? I can’t find a better system for expressing myself. I used to think that blogging would be a truly free and open way to express yourself. It isn’t. People react to what you post. Those reactions influence how you post in the future, whether or not you want them to. And don’t think it’s just me. We wouldn’t get this infighting among bloggers (I’m sure you’ve seen it somewhere) if people weren’t sensitive to how people react.

If you want to get a real feel for the news, turn the volume off and the closed captioning on. You’ll be able to see how they repeat certain concepts over and over again. I never watch the news if I can avoid it, but when I’m on the treadmill I watch whatever is in front of me, often it is Fox News. Last night I saw them report on one guys theory about Sandy Berger destroying National Archive documents. I know nothing about this and I really don’t care, but in read the closed captioning it became clear that what was on the TV wasn’t exactly news.

To paraphrase, the segement went a little like this:

FoxNews: Did Sandy Berger steal documents from the National Archives to hide handwritten notes written by Bill Clinton and high level cabinet members? That’s what one expert believes. Tell us, did Berger steal and destroy these notes?
Expert: I believe he did. If there were handwritten notes and he destroyed them, there may be a cover up.
FN: So Berger could have been destroying handwritten notes, written in the margins.
Expert: Yes, the copies at the national archinves have no notes so he must have destroyed the originals to cover them up.
FN: Has the National Archives seen these notes.
Expert: They are unaware of any notes

Meanwhile, there is a graphic that says “Sandy Burglar” in the background the entire time. I don’t know or care about this, maybe the dude stole and covered up a loads of stuff. But that interview provided no proof of it. What it did do is repeat the accusation over and over again.

I used to worry about the government lying to us. Now they don’t have to. The cable news networks are there to confuse the issues for them.

Lunchtime is over. Maybe we’ll do this again sometime.

I don’t blog as much as I used to.

I don’t blog as much as I want to.

I sit down with every intention to write something, but I don’t. Mostly, this is due to the fact that all of my post would sound the same.

My job frustrates me.
People are dumb.
I hate dumb people.
I hate dumb people on the internet.
I hate dumb people at work toady.
I went to the gym, there were dumb people there.
I hate that.

Do you want to read that? I don’t want to write it. It get’s stale after a while. My life is a bit stale, to tell the truth.

I’m a in a rut. Work does frustrate me. I could tell you all about it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I don’t need to. Maybe work is simply a frustrating thing. I fear that my work frustration is far from unique. And that is depressing in and of itself. I mean, if I have to suffer like this, you would hope that at least it would make for an interesting story. But it doesn’t. It just makes for another guy bitching about his job.

I try not to dwell on work. I go to the gym nearly every night and run for 40 minutes. You’d think that this is the kind of activity that would make my life better. Help me feel healthier and happier. Who knows, maybe it does. But I’m still in a rut.

I know I mentioned it before, but it is so true. I want to pack my shit and go some where warm. Get a new job. How bad could it be? Even if the job sucked, when you were done work, you’d be in Florida anyways.

If I were single, I’d probably do it. But it’s a lot harder to figure how to afford to transplant a family. And let’s be honest here, there is nothing so unique or special in my skill set to make some one want to relocate me.

I try to amuse myself, to keep myself from dwelling on this shit.

And to that end, I’m gonna run Shitty Blog Survivor again and Shitty Blog Radio seems to have resurfaced. Of course, that nature of diversion has limited appeal.

For now I just look forward to my next backpacking trip. Currently, the forecast is for rain and snow. This will not do.

I hate this time of year.

I hate January.
It is a dark, cold and generally useless month.
I won’t be sad to see it go.
~~~
Less than two weeks till I go backpacking again.
I must have some sort of brain damage.
~~~
You made me smile today, even though you are having rough time. Thanks.
~~~
I wish I were a better writer. I enjoy it, but I don’t have stories to tell. Not really. What I write seems more like sketches. I’d love to write a novel, but I can’t even come up with a bad idea for a novel. I just hope that if I write enough of the sketches, I will find a story to weave around them.
~~~
I have been pretty good about going to the gym. I have been very god about sticking to my low calorie diet. I have lost about 15 pounds this month. I want to lose 10 more before I go backpacking.
~~~
I think I have finally grown bored of the Internet. I have spent a large part of the last ten years invested in the Internet. Overall, I’ve been disappointed.

I was watching Star Trek yesterday.

I watch Star Trek nearly everyday.

Yesterday, it was The Next Generation variety.

The episode was Tapestry.

Any episode with Q is worth watching, but this episode is probably one of the best they ever did.

The basic idea of the episode is this:

Captain Picard finds himself dead after a phaser blast (or some such thing) makes his artificial heart fail. In the afterlife he is greeted by the apparently omnipotent Q.

Q explains that the reason Picard is a dead is because of the artificial heart, had he still had his human heart he would be alive and well.

Q gives Picard the chance to go back and do it all over again, a chance to avoid the fight with an ugly alien that resulted in him getting a new heart.

Picard suddenly finds himself back in his 20-something self. He’s a Ensign just out of the Academy, out with his best friends from the Academy for one last weekend out, before they go to their first assignments as Star Fleet Officers.

Picard relives the weekend, this time with the perspective of a middle aged, successful Star Fleet Captain. He manages to prevent the fight with the Aliens from happening, and he never gets stabbed in the heart. As a result, he never gets an artificial heart.

Q returns him to the present, and Picard finds that he isn’t Captain of the Enterprise, he is a Lieutenant in Astrophysics who spends his days running reports and analyzing data. He is relieable, but unspectacular. He will never advance beyond this post in this new present.

Q visits Picard one last time. He explains that by avoiding that fight, the young Picard never found his life in danger, never decided to live for the now, never learned to take chances.

Or more simply put, his past, especailly the parts of it that he wasn’t proud of, were intregral to making him into the man that he became.

Q sends him back to his younger self again, this time Picard allows himself to be drawn into the fight, knowing full well that is could cost him his life in the present. Death, he decides, would be preferable to surviving as a man that is a pale imitation of his self.

This episode is great.

I have so many regrets about my past, and watching this episode always reminds me, that what I’ve experienced— good and bad— has made me who I am.

I still have room for improvement. (Lots of room.) But the place for improvement is right here and now, not in wishing that this or that had gone differently.

I have been thinking recently.

The above sentence is ridiculous on many levels.

I am always thinking.

“You think too much.”

You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve heard that.

But, as usual, I have been thinking. And what I have been thinking about is choices and risks.

I am risk adverse. I mean, I’m okay with Roller Coasters and Rock Climbing. Those kinds of things don’t scare me. But when it comes to ‘life decision’ things, I’m as conservative as Newt Gingrich.

I look around and I’m not happy with what I see. There is nothing special about where I live or the job that I have. I have family here, but we don’t see each other very often.

I think that I should pack my shit and move my family to somewhere new. Somewhere sunny. There are IT jobs everywhere and most of them probably pay better than the one I have.

I should do it. I should but I don’t.

The what if’s eat at me.

So I keep doing the same thing.

I don’t even know that this is a bad thing. I am what I am. I have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone who can just pack up and move to go get what they want.

Maybe the problem is that I don’t know what I want.

Maybe the problem is that I think too much.

Where have I been you ask?

That’s a funny kind of question, isn’t it? I’m right here where I’ve always been. But I know what you mean.

I haven’t felt like blogging. I’m not talking about the disgust or frustration that I usually find myself feeling about blogging. I just haven’t felt like it.

I sit down with this notion that I will blog, but instead I end up playing Pac Man for an hour.

Some times I think that I have something to say, but when I sit here in front of the ole super computer I don’t say it.

Go figure.

I guess it is part of an apathy that has been threatening to overwhelm me.

Or maybe its that my life is too boring to be put into words.

Or maybe, just maybe, I can’t remember why I blog.

I know why I started. At that time, I thought that I had something unique to say. But I’ve learned that I don’t. If the Internet teaches nothing, it should teach us that there is nothing new under the sun.

Let’s blame the short days and the unnaturally warm weather. (It’s true, I prefer warmer weather, but this has just seemed wrong.)

I’ve lost my center. I seem to be drifting. This happens from time to time. But I really need to get it back. Luckily, I have just remedy. I have a trip scheduled — yes a backpacking trip, is there any other kind — in early February. And I seem to recall that I swore to myself that I wouldn’t go backpacking in the cold of winter anymore. (It also occurs to me that I had made and broke that oath before.) But it is necessary. To attempt to limit the amount of freezing and shivering that will happen, I’ve rented two Cabins that we will hike to. The are equipped with fireplaces, wood stoves and four walls. It will be great.

And with any luck, I’ll be able to re-center myself.

At least, I hope I will.

I thought that juggling wasn’t a skill I’d need. I mean, really, who cares about some twit throwing balls and bowling pins in teh air and catching them. Oh sure, it’s amusing. But nothing I’d ever want to do.

As it turns out, juggling is what my life is all about. Not so much balls and pins, but work, family and gym. Computer Geekery and writing. Photography and home improvement.

It seems that i spend a lot of time working on these things, but never accomplishing what I want to. At least not to the degree I want to.

Hell the only reason I am even getting around to writing this is because I took a mental health day from work.

I want to do it all, but realistically , I know that to I’d be better off to just focus my energy on one thing and work hard at it.

I can’t do that. So I guess that makes jack of many trades, master of none.

I hate that expression. It sounds a lot like an insult.

It is my intention to master many of these things.

I have a plan.

I’ve had a ‘home network’ for a while now. But it isn’t much of a network. Mostly a few PC’s and a couple of wireless laptops connected the internet. Throw in a few network printers for good measure and you get the picture.

This doesn’t really cut it for the geek in me. And to tell you the truth, it’s not really working as well as it should for the rest of us either. What we need here is a real network. Luckily, I know I network engineer. (It’s me. Really. I don’t need to find any one else.)

What I have is one P4 Desktop, 3 P3 Desktops, 2 laptops and one 200GB external drive . The plan is this. Take one P3 and make it a w2k3 Server and attach the external drive to it. One of the other P3s is already set up to be a VM Server. I will add a Ubuntu LAMP Server VM and a Windows XP VM. THe final P3 will be set up with EDUbuntu for the kids. My P4 desktop will be formated and I’ll install Kubuntu on it. The laptops are already good to go.

I’ll share out some folders from the external drive. The Printers too.

And then I’ll be set. I’ll be able to work from either my desktop or my laptop equally, my wife will be able to access my MP3’s and I’ll have the XP VM to fall back on if I find something that just needs windows (or the kids do.) I’ll use the LAMP server to work on some PHP/MySQL databases. You know for all that important data I have. Seriously, I see full relational databases in the future for my comic book collection and my movie library.

Why? Cause I’m a geek that’s why.

I’ll bore you with updates as they are available.

Sometimes blogging seems like such a chore.

(I can hear you, you know. You just said, ‘Then why do you do it?’ I’ve answered that question before, and I suppose I will again. But not today.)

Anyhow.

It does.

I figured out what is going on with my foot. If you’ll recall I my right foot was causing me pain when I ran. I took the week before Christmas off from running to give it chance to recover. I also bought a new pair of sneakers. My foot hadn’t been bothering me at all, so I went to the gym to give myself my ritual torture on the treadmill.

As soon as I started the pain started up. What’s worse, it throws of my stride. Instead of running evenly, I extend my left leg correctly, but take a short step with my right. I guess it hurts less that way. I tried to concentrate on running evenly, but I found that I kept favoring the left foot. This means that I was pulling at all kinds of muscles and tendons that don’t usually get used this way. By the time I had run for 30 minutes, I was no good. I stepped off the treadmill and was barely able to walk.

When I got home, I examined my foot closely. I poked all the bones and everything felt okay, nothing fractured. I knew something was going on, this has been bothering me for weeks. I poked and prodded some more until I found the exact spot that the pain radiated from. It was the joint between the middle toe and the main bone in my foot.

Suddenly I realized exactly when I had injured it. I was switching from a brisk walk to a jog on the treadmill and stepped awkwardly, as I had anticipated the run a moment before the treadmill was up to speed. Turf Toe. That’s what I have. The good news is now I know how to treat it. The bad news is I may be a week or more with out running.

It’s funny in a way. Being the football fan that I am, I’ve seen players suffer through turf toe. It can keep them out for weeks. Fans always question it, how bad could it be, it just a toe. Now I understand. Luckily, I suppose, it’s not my big toe.

I’ll be taking Advil and the rest of the Celebrex that I have and combining that with keeping my foot elevated for an hour or two each night. With any luck, I’ll be able to run soon. In the mean time, I need to find a way to burn some calories.

I may have to resort to something like the dreaded yoga.

Dear Santa,

My name is G and I would like to tell you a little about myself before I tell you what I want for christmas. I am 5 years old and I am in kindergarten. I go to Elementary School. I have a Mom and a Dad and a brother named S who is helping me write this letter. I also have some ? for you. How is the weather at the north pole? Are you feeling happy? Are you decorated for christmas yet? How is Mrs. Claus? Am I on the good list?

Now I want to tell you what I want for christmas. I want a Superman toy and a Fantastic 4 toy, I would like a coloring book, RoboRaptor, math cards Superman InflatoSuit, Green Day Music, Rescue Pet toy, Backyardigans toy, Shake and Go cars, Kids Pop Microphone, Cars Videogame, SpeedStacks, Science Book, Green Day Poster for christmas.

From G

Enjoy your Holiday.

I’m in a shitty mood this morning. Of course, it is almost afternoon. This isn’t helping my mood out at all. But none of that matters.

From inside my skull:

I’ve been looking a bit at the new Vista OS. It’s pretty good, of course it ought to be after 5 years or so of development. I have been planning to make some changes to my ’supercomputer.’ Initially, I was thinking of putting some flavor of Ubuntu on it, but now I’m considering Vista. Linux or Vista? There are good reasons for both. I love the whole Open Source thing and the implied geekiness that goes with Linux, but Vista is new and shiny. Plus, sooner or later I’ll be supporting Vista at work, the more familiar I am with the better off I’ll be. At the moment, I’m totally undecided.

I can’t help thinking that we haven’t seen the worst of this Iraqi sitiuation yet.

There are all kinds of playoff implications in todays games. Not only in the NFL but in my Fantasy Football League. So in addition to the Ravens, I’ll be rooting for LT, Jerricho Cotchery and Eli Manning.

Monday Night Football presents me with a unique dilemma Assuming the Ravens win today. If Indy wins, the Ravens clinch the AFC North. If Cincy wins we clinch the Playoffs but not the AFCN. However we will move into Second Place in the overall standings in the AFC. I think I’ll just go with my gut here and root against Cincinattica.

I really need to go backpacking. This mild weather has only made this fact more obvious to me. Spring cannot get here fast enough.

The middle of next week will mark the shortest day of the year. I look forward to it, only so I can start seeing the days get longer again. All this darkness puts a hurting on my psyche.

I hurt my foot while running the other week. Nothing serious, but it does hurt when i put my weight on it. I kept running each day, hoping that it would work itself out. It did not. I believe that my sneakers were the culprit. So I switched shoes, but the pain is still there. And there is nothing more pathetic than seeing a middle aged guy hobbling along in a half run-half limp on the treadmill. I bought some new running shoes this weekend, which in the long run should help. My problem is what to do about the short term. I don’t run on the weekends, so it has had a chance to heal some, but if it still hurts tomorrow, I’ll have to make some choices. Either I just take a week off, I use the Elliptical Machines for a week (which will put less strain on my foot, but causes my knees problems,) or I just keep running. None of those are great options.

Every time I hear about Hilary Clinton getting ready to run for President, it makes me happy. Not for any particular reason, it just feels like a good thing.

I am sick of work. Luckily I’ll get the last week of the year off. Hopefully, I can come back re-charged.

Work. Gym. Sleep.

Sometime it feels like that’s all there is.

I hate the short days and long nights. I hate the gray skies. Even this recent wave of warm weather can’t fix that.

The answer, for me anyhow, is to escape, just a little, every now or then. I have a few avenues for escape. Music is one. My comic books are another.

Of course, any time I try to talk to any one about comic books they roll their eyes at me. I guess grown ups aren’t supposed to read comic books.

But they are a perfect little escape for me. I have a stack of comic books I haven’t read yet. Every day on my lunch break, I read one or two and I read a couple before I go to sleep.

These books let me wonder if Iron Man or Captain America will come out on top in their War. You didn’t even know that there was a war, did you? Will Charles Xavier ever regain his powers? Who is X-23?

Better to think about those things, than to be bogged down by a job that honestly isn’t going anywhere.

Besides Batman, Wolverine, Marvel Girl and the rest are badass.

As you may know, I go to the gym. At least I try to.

Sometimes I let life and work and stuff become excuses and then I don ‘t go.

This fall was particularly bad for that. I didn’t go, to speak of, during September, October or November. And I suffered for it. Soon I was slipping back into bad eating habits. Going out for lunch, instead of packing a sandwich; late night snacks; feasting during football. And I packed on a few pounds, fifteen or so.

That was bad enough, but there was more. My energy levels slipped away. I felt tired all the time. Hell, I felt like shit. So two weeks ago I decided that it was time to do something about it. I went back to the gym and I ran. By the time I’d gone a mile I thought my heart would explode. After two miles I was sure I couldn’t go on. But I forced myself. I ran for 40 minutes and covered over three miles. Not good enough to get me on the track team, but it would do.

It’s gotten a little easier since that first day, but I’m still not to where I was in the summer. I haven’t lost but a pound or two, but I do feel better.

Aging is such a bitch. Once upon a time I could eat like a pig and not gain a pound. I was so skinny you count my ribs from a distance. (I wasn’t in good shape, but I was skinny.) Those days are gone. If I want to be in shape, I am going to have to work for it.

I know, you’re thinking, Duh, of course you have to work for it. It didn’t used to be that way for me. I am so unused to have to work at this. The thing that kills me is after I lose the weight i want to lose, I will still need to do this.

So I keep going back. I am determined. (And this time, even when I’ve lost the weight, I’ll keep going.)

Is privacy important?

The nature of this question keeps changing. Should we sacrifice a little privacy to make the world safer? To make it more convenient?

It seems that this question is no longer academic for me.

At work we got a new piece of equipment. A network analyzer to go with our firewall. Our Network Analyst, who is responsible for the firewall has been testing it out.

It seems that there is very little information that is hidden from him.

Oh. I know the information has always been there, for anyone with the right tools and enough time. But this has raised the stakes. He can read in near real time what you are saying on IM or what web page your are reading. Who you are logged in as.

If he were inclined, he could know just about anything I did on line, with no more effort than you are expending to read this blog.

He let our Network Engineers know about the capabilities of this device by reading verbatim an IM conversation between to of them.

The reaction in the room was unanimous: Fuck this.

Like I said, we know that nothing is safe or secret in the electronic world. We know that better than most people. We also know the pure volume of stuff happening on the network at any given moment should mean that whatever we do is just part of the noise.

Not anymore.

Of course, the argument always goes— if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

Like most old arguments, it’s dead wrong.

Typical Chat conversation:

jeckles:dude
shutter:what’s up!
jeckles:that meeting was lame!
shutter:oh yeah?
jeckles:fuck yeah. you should have heard the dumbass shit that so and so was saying.
shutter:hahahhaha. I know so and so is such a tool… why do they invite him to those meetings
jeckles:to make me nuts, I think

Harmless. Just a little venting between co-workers. I’m sure it happens all the time. But what if ’so and so’ got access to the logs of the analyzer? Yeah. That would be bad.

And even if I refrained from criticizing or insulting anyone on IM, would it still be OK?

No.

Imagine if your boss offered you overtime to work on a project. You declined because you had plans for the weekend. You don’t tell your boss that your plans are to watch all 12 hours of LotR, its none of her business. But when you tell your buddy about your plans and she sees the logs…

What if some one was planning to quit? That’s not illegal or immoral, yet you wouldn’t want anyone at work to no about it before you told them.

The scenarios are endless. The fact remains that recording personal conversations is wrong. It’s probably legal, but what’s legal and what’s right often don’t line up.

There is a need to monitor what happens on a network and to control the kinds of traffic that is on the network. But there has to be a way to do it without spying on your own employees. I’d rather have IM blocked than monitored.

So what happened at work?

We downloaded and install a tool to encrypt our IM. Our Network Analysts blocked our IM. Our CIO said, “You guys can encrypt it? Send me the link.” Our Analyst backed off.

But this isn’t going to go away.

What should you take out of this? Two things.

Protect your privacy. If you think you have nothing to hide, you underestimate the ill will people can possess.

And if you IM me while I’m at work, assume what ever you type is being read. Cause it probably is.

Actually, no one asked.

But I don’t care. I’ll tell you anyway.

Remember that Laptop I was working with? Dell was kind enough to send me a new (or at least new to me) CD/DVD drive as well as a hard drive. And to my surprise, they worked great. Before long I had Kubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft installed and everything is looking peachy.

I was pleased to see that the wireless adapter was recognized by the OS. I started trying to connect to my wireless network, but there were no options for WPA security. This was no good. I did a little research and found that WPA security isn’t available in the base install of Kubuntu.

I installed and configured Knetworkmanger and tried that. And it looked like it would work. But as it attempted to connect to my network, it hung at 28% and got no further. I tried a number of other things, but the results remained the same until I manage to change enough settings and the networking completely. I got frustrated and walked away.

But I don’t give up that easy. I reinstalled Kubuntu and and began looking around again. It occurred to me that I never actually connected to any network with the wireless card. I turned the security off and tried to connect to the wireless network. Still no dice.

More research. Perhaps the firmware to the wireless wasn’t installed correctly. I found some steps to correct that and followed them. I tried to connect. Success.

I reconfigured the security and tried again.

No dice. It took me a few minutes to consider it, but it came to me that I keep my SSID hidden. I enabled SSID broadcast and tried again. It connected like a champ.

As a matter of fact, I sit here now in front of the TV (Watching The Search for Spock) connected in just that fashion.

I’m sure no one is as impressed with me as I am, but then again, I don’t care about that either.

I spend a lot of time thinking about Christmas, this time of year. Not so much the what am I going to get nor what I plan to give. I think more about how does Christmas fit into my life and that of my family.

I guess for most people, that kind of thing is just a given. For me it’s harder. I’m an atheist.

Before we go any further, let’s talk about that statement.

I’m an atheist. By that I mean I don’t believe in god. I do NOT mean that I am sick of religion, that I am immoral, that I hate Christians, that I am trying to make some sort of statement, that deep down inside I really do believe. I have people try to assign those things to me, but they do not apply. I just don’t believe. Sorry. I’ve thought a lot about it during the course of my life. I’ve read huge chunks of the Bible as well as parts of the Koran, some Hindu and Buddhist works, the Book of Mormon and even several issues of the Watchtower. I’ve read and I’ve examined my thoughts and beliefs. But at the end of the day, I just don’t believe.

Having said that, part of me feels like I have no right to celebrate Christmas. It’s a Christian Holiday, why would I celebrate? To be honest, at first the only reason I did celebrate it was for the kids. Actually, that’s not even true. I did it for my mother. She would have been ruined if I didn’t give my kids Christmas.

So we had Christmas. At least most of it. Christmas Tree, presents in the morning, lights on the house. No church. No Jesus. I do mention to my kids that a lot of people are celebrating the birth of Christ. They should be aware of that. But you’ll find no Nativity Scenes at the Jeckles household.

The funny thing is this, I found that I enjoyed it. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed it a lot. I guess a lot of my objections to Christmas as a teenager and a young adult came from the obligatory Church Services. They made me feel so uncomfortable and so unwelcome. But as I started my Christmas traditions with my own family I was able to really enjoy them.

At first, I felt guilty for celebrating. Like I was an impostor or something. But as I look around, it occurs to me that there are really two holidays that happen at the same time. The Christian Christmas with it’s Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. Shepherds, wisemen and angels. But there is another Christmas. The secular Christmas. A holiday of Santa Claus and Rudolph. Of Lights and food. Of gift giving.

I choose to celebrate the latter.

There are aspects of this time of year that bother me. And if I have nothing else to be thankful for on Thanksgiving, I am thankful that I do not work retail any more. No one should have to suffer through that. I have many reasons to dislike Christmas. But I choose not to let it get the best of me. I think I need Christmas, and not for the reason you might guess.

I suffer in the winter. I need the sunlight. The short days and the gray skies fill me with despair. But these last few years, the years I have celebrated Christmas my way with my family, I have found that when it seems that the darkness will overwhelm me, there is light.

There is light everywhere. Christmas Trees. Lamp post with lighted wreaths. And miles and miles of lights strung out through the neighborhoods.

Christmas is not perfect for me. I guess nothing is. But it brings light to the darkest days of the year. And for me, that is reason enough to celebrate.

I have been seriously questioning why I still doing this.

I think that most of the people who used to read this have moved on.
And writing it feels like a chore.

I go through cycles on this shit. Hot and cold.

Right now, I feeling cold.

I sit down to post something, but don’t. I don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like reading the well meaning comment from people who don’t understand what I’m trying to say.

Like this post. I’m not look for someone to talk me into keep blogging. Shit. That’s the last thing I want.

When I started doing this, I wanted a place to put my thoughts out there and that was it. But it’s changed. Once people started reading, that changed everything. Then I started thinking about what the readers thought.

The problem, I suppose, is that I really don’t like people.

I really don’t. As I am sitting here trying to type this, this buffoon I work with is trying to give me his malformed opinion of a presentation/meeting we had at work. It’s taking all of the strength I have not to say, “I don’t give a shit what you think. Shut up and leave alone, can’t you see me typing here.”

I guess that makes me not a nice person. I kind of wish I were a nice person, but it doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me. I am who I am. I am a product of the events that have shaped me and there isn’t much to be done about it.

Back to the point, Blogging seems to be an interactive/community kind of thing. My general dislike for people doesn’t work well with that.

So I ask myself, should I keep doing this and just say fuck ‘em, when the other bloggers rub me the wrong way? Or should I pack it up and try something else?

I don’t know. Not right now anyway.

I’m not here to make friends. I’m not here to get your approval. I’m not here to fit in to some sort of community. And I’m not here to be judged.

I’m here to say what I think. And recently, that seems more trouble than it’s worth.

Did I tell you about my wife’s laptop? I bet I haven’t.

The spot in which you plug the power supply into became loose and as a result, the battery could not get charged.

I get online and chatted with Dell Support, I find that chatting in less frustrating than speaking on the phone with them. e established that she probably needed a new system board, that the laptop was out of warranty and that a new system board would cost 800 bucks.

My wife needs a laptop to do her job. It didn’t take much to justify buying a new one instead of shelling out that kind of money on parts.

This left this laptop in my house, that had nothing wrong with it except that it couldn’t draw power. I decided that I could fix it. And since no one was counting on using it now, there was no problem if I screwed it all up. It looked like I could just re-solder the power jack. And I was ready to do just that until we got a letter in the mail.

The letter said that we members of a class that had secured a victory from Dell for this very problem. In light of this law suit, Dell was very willing to replace the system board at no cost to us. We sent the laptop off and in a week or so it came back.

It sat for a few weeks while I was busy with other things. This week I decided that I was ready to mess with it. I wanted to install Kubuntu on it. I put the install CD in and turned the laptop on and… nothing happened. It seems that the CD Drive no longer worked.

Once again I chatted with Dell. He had me run Dell Diagnostics on the laptop. The diagnostics said the Hard Drive was failing, but the CD Drive was fine. Go figure. He said he would send me a new CD/DVD drive and a new hard drive. The sad thing part is that I don’t think there is anything wrong with the CD/DVD drive. I think it’s the system board. But there is no arguing. I’ll get the new parts, install them and if when the new CD/DVD drive also doesn’t work, I’ll chat with them again.

I can’t complain, I’m getting a lot of service for free on a laptop that was out of warranty.

It’s Thanksgiving, which for me means food, football and family. Usually too much of the first and third and not enough of the second. But that’s how it is supposed to be.

As far as holidays go, this is one of my favorites. Although I get tired of it marking the beginning of teh Christmas ‘Season.’ Christmas is one day. It bugs me that we, as a culture, can’t seem to enjoy something on it’s own merits. We seem to need to tie it in to something else.

But it is a small irritation, it sits on the periphery and will not interfere with my day.

Sometimes it seems like I should enumerate the things I am thankful for. But I don’t work that way. The Pilgrims were thankful to their god for providing for them. My belief structure doesn’t work that way. What I have and what I do not is a combination of hard work and luck. And I’m not sure who I am supposed to be thanking. Besides, I don’t need a special occasion to tell me what I have to be happy about.

I’m to cynical for my own good, I know. But that too is on the periphery.

Today I am focused on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. Pumpkin pie and apple too. Parents, grandparents and kids. Brothers and sisters. Nieces and nephews. Joey Harrington’s return to Detroit and Tony Romo’s bid for greatness. Conversation and laughter.

I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving in the way that is special to your family. And if you are one of those readers from outside of the United States, you have my condolences, you are missing out. Have an extra big dinner and try to enjoy it.

Peace.

Once upon a time, I started a blog. I did it because I had read a few blogs and it seemed interesting. But mostly I did it, because I had heard a rumor that Blogger was giving Gmail accounts to its members. I didn’t get a Gmail account from Blogger. I did eventually get one from some other blogger, because of my whining about it on my blog.

I liked blogging. I put my thoughts up on the internet, but no one read them. I signed up with a bunch of things to draw traffic to my blog. If only people could see his blog then they would read it. But for the most part they did not. For the most part, they still don’t.

Once upon a time, I joined a blogging club. It was kind of a joke. Before long I found myself in charge of it. People like silliness on the internet, I’ll have contests and polls and shit. People will come and hang out and it will be fun. People did come, but mostly just to get another link. Everyone wants a link. Fun? Not so much. People told me that I had to do this and I had to do that. I held make believe contests and people got mad.

Once upon time, I believed I could be a writer. I wrote stories. Carefully choosing every word. People came and told me how great my writing was. I read their sites and told them how great they were. I decided to get serious. Maybe write a novel. Maybe not. Maybe I should just stick to let people compliment me on the internet.

Once upon a time, I had a radio show. It was dumb. It was a joke. I didn’t try to make anything serious, just a diversion for fun. Well, yeah, that didn’t work out either.

People ask me why I hate the Internet so much. No reason.

You’d think I’d learn. I made the same mistake last year.

We get Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off this week. Yea for me! But this leaves a 2-day work week.

Nothing good can come from this.

People that I need, to take care of what I’m doing are invariably taking these 2 days off. And since staffing is thin, I’m more likely to get saddle with some stupid task.

My kids get the week off. If I were smart, I’d burn 2 vacation days. I have plenty.

But we all know better than to think I would do the smart thing.

So here I am with two days to get through.

I just need to do my best to keep a low profile. I can do that. I think.

I hope.

It’s true, I am a big dork.

Yesterday I set up a VM Server. That is to say, a server that holds a number of Virtual Machines. Wait, you probably don’t know what a virtual machine is. For starters, the cool geek acronym is VM. A VM is a fully functional computer that installed, well, virtually. The entire computer is contained within a single file on another computer. It is very cool technology and it getting too be very popular in industry.

The coolest thing about my VM Server is that it is completely free technology.

I installed a base install of Ubuntu Server on P4 2.8 GHz with 512 MB RAM . And then I installed the new free VMServer product from VMware. Once that was installed , I installed the VMware Server Console on my regular PC. This allowed me to create a few VMs on the VM Server. I started with a Windows 2003 Server install. It works well, if a bit slow. I was hoping to attach my external hard drive to the VMServer and have the W2k3 Server operate it as a Shared Drive, or actually a few different shared drives. But I had some issues with the VM consistently seeing the USB Drive. Having shared drives that aren’t always there is no good, so I put the external drive back on my main PC.

I also installed a LAMP Server in a second VM. This is a Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP Server. Basically, your standard open source web server. Next up will be a Vista VM. Although I expect that to be terribly slow.

I guess this whole project is kind of a proof of concept thing for me. To really do this right, I would need to max out the RAM and put a 300 GB Hard Drive in.

Like I said, I’m a dork. Nice way to spend most of a Saturday.

At least, later I went out and bought a few comic books.

I think that what is wrong with me… and don’t doubt for a minute that something is wrong with me. What is wrong with me may be that I don’t know what I want.

Or perhaps as my wife says, “You think to much about stuff.”

It’s true. But that doesn’t matter. I can’t help it.

Warning. This post is long, boring and probably filled with self pity. If that is a problem for you go read something else.

Work is making me nuts. Not the job itself, but my co-workers. To explain…

It’s complicated. Of course it is, probably because I’ve thought about too much.

I don’t think I’ve blogged too much about this, mostly because I have no desire to whine about things here. But to understand, you have to understand the back story.

At my job, and you probably have some one like this at your job too, there is this guy. He’s an idiot. Truly. Let’s call him Buddy. To add insult to injury, unlike many of us he a College Diploma, though I can’t imagine how. He knows less about computers than most of our users. He doesn’t understand the network. He can’t multi-task. He’s a hold over from a different time. Before there was IT. He was the ‘tech.’ A hardware monkey that could set up dot matrix printers and Apple IIe’s and whatever else. No real technical skill need.

But bureaucracy works in funny ways. You promote people for working somewhere a long time, you bounce him from department to department. Until somehow, he’s a “Network Engineer.” Of course no one thinks that he could do anything remotely like what a Network Engineer needs to do. So they put him in charge of ordering parts and processing repairs. They stick him in a warehouse and forget about him.

I don’t care about any of that. Not really. It burns me a little bit that this monkey gets paid more than me. A lot more than me. But his paycheck is his business and I know that.

Our department is growing rapidly and our office is over crowded as a result. Another tech and myself get relocated out to the warehouse. Since we are onsite technicians it shouldn’t matter to much.

And it doesn’t.

So when I am at my ‘desk,’ I get to see Buddy in action. It’s a site to behold. He talks to himself, get frustrated the first time doesn’t go the way he thinks it should, and he cannot trouble shoot anything. First roadblock and he’s on the phone with a real engineer. He cusses and yells and throws temper tantrums. But we accept this, for no reason other than this is just how he is.

Life goes on. I even take a vacation. On my first day back, I come in to catch up on email and what not. Buddy is all worked up. It’s early and he’s already cussing and yelling and freaking out about something or another.

“How do you assign admin rights to a new account? This doesn’t make any sense.”

Admin rights? I ask him needs admin rights. Chris does. I find out that his son, Chris has been hired to be the Help Desk guy. There are 3 other techs in the warehouse this morning. I look to my buddy and he gives me the same puzzled look.

“Helpdesk doesn’t get admin rights.” We both say.

Buddy loses it. His face gets all red, the chords in his neck jump out.

“YOU”RE A FUCKING ASSHOLE, JECKLES! A FUCKING ASSHOLE!”

Nice. Wow. As it turns out he was trying t figure out he get Chris Rights to the Help Desk, not Admin rights. But he flipped on me. What did I do?

I walked away. I got a cup of coffee. And when I came back, I simply asked him to please interact with me in professional manner. He proceeded to explain to me what a jerk I am, and I just tuned it out.

And life goes on. Interrupted occasionally by outburst from Buddy.

Until last month.

I was sick, and had been for a while. I was running a fever. I had my laptop set up on the work bench, since some other tech had hijacked ‘my desk.’ But since I don’t really have a desk, I can’t complain. I have my headphones in and I’m trying tto work while tuning out the idiocy around me. In other words, a pretty typical day.

Buddy keeps reaching right over my head for something. I ignore once, twice, but three time is too much. Three times of having his meaty arm in front of my face. Three time of having his disgusting gut right up next to me. It’s too much.

“Do you want me to move?” I ask, making no attempt to hide my displeasure.
“I’m just trying to do my fucking job!” He screams at me.

Too much. Too much Buddy. Too much working while sick. Too much not having a desk to work at.

“What do you think I trying to do. I don’t have anywhere else to fucking sit? Do you think I Sat to fucking inconvenience you? Jesus Fucking Christ. Don’t fucking worry about it. I’ll move out of your fucking way!”

I picked up my laptop and stomped off.

Not my most shining moment, I know. But given the environment and the history I didn’t think much of it… until my boss called me in her office.

I got warned. I was told that we don’t act like that. I was told the F-Bomb was inappropriate. Somehow, I managed to not point out that she had no problem dropping the ole F-Bomb.

She asked if this was an isolated incident, I told no it wasn’t and I gave her the history.

I didn’t get in trouble beyond that. And they managed to find me a desk back in the office.

Problem solved.

Except that it is not. This is where the problem begins. Word gets around. People joke about me losing my cool. Suddenly I have a reputation as a hot head. As some one who will lose his temper at the drop of a hat.

My boss doesn’t chat with me anymore. People are careful around me.

I can’t stand it. And I think my career path here will be affected by this. My boss doesn’t think of me as reliable tech with loads of knowledge about Active Directories and everything else. She sees me as a potential liability.

And every time I hear some one say something like, “Hey Jeckles, I know that user is a total idiot, try not to yell at him.” It knocks the wind out of me. And there are comments. Some obvious. Some subtle. It makes each and every work day hell.

I am so tired. Tired of the shit. Tired of shooting myself in the foot again and again. Tired of not being able to succeed.

And I don’t see any rest in sight.

Backpacking. Again, it’s what I do. Like a junkie, I need my fix. I’ll be alright, just let me get a fix.

This weekend would be my last fix, till next spring.

But making it happen was proving difficult. The Uber-Bot, my most reliable hiking buddy, had said she would go this weekend. But had to back out due to a previous engagement, which she had forgotten about. Okay. No problem.

But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. Re-think. The trip to hike to the Delaware Water Gap, and in the process complete the AT in Pennsylvania, was out. But there are other options. The Tuscarora Trail for example. Not as well known as the AT, this 250-some-odd-mile trail running through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania provides plenty of opportunities for hiking. There was a stretch that my Dad and I had been looking at for a potential trip.

I called him up and asked him if he was interested in an overnight trip. He was. I decided to make it a family affair. My boy is 13. Old enough to come along on a trip like this. Time to break him in. Why not.

Would you believe that they were calling for rain? Of course you would.

Saturday morning we drove over mountains, back roads and one streambed until we reached the place where we planned to end the hike. We left my truck there and headed for the beginning.

We started our hike at the Silar Country Store. I picked up two blaze orange vests for my son and I, we tied them on to our packs, on account of it was the first day of Black Powder Hunting Season. The Tuscarora Trail is not as established as the AT and this stretch of trail actually started out on a public road. VA 689, as a matter of fact. Rain was forecast for the afternoon, but at the moment the sky was clear and blue. We actually worked a good sweat walking along the road. After a mile or so, the trail made a left on to VA 671, which was a smaller gravel road. We made our way up a fair sized hill and then down again.

Finally we made it to the point where the trail left the roads completely. As we stood there, taking a small snack and water break, a service van driving by slowed to a stop. The lady in the passenger seat rolled down her window and said:

“Y’all be careful in the woods with all those hunters.”

We smiled at her and assured her that we’d be alert and it would be fine. And with that we headed up the trail, the path was well marked as we made our way up another fair sized hill. As we got close to the top, I could see the mountain we would be climbing in a mile or so. It looked pretty steep, and according to the map would be just over a thousand foot climb.

I looked back to see how far behind my companions were. I saw that they were about 100 feet behind and I turned to start walking again. It was at this point that I heard a sound that I imagine that I will remember for the rest of my life.

It was the sound of a small object whistling through the air, above my head and to the left. Although it was certainly moving very fast, time seemed to slow down for me. I heard the sound of it cutting through air, spinning as it went. I could not see it, but I knew where it was as I heard it cut through leaves and small twigs as it went by.

As time went back to its normal speed and I remembered to start breathing again, I looked down to my Dad and my son. They were looking back at me with expressions of shock on their faces. I turned and looked to see if I could see where the bullet had come from. I couldn’t tell.

“Oh SHIT!” I yelled. I yelled it extra loud so that hopefully whoever was shooting would stop.

After a moment or two passed and no more shots were fired, my hiking partners walked up to where I was.

“You heard that?
“Yeah.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Up there.”
“Over there?”
“No, had to be closer. Up there.” My dad pointed to clear area at the top of the hill, right where the trail was heading.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”

We walked the 50 yards or so to the top of the hill. Carefully. As we got close to the top we heard the sound of a small engine receding from us. A four wheeler, most likely.

“Good, maybe he’s gone.”
“Probably. This area is posted. He probably heard us and drove off.”
“I didn’t see any deer.”
“I doubt he was shooting at one. You know. They come out here into the woods with a gun… they’re going to want to fire it.”
“Fucking idiot.” I shot a guilty look at my son as the words left my mouth.
“What should we do?”
“That’s the question. Was this a fluke, and now we have nothing to worry about? Or are we in danger?”
“One idiot doesn’t represent all hunters.”
“True. And we’ve hiked in hunting season before without any trouble.”
“Yeah… but that was the AT.”
“I say we go on.”
“Sure.”

We started walking again, but before we had taken a dozen steps we heard the report of a black powder rifle, and not far from us. The three of us hunched down, ready to hit the deck. We exchanged looks. Another shot fired.

That settled it. We dug out a cell phone and called for a ride. We backtracked down the trail and headed back up the gravel road, until we saw our ride coming up the road to meet us.

And the worst part of all, worse than some asshole shooting in my general direction, is that I didn’t get my fix. And in all likelihood, I won’t get it till some time in March.

This is not a good thing.

I think I’ve mentioned that before.
That was Sarcasm. We both know I’ve said it again and again.

Blogging frustrates the shit out of me.

I started reading blogs four or five years ago. I had a few that I enjoyed. Of course, with the exception of WWdN, they are all gone.

I don’t read blogs to make friends. I rarely comment. I’m not really looking to interact with the blogger. What I enjoy is a glimpse into a stranger’s life. It is voyeurism of a sort. But it is different than peeping through window and trying to catch a glimpse of someone’s life. When you read a blog, you a peeping into a person’s life, not through the window, but through their own eyes.

That is one of the oddest things about this whole blog as community concept. When you interact with people out there in the real world, you derive a perception of that person. You see their body language, you observe how they interact with different people, you hear other people comment on that person, and most of all, you have your own direct interaction with them. The sum of these experiences (and more) is your mental sketch of this person.

But here in the blogoshere, it is whole different ball of wax. Your first impression of any blogger is based on a combination of how they see themselves and how they want to be seen. By the nature of the medium, bloggers give a false picture of themselves. No matter how honest they may be in their blogging, the way that they see themselves is going to be radically different than how we perceive them.

But that’s not the part that frustrates me. That was just a tangent. Sorry about that.

I don’t want to try to read hundreds of blogs. What I want to do is find a few that resonate with me and read them. And that’s what I do. But… and this is the part that frustrates me… I find a dozen blogs or so I enjoy and go read them. And after a while some of them will stop posting. Some of will them will become less interesting to me as the blogger begins to focus on different things. Of course, I understand that they can blog about whatever they want and they should. I am not reading because I am friends with that person but because I want something interesting to read. If what you write doesn’t interest me, well you’ve got nothing for me to read. And before you know it, I have nothing to read. Then I have to go find more to read.

I am subscribed to 44 blogs in Bloglines. Yet most of those update very infrequently. And when I sit down at my computer and want to read a blog there is nothing there for me.

So I will go find more, but that is a painful process. I can’t stand most blogs. I’ll parse through the shit looking for something worth reading.

And when I find it, that blog I want to read, I’ll just have to hope that I have a little time before it one fades away.

My day didn’t start bad.

I got up, showered, enjoyed a cup of coffee. Went off to one of my sites and took care of a detail that was left over from the day before. I stopped and filled up the tank before heading back to the main office.

Parking is tight at the office. Our lot only holds a fraction of the cars that bring us there. So I parked in teh lot accroos the street as I usually do. And that was fine with me. The sunny was shining, it was practically warm. I grabbed my laptop and headed towards the office building.

I should pause here to explain something. I have two bad knees. I’ve had arthritis of some sort in one knee or the other (or Fun! Fun! sometimes both of them) since I was four years old. I guess backpacking is a funny hobby for a guy with bad knees, but that is not by accident. I sort of refuse to accept that my knees are shit. I hike, jog, do whatever I want. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know, but I spent to much of my childhood being gimped up, I refuse to do that now. Sooner or later, I’ll probably be forced to slow down, but until then… I’ll keep trucking.

Why am I telling you about my knees, in the middle of a narration about my morning? Well you need to understand that my knees (and sometimes by extension my hips) sometimes rebel against me. And that is what happened this morning.

I stepped on to the curb, to look for traffic, before crossing, but I stepped a little forward throwing my balance ever so slightly off. I should have re-adjusted and not even noticed, but this was just enough to throw off my often useless knees. They gave way underneath of me, throwing me to the street. I put my hands out to break my fall and slammed into the asphalt.

My first reaction was embarrassment. I looked around and luckily there was only one witness and he was a stranger to me. I picked myself and headed towards the building. I inspected my hands as I walked, they were both scraped pretty good and beginning to bleed. My left knee felt as though it had been scraped. And even before I made to the door my left hand was beginning to throb.

I went to my desk and docked my laptop. I went to the bathroom and washed of my hands. Scraped, but not cut deep anywhere. Back to my desk and back to work.

But my left hand was killing me. A bruise was building deep in there somewhere and I was having trouble gripping things. Lifting anything with my left hand was painful enough to make me catch my breath.

I took a half dozen Advil and after a half hour or so the pain faded to a point I could work around it.

I smashed the shit out of the bone in heel of my hand, down near the thumb. I suppose there could be a hairline fracture. More likely, I just bruised the bone.

The only good news is that I have tomorrow off. And with any luck it will be feeling much better by Saturday. Cause I’m going backpacking.

Want to guess at the forecast?

It is, as I sit here waiting for a computer to re-image, that I question what I am doing with my life?

With my career in this case. I guess I’m tied to IT for better or worse, but this? This end user support?

I’m over-qualified for this. Is it cocky to say that? Perhaps, but it is true. I have the knowledge and intelligence to be designing enterprise scale networks. I should be a network engineer. But instead, I’m an onsite support technician. A computer re-imager and part-swapper.

You may be wondering why I don’t just leave and get another job. Honestly, I’m considering it. But, as is often the case, it is that simple. There is room for advancement here, in time. And the pay is decent. It’s close to home and I get a lot of vacation and sick time. A whole lot. And most importantly, it’s low pressure, low stress.

Do I really want to give up benefits for a more challenging job?

I don’t know. But I’m thinking it over real hard.

I was supposed to go back packing next weekend, but it looks like that fell through. I will still try to get something to together, but it isn’t looking hopeful. I only have a few more opportunities to go backpacking before I have to wait until spring. And I really wanted to get to Delaware Water Gap on the AT this year.

I got a new set of headphones for my iPod. They are Shure E2c Sound Isolating Earbuds. Basically the Earbuds are like earplugs, blocking out the sounds of the outside world and allowing you to hear just the music. They were pricey, but worth it. How good are they? To test them, I played Pink Floyd’s Great Gig in the Sky. I had known that it is rumored to have a woman’s voice saying quietly, “If you can hear this you are dying.” I had heard faintly before, but never could hear her clearly. To my surprise there was a man’s voice at the beginning saying something like, “I not afraid of Dying, why would I be afraid of dying.” In the middle of the song, near the 3:30 mark I heard her. Clearly. She said, “I never said I was afraid of dying.”

Tomorrow is election day. I couldn’t be less excited. I am really beginning to believe that Congress is broken. I don’t know that it matters who we send. And the Gubernatorial race in my great state. It’s Dumb and Dumber. I can’t stand it. I’m not even sure why I’m still planning to vote.

The Ravens are 6-2. There is much I have to say about it, but I won’t. Not yet. I don’t want to jinx them. (I’m only superstitions when it comes to Sports.)

Dork that I am, I organized my comic book collection, made a quick Access Database to keep inventory of them with, and made sure that they all had bags and boards. This proved to me a few things, other than the fact that I am a total nerd. I have weird taste. The titles I have the most of are from Marvel’s 2099 universe and the Marvel Razorline, which was the line of comic Marvel had Clive Barker create. Ever heard of them? No? You’re not alone.

Look! The computer is re-imaged and it is time for me to move on.

The amount of candy on the table was truly staggering. Spread out to single depth, it covered the dining room table. It had sat there since Halloween. And to be honest, it didn’t even look like we had made a dent in it. Although, I know that we’ve had more candy this week than any family needs.

This is the beauty and the curse of living in a densely populated neighborhood. Even though, over half the houses did not even offer candy we were able to collect ridiculous amounts of candy. Obscene amounts.

We piled it up on the table. And left it there.

We are not great parents. Don’t patronize me, by telling me different. You don’t know. You just don’t, do you?

We had meals at the table, covered in candy. We pushed it into a mountain in the middle of the table and ate around it. We should have put it somewhere. But where does one put that much candy. So, it remained on the table. The elephant in the room, that no one is willing to mention. —Is that how that saying goes? I’m not sure.

And that is how it was this morning. Bacon and eggs in the shadow of scenic mount candy. As we finished our breakfast, we eyed the candy.

“What should we do with it?”
“Pack it up and I’ll take to work for the vultures.”
“All of it?”
“I guess we could leave a little bit for us for next week.”
“OK.”
“I’ll take all of the Reese’s cups.”

I began to pick through the pile picking out those delights wrapped in orange squares. But it seems I wasn’t the only one who coveted the peanut butter in my chocolate. My wife began grabbing them out until we had pulled out all of the peanut butter cups.

But why stop there. We began grabbing up the Snickers Bars.

And the Crunch Bars.

My son got in the act, pulling out the bubble gum.

Soon we were sorting the table in to piles of Sweet Tarts, lollipops, Baby Ruths, Hershey Bars, Starburst and Tootsie Rolls.

We sorted and categorized.

Now on our table instead of a mountain we have a collection of piles.

The Tootsie Roll pile is too big.

Next year, when you are buying Halloween candy, if you are thinking of buying Tootsie Rolls… STOP! Don’t do it. It’s not good candy. It’s not anyone’s favorite. Don’t do it. Buy Reese’s Cups or M&M’s or Sweet Tarts or Nerds. Buy candy someone actually likes. Helps us to lower the Tootsie Roll Ratio.

Now, if you’ll excuse me there are a few Reese’s Cups with my name on them.

Bare with me, I’ve been feeling introspective today.

I think I have spent my life preparing to be disappointed by the rest of it.

Did that make any sense? Probably not.

I didn’t like being a kid. Really. I mean, sure I had some fun. But I spent a lot of time waiting.

Waiting till I’d be old enough to stay up and watch Saturday Night Live.
Waiting till I’d be old enough to watch R rated flicks.
Waiting to drive.
Waiting till I’d be old enough that girls my age thought I was cool. You know what I mean.
Waiting to be old enough to buy my own smokes.
Waiting to be old enough to drink in the bar.
Waiting to be old enough that other adults took me seriously,
Waiting to make enough money.
Waiting.

I’ve wanted to be 40 most of my life, I think.
I was too serious to be a kid.

And now I’ve almost grown in to me.

It’s not all I hoped it would be.

Am I depressed? No.

But I realize that I have no idea what I want from life. I mean no clue.

And this leaves me…

well, off balance.

And after years of practice, the conclusion that want to leap to the front of my mind, is that maybe when I’m older it will make more sense.

I can’t help but feel that this day to day bullshit that I endure is meaningless. That I should pack up the wife and kids and just go. Screw having a job. Screw worrying about money, mortgages and bills.

Just go live.

But I can’t. The “what if’s” rush in anytime my mind wanders down that path.

So here I am. Waiting for something more.

Yes.

I did carve them.

Click the picture for a detailed view.

In case you don’t know… I have been doing this dumbass ‘Internet Radio Show’ for the last year or so. The imaginary Internet Radio Station that it aired on is going off the ‘air.’ If you want more information go here.

I guess all of this has me thinking about the nature the Internet, as I know it, and the nature of blogging. Which has been an ongoing theme for me. Who knows, maybe I’ll write something about this soon.

The Family and I went on road trip to the Lehigh Gap in Pennsylvania. We climbed the mountain and I took a couple hundred pictures. Maybe someday, I’ll find the time to organize and do something with all of these pictures I keep taking.

I still like my truck. It isn’t very fuel efficient and I guess that makes me a bad person, but I don’t drive far on any given day and I’ll gladly pay more to drive the vehicle I want to drive.

On a related note, I passed an SUV with a bumper sticker that said “High Gas Prices Stink!” I hate them.

I think I will carve a few pumpkins this year. I’m not half bad at it. I was going to link to the photos of last year’s attempts. But it looks like they were lost when BlogCafe went down. I’m sure I have them on this computer somewhere, but… Anyhow. I’ll find ‘em and include them.

I had no idea I liked the Grateful Dead so much. I’ve recently got a bunch of Dead to listen to. I like it. I wish I would have realized that while Jerry Garcia was still alive.

I have a headache.

I used to think that maybe I could be a writer. I got over it.

I am still struggling to figure out how I am supposed to do all the things I want to to do, in the time that I have to do them.

I think that North Korea possessing Nuclear technology may be the single greatest threat to the stability of our world.

I am glad I discovered the Sleuth Channel. Miami Vice is better than anything that the networks are offering these days. Between that, M*A*S*H on Hallmark, and Star Trek on G4; I have all the TV I need.

And as they say on M*A*S*H…

That is all.

I’ll finish the Perfect Walk story in a day or two.

I’m sure both of you on the edge of your seats with anticipation.

Meanwhile… a bit about me.

I’ve been sick.
It started as your typical viral cold/flu kind of thing, but it never got better. Eventually that infection allowed a bacterial infection (Sinusitis) to take up residence in my head. The good news is that I’m on antibiotics and seem to be getting better.

The bad news is, I’ve been sick for a month.

A month of going to work, feeling like shit, dragging all day, trying to think straight while running a fever.
A month of coming home from work eating dinner and then passing out in front of the TV.

A quick aside here…

If you work with a help desk/network tech/whatever and it seems he is very busy, please be informed that telling him that all of those call are job security will not make him feel better. Just in case you were wondering.

Anyhow…

Not only have I lost a month of my life to this, I’ve not been at my best during that time frame. Of course, I have good reasons for it. Of course it is understandable. But this is the real world, and no one gives a shit.

The events of the last week or so at work have put me in a very foul mood. I won’t detail them here, but let’s just say that my distaste for people in general (and a few in particular) has been re-enforced

As usual, there is no point.

Just take away this, I’ve been sick and that is why I haven’t been updating.

I spilled coffee on my shirt.

It happens more than I care to admit.

I spent 30 minutes doing my mileage paperwork this morning. It’s tedious, but I get paid for my mileage so its not terrible. I decided that I would start this month out right and start my paperwork this week with the promise I would stay on top of it instead of waiting till the end of the month. I filled out my mileage for Friday and today.

And then I saved it over August’s Mileage.

So I spent another 3o minutes doing my mileage.

I was inspired to write this, started, got distracted and shut down my laptop. With out saving.

I’m not sure that three-day weekends make it worth the hell of a compressed 4 day week.

I’m sure it’s just me.

I know it’s just me.

I feel as though I have no time.

But I’m no busier than anyone else.
Hell, I see these parents who run their kids from sports to scouts to who-knows-what. I don’t know how they do it.

I feel so crunched for time.
What ever I’m doing seems to be at the expense of something else.

If I want to work on building a web page, it’s at the expense of getting anything done around the house. If I work overtime, it is at the expense of going to the gym. If I need to run the kids here or there, it means I can’t do anything else.

How do people watch TV? I understand that most people seem to find it entertaining, but how do they find time?

I must be be doing something wrong. Maybe I’m just slow. Maybe it takes me longer to do stuff than other people.

It’s making me a little nuts, I’m sick of feeling behind all the time.

Part of the problem, is that I don’t give myself the weekends. The last 4 weekends, for example, have been visiting family, a back packing trip and 2 trips to the lake. (And I’m going backpacking next weekend too!)

It’s good that I get to relax and do these things, but I keep slipping behind on everything else.

If only I had more time.
If only I had more energy.

At least I found time to write this.

It’s that time of year again.

It is the time of year that I spend crazy hours at work and do little else.

I’m not complaining. I honestly don’t mind.

Most of the time my department is pretty laid back. Almost too laid back. It’s fun to work in an environment with a little intensity. At least for a little bit.

And besides, they pay me overtime. So bring it on. I can take it. Work me as hard as you want. I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

The down side is I won’t have as much time to play on the internet. I’m already pretty much an absentee landlord of my stupid little club. Now I’ll be practically invisible. Who cares, it’s a shitty little club any way.

My stupid Internet Radio Show will suffer also. I mean who wants to tune in to hear some freak bitching about how stupid people are? Come to think of it, maybe the show won’t change that much.

I went backpacking weekend before last and I went to lake with my neices and nephew last weekend. So I’m pretty relaxed. I’m ready to be busy. Today I’m setting 20-some-odd High Powered CAD workstations. Woo-Hoo. In case you can’t read the Sarcasm, it’s not very exciting. But at least I brought my iPod with me.

It’s quarter till eight in the moring.

I’m at work.
I’m not leaving.
I hope you bet a lot on this.

I’m packing up and I’m heading out.

And not a moment too soon.

Some weeks at work just aren’t worth the head ache.

This has been one of those weeks.
Nothing serious. Just a lot of stupid, useless shit.

I’ll go to work tomorrow. I’ll some how make it through the day, and then I’ll go home grab my backpack and head for the trail.
I just need to get away from all of it.

Usually when I go, it’s me and my dad or me and Shutter. This time there will be 6 of us. We’ll be like a field trip or a scout troop or something.

It doesn’t matter. I just need to be out there, exhausted from walking, relaxing in the woods.

I can’t out there soon enough.

Tuesday?

How did it get to be Tuesday?

My weekend was over before I knew it.

Friday, I went to M&T Bank Stadium to see the Ravens First Preseason Game. Shutter’s sister has Season Tickets and she let us have them for this Game. I know that these games mean nothing and all that, but I was looking forward to get a preview of Steve McNair.

I wasn’t disappointed either. The first team offense looked great. And not just because the Giants were without three starters on D. Jamal Lewis ran well. McNair’s passes were sharp. He was patient in the pocket. And in the Red Zone when all of his receivers were covered, he stepped up to avoid the rush saw an opening and ran the ball in. Dragging two defenders behind him.

On the second series, Boller took over at quarterback. On his first snap, he tripped over his feet. I am so glad we have McNair now.

The rest of the game was still entertaining, but I spent a fair amount of time watching the people in the stadium. I hate people, but I find them extremely interesting to observe.

Saturday was an odd day. I worked all morning on this web app that I’m working on. Went to a cook out in the afternoon. Came home and worked to the wee hours of the night on the app. I’ve got the Data Model for the databased designed. And I think I’ve done a very good job of setting it all up and making all normalized and stuff.

Sunday, I got up and started trying to code the code the app. It would be easier if I actually knew how to write PHP. I know sort of how it works, but I don’t know how to make it do anything except connect to the database. So every time I want to make it do something, it’s off to google and reading dozens of pages until I find one that answer my question. Then I get to spend an hour or so coding it till it works correctly. Then I try something new and the process starts all over. It is very frustrating. By six o’clock or so, I was so burnt out I couldn’t think straight. I was sure that I will not able to complete this.

We had dinner in front of a movie, the Incredibles and popcorn too. I was able to unwind a bit, but I must of still been stressed.

Sunday night (or actually Monday morning) I had a very vivid dream. I was sitting in a classroom. My 10th grade homeroom, I think. All of the people from my Department were there. My boss was trying to run a department meeting. But people were goofing off and not paying attention. It was odd. I woke up unrested and with bags under my eyes, even though I went to bed at a reasonable hour for once.

I had wanted to see Monday Night Football last night, but I missed it. I don’t care about the Vikings’ and Raiders’ scrubs battling it out in the preseason, but I did want to see the new crew of MNF. Especially Tony Kornheiser, I loved his Radio Show and I hope his humor will translate to the show. But it’s hard to tell, just ask Dennis Miller.

I seem to be engaged in a turf war at work.

I hate that my life is as stupid as this.

My ‘office’ is located in a warehouse. The IT dept has a corner of the warehouse. It’s where we keep all the spare hard drives and computers that need work. The parts aren’t my problem. I’m here cause our main office is overcrowded. Most of the time this works out for me. It keeps me away from office politics and besides, mostly I’m a field tech. I just need to come back here to do paperwork and do repair work.

Of course, most of the building is occuppied by the Facilities People. That’s fine too. But, for some reason yesterday the Facilities Supervisor decided to pick a fight with me.

They keep at least one pot of coffee brewed up in their break room. Instead of brewing coffee back here, we just go up and drink theirs. And of course, every month or so, I give the lady who buys the coffee ten bucks to pitch in towards coffee.

Yesterday, Shutter and I brewed a pot of coffee, up in the break room. I must have made it a wee bit too full, because it spilled a little while I pouring my cup. Shutter grabbed a sponged, I grabbed a paper towel and we cleaned it up.

I went back to my desk and back to work. Five minutes later the Supervisor of Facilities strolls back. He laikes to come and visit us and pretend that he is in charge of us, since we are in ‘his building.’ Whatever. Usually it is benign.

He comes and starts shouting, no biggy, he always yells. I don’t know why.

“Hey Fellas! What’s this Music? Sounds Like someone being killed!”
Well, it was Rage against the Machine. But, what od you say to that, so we just kept doing what we doing. He looks right at me and says, “Hey Coffee Guy!”
I looked up at him.
“There’s plenty of Coffee Up There!.”
“I know. I just brewed it.”
“I Can Tell! I See Where You Spilled Coffee All Over the Floor!”
I look at Shutter and he looks at me. Before I can I ask if I missed something, he goes on.”
“Marcie Just Cleaned that Floor! Jay-Sus! This Music is Terrible! It Makes Me Want To Kill Myself.”
He walks over starts looking at my computer screen. I minimize the email I’m writing. He walks over and looks at Shutter’s monitor.
He says to Shutter, “Is This Music Coming From Your Computer? What’s Wrong with You? What Don’t you Play Some Sinatra? This Fucking Shit is Terrible.”

I could tell Shutter was getting pissed. Any one could tell. His back was getting stiff and his face was gettign a little red. Even this assclown could tell.
“You Know I’m Just Kidding With You! Right? I would Kid You If I Didn’t Like You! You Know I Like You. If I Didn’t I wouldn’t let you drink MY COFFEE!”

I almost lost it. His coffee? His Coffee! I gave ole what’s her face ten bucks not 3 day ago, but it’s his coffee? To hell with that. I paid for it. It’s my coffee. I couldn’t stand anymore.

I finished my coffee and started to pack my shit up. Shutter asked where I was headed and I told him. He offered to lend me a hand. I stood up and started to out my coffee cup away. Mr. Facilities Supervisor sees me walking with the empty cup.

“GOING FOR MORE COFFEE?”
“no. i’ve had enough. thanks.”
“OK. SON. Did You Hear That? He’s Actually Had ENOUGH Coffee!”

Shutter and I walked out of the Office.

I will not drink anymore of His Coffee. I don’t know what that was about. And I don’t care. I’ll either brew it in my office or I’ll bring it in with me. But I will not drink His Coffee anymore.

I hate this shit.

I spent last weekend installing Linux, Xubuntu to be precise, on my test box. I got it running and have been using it since then. I like it.

But I guess that wasn’t enough.

Tonight I Installed the Windows Vista Beta on a Virtual Machine on my Regular Computer.

So now at my finger tips I can work with Xubuntu, XP or Vista.
I’m such a dork.

Vista is going to take some getting used to.
It is different. Very different.

I’d like to be relatively fluent with it long before it is released.

Maybe I am doing all this geekery because I am avoiding making this database I am supposed to be designing.

Writing and designing the web app excites me and I can’t wait to do it. But first I need to design the data model. And that is as exciting as… well it isn’t exciting at all.

Just a week and a half till I go back packing. I think I’m ready. Very ready.

I went to REI.

That’s the store that I buy my backpacking gear at. It’s a sort of “candy” store for the outdoor crowd.

I picked up some new boots. My old boots aren’t really worn out, but they have never been quite right. And unfortunately, I didn’t buy the old ones at REI. They a have a lifetime guarantee on everything they sell. If the boots don’t work out well, trade them in for new ones. If the tent didn’t seem as great out in the rain as it did in the store, bring it back. It is a great store. They understand that you have to use your equipment to know if it is right for you.

After the last two trips, the tendons in my ankles have been rubbed raw. I decided not to make matter worse with another trip upcoming. I picked up a pair of Merrrils. They seem pretty good. And they have some extra padding around the ankle. And if they are not the ones, I’ll take them back and try again with new ones.

I also picked up a camp shirt and some waterproof stuff bags. With me, it is best to be waterproof.

I don’t remember if I’ve explained about how I cook on backpacking trips. I like to eat. The idea of wandering off into the woods and walking all day just to eat some ramen noodles holds no appeal to me. I cook actual meals. Using dehydrated veggies, pasta or rice, and canned chicken or shrimp crab meat. It works out pretty well. I have it down to a pretty good science.

For fun, I’m going to try to dehydrate my own veggies, instead of getting them through mail order. Right now, I have peas, corn, potatoes, banana peppers, and some apple slices drying. I’ll also see about some Green peppers, jalapeños, onions and whatever else crosses my mind.

I’ve been hearing that the blogathon folks have been real inconsistent with sending out emails to let you know how to fulfill you pledge. You can go to Freedom from Hunger to donate online (whether or not you sponsored me.) Thanks again for all of your support.

I went to the gym today.

This is significant mostly because I didn’t go last week. I was too tired on Monday from the blogathon, and everything went down hill from there.

And as is my tendency, I added insult to injury by over eating all week.

The treadmill kicked my ass. I was useless. I had to stop after 20 minutes. This doesn’t make sense at all, I’ve taken more time off and been able to run for 30 minutes.

I don’t know what combination of factors were at work, but it sucked.

I got into a discussion at work about Israel, Lebanon and Hezbollah. I didn’t mean to. Nothing good ever comes from these kinds of conversations. It just sort of happened.

The what of the conversation doesn’t really matter. What surprised was not that he disagreed with me on this, I’m used to that my views are less than popular. What I found shocking that this man, who is by far one of the smartest people I know, was giving me the same stupid arguments I’ve heard on FoxNews and the like. I would have expected a more original line of reasoning.

I was a bit disappointed.

And too many people overheard the conversation. I guess I’ll get the evil eye for thinking unpopular thoughts around the office for a while.

Good thing I don’t spend much time in the office.

I’m not sure what the correct term to describe it is…

Maybe Anal-retentive, maybe OCD, maybe just plain old uptight.

I like things neat.
It makes my life easier. I like to to know where things are. If they are put away correctly, then I can find them later.

Yes.
I am one of those people who walks around saying:

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Annoying isn’t it?
The people I live with certainly think so.
It’s a war.

I ignore it most of the time. I ignore the shit scattered about my house. I step over the crap left on the floor. Hell, I might even even pick up after them, but most of this stuff doesn’t even have a place, its just shares time sitting here and later it gets moved to sit over there. So I benignly ignore it. I don’t have much choice, I’m outnumbered.

But once in a while, like today, the war bubbles to the surface.

It goes like this. It’s time to clean the house. My idea of cleaning is dusting, vacuuming, and that knid of thing. But I can’t do that, because I have to pick up a bunch of stuff before I can started. Other peoples stuff.

Not that you care, but it makes me crazy. Well, crazier.

I can’t beleive that the Blogathon was only a week ago.
It seems much longer ago.

I’m a dork.
But you knew that.

I took my ‘extra’ computer and installed Linux on it.
The PC is a 500 MHz Dell with 384 MB RAM. It isn’t exactly a speed demon but it is stable, with decent hardware.

I’ve been monkeying around with Ubuntu/Kubuntu. Well, mostly Kubuntu because Gnome plucks me for some reason. But KDE is a resource pig. I stumbled on to Xubuntu. It is another flavor of Ubuntu but it comes packaged with XFCE as its Windows Manger. So far so good. But then again, I haven’t done anything but set up my IM and start typing this. Of course, that is most of what I do.

As if that wasn’t enough, I installed VMware Server on my main computer. I set up a VM with Kubuntu but I over tweaked it and had to punt. I’ll try again later.

I’d also like to set up a Windows Vista VM. But its seems that I missed my chance to download the Beta. I’ll see if I can’t find some other source to get the Beta from, but don’t tell Big Bill.

My goal here, I guess, is to use Linux for all of my Internet-ing. I have some apps that require Windows, but most of what I do is … well it’s this. We’ll try it for one month. If I am still liking it when the month is up, I’ll investigate Migrating everything I do (at home) to Linux.

This is the first time I’ve made that threat. Something has always come up to piss me off and make switch back. But its been a year or so since I tried, so I’ll give it a shot again.

Maybe I need one of those jobs where I don’t have to deal with people.

Like a developer.
Just let me sit in a cube and write code all day.
I could live with that.
Except that I don’t know much in the way coding.

I could be a writer.
I could sit at a desk and write for hours at a time each day.
Write until a novel happened.
Think I can get an advance on that plan?

Maybe I should be a hermit.
Go live in some shack in Montana.
Line the walls with foil and hide from the world.

The funny thing is, despite what you guys think, I’m very good at dealing with people.

I smile. I say the right things to the right people.
Usually I can get things accomplished.
That’s the trick. I’m in no position to demand anything of anyone.
So I talk. And talk. And talk.
I talk to all kinds of people. And I listen to what they say, I hear their concerns and explain to them why and how it should be.
And they listen. Usually.

But it is frustrating. Very.
Especially when I get to those who will not listen.

Don’t you know who I am?

So what do I do about it.
I blow off steam.
I shout and yell and cuss.
(Speaking of venting, listen to SBR tonight at 9 PM EST to hear what I’m talking about.)
Later when they cannot hear me.

So that later, when I have to deal with them again, I can smile and talk. And Talk.

Just skip this post.
It is boring and unnecessary.

It is never good to brag, to toot your own horn, but this is my blog and I can’t think of a better place for it.
I’ve been biting my tongue and being humble at work.

No one will care or understand.
Geek nerd talk follows, with little explanation or clarification:

We are going to Migrate from Netware E-dir to Active Directories. Since I am supposed to be an expert with the MCSE and all I’ve been working in the planning meeting with the consultants. It’s been fun.

I was discussing a naming convention for security groups with a colleague, when it occurred to me that we could assign permissions to Domain Local Groups and then be able to ‘effectively assign rights’ to Domain Global Groups by adding them to the Domain Local Groups.

We went back to the consultants and floated the idea to them. At first they were like you don’t need Local Domain Groups, this is a Single Forest Single Domain Model. But as I explained that we could use it to ease administration, they understood where I was going, and totally endorsed the idea.

</ geek nerd talk>

The point being, I had an original and smart thought today that will become the way we do our jobs someday.

That doesn’t happen every day. At least not to me.

It’s Monday.

I still have to be at work. I still have to deal with … well everything I had to before.

This blogathon may have made a difference. But life still goes on, pretty much as it did before.

I did get some sleep, but I’m still a bit out of it.

I find my self feeling bogged down.
I have so many projects I’m working on.
Not at work, but my projects.

My home has some Home Improvement needs.

I’m in the process of setting up a few Web Sites.
Two of them are for me.
One of them is for a Business.
I’m not really qualified to call my self a Web Designer, and I’m certainly not a DBA, but that is what I seem to be getting my self into.
I won’t get paid for any of it. I’m looking at like this… If I can get this up and running with no major incidents, I’ll have the clout (and the code snippets) to sell a similar Web App to some one else.

My Blog To Do list keeps growing.

I’ve set up a Linux box (again.) Already I’m plucked with it. For some reason the cursor/mouse never feels like its moving correctly for me in Linux. It makes me nuts.

I want to record a few more Techno things for the Show.

In addition to this blog I have 3 writing projects that I am not working on.

I have a few thousand photographs that need to cleaned up and organized ans something done with them.

You know plus life.
I feel like I don’t have enough time for any of it.

So it’s all done.
It wasn’t as bad as I expected.

Some things plucked, but that is to be expected with this kind of nonsense.

I think I almost just dozed off.

Wouldn’t that be dumb…. to doze of at 20 till nine.

I know that most of the people that came by here will never come back.
Good. We don’t want you anyway.

But the few of you who have demonstrated a more refined taste and will be back…
You rock. But you knew that .

We raised $534.01!

We rock!

Have a good Sunday Bloggers!

I don’t think much of people.
I assume the worst.

This is your last chance to prove me wrong about you.

Sponsor me.

It is a safe bet that I finish.
It is for a good charity.

Give me a reason to say something nice about you.
I double dog dare you.

You can back down from a double dog dare.

I signed up for the blogathon for 2 reasons.

One was a good reason.
One was a petty reason.

I signed up to raise money for a good charity.
That was a good reason.
I have been successful in that regard, I think.

I also signed up because it seemed like last year I read so many blogathon blogs that were reduced to one line (or near one line) posts, that where all, this is so hard. That made such drama about doing what it was they promised to do.

It irked me.

I said to my self, I can do this and give complete posts. I can maintain some dignity at least until it gets late.
I can do better, I told myself.
That is a petty reason.

But I think I did pretty good on that front.
I didn’t anticipate the Radio thing… but even so, it worked out.

My point?

Yeah right.
There’s no point.

What I will not be doing as soon as this is over is go to sleep.

I’m tired enough.
But my sleep schedule is messed up enough as it is. It can’t take that.

If I were to go sleep at 930 or 10, I would wake up at like 7 in the evening and then I would be up till almost time to get up.

No. I need to stay up.
I may take a little nap or something.
I certainly may not be doing much.

But I need to keep myself mostly awake till 9 or 10 tonight then sleep through.
That’s my plan, any how.

Anyone have any idea how many blogathoners did not make it this far?
Just being nosey.

at least monty is still talking dirty to me.

Shit.

I still haven’t got that coffee.

Excuse me.

It was an egg sandwich.
And it was good.

And I’m drinking a soda.
A Diet Berries & Cream Dr. Pepper, to be precise.

Why?
I don’t know. She brought it to me.
I drink it.

Typing has never been my strong point, but this is ridiculous.

My wife is laughing at me right now.

Apparently me typing is humorous or something.
I’m afraid it is ‘or something.’

Hey all you blogathonners that are coming through here…

I have a question for you.
Was it worth it?
Will you do it again?
What will you do differently?

Hmm. That was more than one question.

Now about that coffee…

I woke her up.
Nicely.

I think I hear noises in the kitchen.
I’m hopeful that this will result in an egg sandwich.
And coffee.

I need coffee, but not before I get something solid in my stomach.

I’m not going to get in to things that I don’t know the details of…
but I can safely say, once again, people suck.

Given a chance to be small, narrow minded and short sighted, they will.
Stupid people.

Wow. This is much easier when I’m not trying to do a Radio Show.

Those of you who listened…
You rock!

The rest of you…
well do I need to spell it out?

I’ll keep you posted about breakfast. I know that you are on the edge of your seat about this.

And that makes this the home stretch.
Let me make some coffee. and regroup from my DJing thing.

I put a lot of myself in to that.
It wears me out. I need to re-focus. Again.

Do you think I can convince my wife took me breakfast?

Yeah. Me either.

But I can dream.

But I can’t sleep.
(I bet that’s not as funny if you haven’t been up all night.)

I have a lot of reading to catch up on.
I’ll be back.

It’s because it isn’t very good.

Yet I keep it doing it.
I’m stubborn like that.

I guess you could say that I have the same issue with this blog.

Why not see if you can surprise me and sponsor me.
Hell, I might even say something nice about it.
You know you want to.

Don’t you?

DJing on MAngo Radio…
Posting there too.

And of course I’m still here.

Rumor has it that I’ve offended at least a few people. (on the Internet Radio)
Good.

At least I’m getting a response.

Anything is better than silence.
But you guys know that.

Anyone who blogs knows about that.
Nothing is worse (in blogging) than posting something and getting…

nothing but tumbleweeds.

Shutter has gone home to get some sleep.

Lucky bastard.

My brand of radio… check that

Internet Radio…

Any way… my style bugs some people.
Not surprising.

I have that effect on people.

I am so not doing a good job at juggling all of this.

It hasn’t gotten any better.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about… be glad.

I didn’t realize how much I wanted to do this radio thing.
I can’t wait until Shutter leaves.

It can’t happen soon enough.

I’m wired!

I’ve lost my mind.
and to make it worse…

Shutter is egging me on.

If you want listen go here.
Join the rest of the losers in the chatroom.

It’s not much of a post… but at least it is more than one sentence.

For the next three hours, I am pulling triple duty.

I’ll be blogging here.
I’ll be Blogging there.
And I’ll be on the air.

Christ, that rhymes.

Feel free to check out the show.
But if you are easily offended, don’t bother.

I’m still not sure how I let myself get roped into this…

I’ll be on the air in 30 minutes.
Like you didn’t know that already.

Here’s the skinny:

Tune in to listen here.
Go to the chatroom here.
And see me post here as well as … here.

Of course with all of this build up… you are bound to be disappointed.

Oh well… you’ll find that life is full of little disappointments.

I’m reading the Chatroom over at Mango Radio.

This is a bad sign.
I hate chatrooms.

I’m also clock watching.
Another bad sign.

But I can’t help it.
Mostly I’m waiting to go on Mango Radio.
Then I can Yell and cuss and make an ass of myself.
It’s as good a way to pass the time as anything else I can think of.

I’ll give you the details of me on Mango Radio next half hour.

In the meantime I need to get some more coffee.

Did I mention that I’ve been doing the Internet Radio DJ thing for almost a year now?
I think I did.
You would that that after a year, I’d be pretty good at it, but you’d be wrong.
I think I might be the worst DJ on the station.
Hell, I could easily be the worst DJ on Internet Radio.

Do be sure to tune in.

I apologize in advance for the whole fiasco.

I know it’s getting bad when Shutter is nagging me that it is time to start making a post.

But the truth is that I’m drawing a bit of a blank here.
It’s not that I have nothing to say (That will never happen!)

I’m just having trouble condensing those thoughts in to nice blog sized posts.

Since I seem to be unable to produce an original thought right now…

I’ll tell you what I’ve been reading.

WK has been reduced to eating cheese whiz from the can.
Utopia’s top Five List Marathon continues.
Monty is dancing around her house (naked, I hope)
My Monitor has been reduce to the dreaded meme’s

And I have been reduced to linking to other people in lieu of content.

And you…
yes you can fucking sponsor me.
I could use the pick me up.

90 minutes till my turn at Mango Radio.

Yes. Popcorn.
With lots of butter.
I’ll hate myself at the gym next week. But I always hate myself at the gym.

And I don’t settle for Microwave popcorn either.
I have a real popcorn popper. The kind that needs oil. It’s soooooo good.

I think I’m getting tired.
And running out of shit to say.

2 hours till I’m on the air at Mango Radio.
Don’t get excited.
I’m not good when I’m prepared…
and I am nothing like prepared.
I have no plan.
Except that I’m sure I’ll do some yelling.
I like to yell.

Oh. Don’t forget.
You are still allowed to sponsor me.

Go ahead.
It’s good for you.

I just spent my half hour doing nothing useful.

And now i have nothing to show for it.
Not even popcorn.

At least Shutter is being productive.

At this point, I can’t wait to be on the radio… at least that will keep busy.
I’m watching the clock like it’s Friday afternoon and I’m at work.

And I have a headache.

I know. Boring and whining. Bad combo.

I’m off for some Advil and some popcorn.

And I think I’ll taunt Shutter.
It won’t improve the quality of my blogging…
but it will entertain me.

I’m boring.

You don’t have to say anything.

I know it’s true.
I’ve seen what I’ve written.
It’s not exactly riveting.

That would explain why literially 100s of people have come to this site today and very few have commented.
Even less have sponsored me.

grrr.

But it’s isn’t today anymore.
It’s tomorrow. At least it will be when you read this.
Except that then it will be today.
And now will have become yesterday.

(See what I mean about he boring.)

I need to find something to do to entertain myself.
I still have 3 hours before I go on Mango Radio.

Maybe I’ll fight with Shutter.

The First Rule of Fight Club is…

Or maybe I’ll just make some popcorn.

This is for charity.

I have mixed emotions about charity.
I know that sounds weird, but it’s true.

I think that too many people don’t take Charity very seriously.
They shell out the money but they do it because it is fashionable or trendy.

To me it more important to help a person in real need (putting a blanket in the hands of a homeless person or to give food or clothing right to a family in need) than to write a check.

That’s crazy isn’t it?
Who cares why they do it…
as long as the money goes to help people.

I’m not so sure. When you just right a check, when you only participate to be trendy or whatever, you do not have to see what is going on.

I think if we were all confronted with these up close, we would harder to make sure that people were not left behind.

I’m not right.
I know this.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t give money.
But be aware of what you are doing.

I guess that is what I am saying.
Go learn about the charities involved.
Don’t just give money to a blogger.
Pledge money to help fix something. To make something right.

Thanks.

I don’t watch the news.
I don’t read newspapers.
I don’t read Time or Newsweek.

Oh I used to.

I used to watch MSNBC/CNN/FOXNews everyday. And read Newsweek cover to cover.

But I gave it up.
It’s not that I don’t want to be informed.

I have stopped believing that the ‘news’ is a source of information.

The News is all about viewers/readers/whatever.

If people aren’t interested in what is happening in Iraq or Afghanistan or where ever the News isn’t going to report on it.

That’s only half of it…

When I do ended reading or seeing the news, I get so mad.
People are so dumb. There is no good reason for all this killing going on. On either side.

And there is nothing I can do about it.
Nothing.

I hate it.

So I ignore it as much as I can.

That may be irresponsible, but that is where I am right now.

WebKittyn is trying to quit smoking.

Good for her. Everyone should.

I quite smoking almost 7 years ago.
I used to smoke 3 packs a day. I can’t even imagine it anymore. The thought of smoking a cigarette makes me sick.

I used to do a lot of things.
No more.

I just blog and drink coffee.

I’m so boring.
Just a boring old geek.

Shutter is here but he is studying (on a Saturday night… what a dork.)

I am focused as I’m bound to get.

I wish I could focus enough to write about soemthing besides this ‘thon thing.

Debi has sponsored me. She is my hero for this half hour.
Who wants to be next?
Sponsor me!

I’m looking at some of these other blogs and wondering if I’m trying to hard.
Of course this is the only way I know how to be, so it doesn’t really matter.

Do you think that coffee is done brewing yet…
Yes it is.

And it is strong.
Shutter likes Trucker coffee.

I know.

Just when i thought I’d get some peace and quiet.

No such luck.

I’d bitch more but he brought coffee.

Mmmm coffee.

I apologize in advance for drop off in the quality of my posts.

Shutter can be very distracting.
I may have to do something drastic.

But first I need to make coffee.

The kids are in bed.
The wife is too.

2 distractions taken care of.

I’m more than halfway there.

So far so good…

But (yes another but)

But this blogathon thing has brought over a hundred different people to this site.
Most of them will never come back after today. I’m cool with that.
But you would think that more than one of them would be able to make a pledge!

grrrr

It’s a blogathon!
It’s for charity!

You are supposed to make pledges!

Sponsor me. Dammit.

Step up to the plate.
It’s good for you.

I spend so many nights on my computer by myself.
Kind of bored.
I figure this will be no problem posting.

Suddenly, tonight I’ve got people emailing me.
IM’ing me.
Calling me.

All of these distractions.

I’m setting up a second PC.
Just to have it.
I’ve installed Linux, just to keep it interesting.

It works well…
But.
(there’s always a but)
The cursor moves like it is in molasses when you move the mouse.
It makes me nuts. A small problem but it is enough.

Bad news…

Capt Shutter may be joining me for the On air portion of this thing.

Sorry.

30 Minutes is not as long as you think it would be.
Got wrapped up talking a friend and now look at me.

I’ve got nothing.

Well, not nothing.
I still have Monty Talking dirty to me.

That’s a plus.

Oooops.
Did I say that out loud.

Maybe we’ll do better next time.

Or maybe from here on out the posting goes down hill.

Stay Tuned.

I believe I was talking about my Charity.
You know, the one that is the reason I am doing this.
I mean I wouldn’t spend a Saturday tied to my computer for no good reason.

OK I would, but I wouldn’t blog every 30 minutes.

Freedom from Hunger is my charity.
Their goal is to end chronic hunger. Not so much famine, but hunger caused by oppressive poverty and war. (and other causes I’m sure.) The way to solve these issues is to help the people rebuild their infrastructure and teach them how to maintain it.

It is a great cause. And I feel believe very strongly in it.

You can help by sponsoring me.

Cool?

Thanks.

I see coffee coming soon.
Not yet. If I rush it I’ll crash and burn.
And we can’t have that… can we?

I’ll try time it so that my coffee induced hysteria lines up with my time on Mango Radio.
Nothing like a sleep-deprived, caffeine crazed maniac screaming in to a microphone.

But it’s fine. I hate podcasating/internet radio more than I hate blogging.

Of course, by then I may have run right out of shit to say.
That would be a first.

Pizza was good.

With French Fries.

I thought for a minute I was going to break my self imposed no junk yard freeak out thing.

But now that I’m fed and full, I think I’ll be fine. Although Coffee will be in order. Soon.

Did you know that it isn’t too late to sponsor me.
You should.

I may be an asshole.
OK. I am without doubt an asshole.
But I am blogging for a good cause:

Freedom from Hunger.

Shit.
The clock says I’m done…
See ya in a bit.

Screw it! 20 Posts with little to no fluff…

PIZZA’S HERE!

mmmm pizza.

I’ll be back.

No I haven’t taken break yet…
I’m holding out for pizza!

The Ravens have reported to Training Camp.
Apparently Ray Lewis likes the team again and Billick claims he is control.

Of course.

I guess the same thing plays out all over the country this time of year.
Nearly every team is ready to make the playoffs. All the problems of last season have been addressed. The acquisitions during the off season have filled the teams needs.

Fans everywhere believe that their team can do it this time.

By week 3, we will have a better sense of reality.
But right now.
Right now, Our Team is going to go all the way!

It’s a great time of year.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

I collect comic books.

I guess I could just announce: I am a big dork!

I get a few titles; Batman and Robin, X-Men, a few others.
I love it.

When I was younger, I could never afford to keep up with it.
I’d collect for a month or two, but them I’d run out of money and stop.

Something about the way they are put together is perfect.
One picture.
A touch of dialog.
Repeat.

I don’t seem to be able to put into works the simple elegance of it.

I think that I haven’t read the most recent X-men yet.
That will be my treat.
Tomorrow I’ll just relax and read that.

That’s what I do.
I save them.
I don’t read them right away.
When I’m in the mood, I pull out an unread one and read it.

I guess comics are supposed to be kid stuff.

It must be my inner child that likes them.
Funny, I thought I killed my inner child.

My Blogathon monitor think I need a break…

What she doesn’t realize is that I’m always like this.

Like I said…
I suck.

But look, I’ve been talking to Mango Radio People.
I’ve been emailing.
And I haven’t been writing.

Once again, I suck.

So shitty useless post.

Deal with it.

Want to be amused…

Go listen to Utopia, she is angrier than me. (well almost.)

She is currently representing Mango Radio.

I feel like I should be saying nice things right now…
but I don’t have it in me right now.

Deal with that also.

Yeah… I’m a bundle of inspiration.

I’m a smart guy. I should be able to handle Time Zones. But it screws me up every time.
And of course, I’m talking to people from all over the place today.
“I’ll do this at 5.”
“It’s almost 2.”

I don’t know when you mean. I guess it’s cause I live on the Eat Coast and I’m spoiled a bit.
Everything is always in eastern time for me.

I just won a contest.

I know I said I wasn’t doing contests… I didn’t mean to. It just happened.

Over at Stale Betty’s. Go figure.

Am I losing my mind (don’t answer) or did I see a commercial for a Miami Vice Movie? (you can answer that)

I need to stretch my legs.
I think my ass is going numb.
I know, that was too much information.
Oh. Well.

I seem to have degraded into some kind of free association here.

Theme for this 24 hour thing: I suck!

I think that I’ve been in this chair too long.

I’m sure of it actually. But that’s not what I am her to talk about.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure what I am here to talk about.

Hopefully it will come to me.

There is a rant building with in me… but I don’t think it is ready to bubble over. Yet.
It is probably a bad idea to sing up for a blogathon when you hate blogging… that is all I’m saying.

I’m losing focus.
I’m ignoring the rest of it.

I’m here to put up 48 posts and raise money for a charity I care about.
If you are along for the ride… swell!

If not…

If not, it’s not like it really shocks me. I know what to expect.
Remember. I don’t fit in.
And I don’t want to.

I’m getting bored.
That is a problem…

I need to find something to amuse me.

I suck. I really do.
I should be used to it by now.

This is so much not what I was going to do.

Let me re-group and try again.

I really feel like I missed a post.

Or my numbers are off. Or something.

If so… ooops! If not, well … whatever.

I’ve been listening to Mango radio for hours. Not the Blogathon Radio but but the one that us DJ’s are doing to raise money for Autism Awareness. (Yes it is confusing as hell. But for today there are kind of 2 mango Radios… sometimes.)

So if you have a buck or two and it is burning a hole in your pocket. And you’re already pledged to sponsor my blog or you just don’t want to… go check out the Mango Radio Blogathon Blog or tune in and listen. Or Both.

I’ll be air on the air (on both feeds, I think) at 3 AM EDT. I promise to cuss and yell a lot, in between songs. I doubt anyone would want to hear that, but it’s just what I do. I’ll also be posting on that blog at the same time. In addition to posting here!

I didn’t plan to be double booked like that, but that is the way it turned out. So I’ll make the most of it.

Man this coffee is good. I just need to drink it nice and slow.

Niiiiice and sloooow.

I’ll try…

But I’ll fail.

I’m not reading to many of the blogathon blogs. I’m sorry. A little sorry anyhow.
I’m busy writing this shit, I just don’t have the time to surf random blogathoners. Besides, it reminds me of BE. But I won’t go there right now.

I am reading a few and I’m enjoying those.

So… a shout out to my friends Monty and Utopia. And I’ve started reading what Chris and Lisa are doing. And of course the Mango Radio Blogathon blog.

Not that you care.

I’ve finished my Thank You notes.

And I’m enjoying that last cup of joe…

I have more to say, but the clock keeps ticking, so this all you get…

Before my wife left for work, she asked me, “How much coffee do you think that you’ll drink today.”
“Like a lot. I need to stay up all night.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Why?”
“Well, (sigh) I just used the last of coffee to make this pot.”
…
“I’ll try to remeber to pick some up when I come home.”
“try to remember? Wait. When are you coming home?”
“I’m not sure.”
…
“Maybe like six or seven.”
…
…
…

I’ll finish off that pot with my next cup.

I do have some single serving coffee ‘pods.’

But. This could get ugly.
Well, (sigh) uglier.

The pod coffee is much better than you think it would be.

My poor kid is stuck watching TV by himself, while I do this and his mom works.
But he seems happy.

Later when he is a teenager, smoking pot and making my life miserable, remind me about this.
Thanks.

I wonder if anyone delivers coffee…
(and doughnuts!)

Wait. No fucking doughnuts.

This sucks. And I’m hungry. And rambling.

Let me finish off the coffee and we’ll take it from there.

I told myself I would write thank you’s to the people who sponsored me.
Nothing long, but it is important to let people know.
I did good. At first.

So I’m making up for it now.

Yes I’m writing little thank you emails instead of writing something clever.
OK. There was no fear of me being clever.

I’m taking a break from the thank notes to say:

Thank you to all of You anonymous sponsors!

It doesn’t matter who you are. I appreciate the support!

Now back to my thank you notes.

I don’t seem like the type to do something like the blogathon, do I?

I don’t think so either.

It’s cause things like this are always turned into an ‘event.’ I suck at events. (See last post.)
So excuse me while I ignore the rest of it and just blog.

Because I’m OK with blogging. I’m actually working very hard to make each of those posts like any post I would on this blog.
I hate filler. I don’t want that here. No one will appreciate it, but I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing ti for me.

Doing it for you? What about the charity?

I haven’t forgot the charity. But the Blogathon people would be fine if it put up a bunch “Wow. It’s time to post again!” posts.
And I’m sure later, in the middle of night. We’ll get there.

But I’m putting it off as long as possible.

I realize that these posts aren’t any good. I know that. I merely am pointing out that they are “jeckles-style” posts.

At least I have Mango to Entertain me. I don’t know what I’ll do when he goes off the air.

How bad do I suck? It only took like 4 posts for my “Monitor” to get bored with me.
Yeah. I suck.

I mentioned that last post.

I don’t. I never have. It’s cool.

I’m at peace with it. But that’s not good enough, I guess.

People try to get me to ‘join in’ or try to do things with other people.
It won’t work, I explain. It doesn’t matter. They insist.

There’s a point… I’m not sure if I can find it.

Let me try again.

I’m me.
I can be grumpy and cranky.
I don’t really know how to have fun like other people do. That’s not to say that I never have fun, but things that normal people seem to like, like bowling, don’t do it for me.

But for some reason people don’t get this. They try to tell me that it’s just a facade. I’m just acting like that, if I’d loosen up then I would have fun. They project some other personalty they think I should have on me.

And then when I act like me. They get disappointed and mad.

Which is frustrating, because I’ve always been up front about it.

So blogathon people, I’m a cranky son of a bitch. You’ve been warned.

Don’t be shocked when I blog something cranky, antisocial, hateful, spiteful, rantlike or what ever.
I don’t fit in with the other bloggers any better than I fit in with the guys at work or with my wife’s friends.

I can only be me. It’s not very good, but its all I have.

Yes, I’m writing about lunch.

Deal with it.

It’s a Gorton’s Shrimp Bowl. You remember the Friendly Gorton Fisherman. It’s not as bad as it sounded.
Of course, I chose it only because it was the only quick microwavable meal I had on hand.

It didn’t take long. I knew it wouldn’t. What am I talking about? It doesn’t really matter.

Hate my blog yet?
No.
Bored with it?
Yeah?
I get that a lot.

But I am what I am.

And I don’t fit in.

And I’m rambling. That didn’t take long either.

Well with lunch done, it’s time for more coffee.
At least coffee still loves me.

(Hey Mango… Tell us how you really feel!)

I’ve been a ‘DJ’ on Mango Radio for almost a year.

I put DJ in quotes because being a DJ on Internet Radio is hardly a real DJ.
I do a show every week. On Thursdays.

You aren’t missing anything. It’s the Worst Show on Mango Radio. It really is.

I just ramble. And swear. And play Shitty Music.

I bring it up, only because I’m going to being my Mango Radio Shtick tonight. At 3 am EST time. I think

The whole thing has been very confusing for me. I believe that I will be also be posting there at the same time. That should suck.

Why would you volunteer to do that?

Um. I didn’t.

But it will be fine. I’ll get on the air and scream and cuss and rant. And type fluff posts on 2 blogs. Nice. I’m looking forward to it. No. I’m not.

DJ’ing has always been a pain. It’s a lot of work. It’s time consuming. And it’s barely worth it for the 4 or 5 listeners I get every week.

But I keep doing it. Why? I don’t know. But I guess it is the same reason I keep blogging.

Probably it’s just that I don’t have a life.

And I still didn’t get any goddammed lunch. I only had time to make my kid a sandwich. Maybe this time.

If Could write a post with out going on and on about whatever it is that I think I have to say, this would be easier.

Luckily, this post has no point.

I think I just got a pledge for 5 pounds.
British Pounds.

Thanks.

I have no idea how much money that is. But that’s ok. I could go look it up, but like I have time for that.

Ravens Camp is going on right now. I could be there. But I’m here blogging. Dammit. I’ll just have to skip work one day next week to head over there.

I’m curios to see Steve McNair in action. We haven’t had a real quarter back in Baltimore since the Colts were here.
I’d love to be very optimistic about the Ravens this year, but first of all that’s not me and secondly, the AFC North is going to be very tough this year.

Are you listening to Mango Radio?

We (the DJs) will be on the air all day.

You can hear us here. Or not.

I want some lunch. I’ll be back. Of course.

It’s true.

I’ve been blogging for over 2 years. I’ve posted hundreds of bits of me on the Internet here and elsewhere.

But I always end up disappointed.
Stupid blog clubs irritate me.
Even my own stupid blog club.

It seems that every time I find a blog I love, the writer quits writing.

I hate that for the most part that only bloggers read blogs.
I hate that it tends to be reciprocal.
I’ll read yours if you read mine.

I hate a lot of things actually. (It’s part of my charm.)

So why do you blog if it bugs you so much?

Good Question.

I’ve been asking myself that for quite some time now.
I’ll probably ask again before this ‘thon thing is over.

That’s OK. You’ll be sick of me before this over. Trust me.
Happens to everyone.

Well almost everyone.

This is for charity. I’m sure you’ve heard.

My charity is Freedom From Hunger.
Why? Because it sounded good? Because I picked it from a hat?
No Sir.

Let’s back up…

I am very good at seeing what’s wrong with things. I’m not as good at doing something to make it better.
But I’m trying to get better. I really am.

One of the things that drives me nuts, is the way Americans are with food. Hell, we’re all fat. Just look around. Fat people every where. Burger King has sandwiches with 4 burgers on them. Any restaurant will put more on your plate than you need in a day. But we go ahead and get an appetizer and a dessert to go with it. We throw away enough food to end world hunger. I’m sure of it.

It makes me mad.

So when it came to pick a charity, I thought of Hunger.

Freedom from Hunger attracted me because of their approach.

They know that just giving money and food items will not solve the problem. Education is the answer. And that is what they do. The go to areas that are disrupted by war or chronic poverty and teach the people who live there how to sustain themselves.

This is me try to be part of the solution.

I’d be proud to have your pledge of support.
Sponsor me here.

Or Don’t. I’m cool either way. You’ve already exceeded my expections in pledges. Everything now is just icing on the cake

(OK. Perhaps that is the wrong metaphor to use here. But I can’t help myself.)

I think the natural reaction to doing some like this blogathon is to surround yourself with food.

Doughnuts, Corn Chips, Dip, HoHos, Nachos…

I’m getting Hungry.

I’m not going to do that.

I’ve been dieting and going to the gym and all that jazz. I don’t want to undo that in one day. So I’ll be good. It’s not so much willpower as those things just are not in my house. And it’s not like I have time to run to the grocery store.

I don’t really think of it as dieting. I think of it as training.

I go backpacking. A lot.

My last trip kicked my ass. I was out of breath and out of shape the entire weekend. I do not want to go through that again. My next trip is in the middle of August. I intend to be fit as I can be by then.

So…

No snacks for me. I had a rice cake for breakfast. You’re jealous aren’t you? I know you are.

Don’t worry… I’m planning on splurging on Pizza for dinner. All this blogging must burn calories… right?

I feel like I’m all over the place.

I also feel like I haven’t stopped typing on an hour.

Oh come on it couldn’t have taken that long to type those post…

True.

But I’ve been typing elsewhere.

You see I’m not just a blogger…
I’m a Shitty Blogger.
And a Mango Radio DJ.

As a result, I’ve put up a post on the Shitty Blogs Club Blog promoting the other Shitty Bloggers who are in this thing.

I’m also listening to Mango Radio’s 24 Podathon and in the Mango Radio Chatroom.

I think I need more coffee.

I’ll be on the air on Mango Radio later today.
Much Later.

And I’ll be here. All day.

I have coffee.

I love coffee. And coffee loves me. My love affair with coffee goes back to college.
Back then it was a red hot thing. I’d stay up late ’studying’ and drink coffee till I was nothing but a quivering mess.

But now I’m older. Much older. And coffee and I have been together for a long time.

We’ve settled down together.

I get up and drink several cups. Coffee keeps me warm inside. Coffee helps me deal with people without going in to a fit of rage.

And Coffee and I are going to do this blogathon thing.

In 30 minutes or so I’ll let you about some ‘blogathon events’ you should be aware of.

Here we are.

This is the big Blogathon.

48 posts posts for your amusement. All to show support for a good charity.

Sit back relax. We have all day and all night together.

I hope you enjoy it.

If 48 doses of Jeckles isn’t enough for you, I’ll be making some guest appearances here or there. I’ll tell you about those later.

I suspect I’ll get some new visitors through here today.
Poor guys, they won’t know what hit them.

This is an acquired taste.

So excuse me, I’m going to go get some coffee, find some music to listen to, and attempt to make the most of this.

I’ll be brief.

I’ll have all day tomorrow to say whatever it is I’m trying to say.

I reached my goal.
$500 Pledged.
Thanks.

But you can still sponsor me. (You can sponsor me up until the end of teh blogathon.)

Tomorrow, I’ll be here at my desk for 24 hours bringing you 48 posts. (Plus some other stuff… but I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.)

So stop by tommorrow and check back frequently. I’ll be posting every 30 minutes or so starting at 9:00 AM. I can’t promise it will be the most interesting blogging I’ve ever done, but I’ll do my best.

I’m going to get some sleep now. (It just seems liek I should be well rested for this.)

See ya tomorrow.

It is probably wrong of me to blog during work.

Luckily, I don’t care.

It’s almost time for the blogathon. You’ll be so relieved to have this whining for money come to an end.

But the thing is… I haven’t met my goal.
I really want to raise $500.

I know. You’re broke. You’ve already given to other bloggers. You hate me.

But think about it.

I’m an asshole. Everyone knows that. (I get reminded on a daily basis.)
But I’m doing this good thing.

You would expect all those nice people to do good things like this. Admit it, you were surprised that I signed up for this.

This is rare opportunity for you. To help me do something good and worthwhile. And if that isn’t enough, every dollar pledged not only goes to fight Hunger, it chips away at my cynicism (at least temporarily.)

Help me exceed my goal. Help to force me to act for the powers of good. Help chip away at my cynicism.

Pledge a few bucks. $5 would be awesome! You can afford five dollars. Just use the money you were gong to use to cheat your diet. You didn’t really need that ice cream cone anyway.

Do it!
Dammit!

You know you want to be one of the ones that put me over the top.

Now let me get back to work…

I left my iPod at work when I left today, not a big deal it will be there when I get there tomorrow. But it did mean that i had to go to the gym with out it. That must never happen again. I don’t like treadmill as it is, but running with no music, with nothing better to do than read the close captioning on the TV. It sucked.

Last week I did manage to run on the tread mill every day but Friday… and I was sick on Friday, so I have a good excuse. Unfortunately all the running made me hungry as hell. I ate everything in sight. I knew I wasn’t supposed to.

I’d have these conversations with myself. Something like this:

Look, a cookie!
You can’t have a cookie.
But I’m hungry.
You’ll get fat… ter
But I ran.
It doesn’t matter.
OK. You win.
Then why are you eating that cookie?
I am?
Nevermind… tubby.

But somehow I didn’t gain any weight. Of course I didn’t lose any either. Maybe this week will be better.

My blog was down.

I now believe it is back up.
If you can read this… just assume that it is back up.

I’m not in the mood for this.

Next weekend is the blogathon. It’s not too late to sponsor me.

It seems like a lot of these bloggers have big strategies for what they are gong to do to stay awake and what kind of shit they are going to post.
I have none of that.

If there is something you think I should be writing about during the blogathon, let me know… 48 post is a lot.

That’s all. I’m still having a bad day. I’m going to crawl back in my hole now.

Adelphia Customer Service, how may I help you?
My Internet is down. This like the 5th time this happened in the last 24 hours.
Can you tell me how many solid green lights you have on your cable modem?
One. The Power Light. And the Receive light is blinking.
Can I Have the MAC ID off your Cable Modem. It is located…
I know where it is located. 0000CFD123.
Let me take a look at your server. Just one moment.
…
Ok. It looks like you modem is not connecting.
Really? Wow? Do you think that is why I am getting no Internet?
It is showing your server as 58% percent down, so…
Oh. So the problem is on you end.
No. It has to be 75% down to be an outage.
OK. So it’s on my end?
Possibly.
What could the problem be?
It could be your lines or the cable modem.
Oh.
I’m going to send out a technician.
Great.
I can have one out here for you on the 27th.
That’s almost a week from now.
It will probably come up over night anyway.
What?
Your modem will probably re-establish a connection overnight.
Then why are you sending a tech?
Because there is no outage.
Oh. Because the server is only 58 percent down?
Let me check. Actually it is only 41 percent down now.
So it is not an outage.
Right.
But 41% of the customers cannot connect right not.
41% are not connected.
But the problem is on my end?
Yes.
Great. Any idea when it will come back up?
It’s not an outage.
Of course not.
Would you like me to send out a technician?
For Thursday?
Yes
No.
No?
No. How about I all you back if it is still down tomorrow. Then you can send them.
OK? You don’t want me to send a tech?
No. It’s sound like the issue is on your end. I’m sure it will be up by morning.
It’s not on our end, it has to be 75% down to be an outage.
Right. I’ll call back if I change my mind.
OK. Are you sure.
Yes.
Have a great night and thank you for calling Adelpia.
Uh huh.

I will not be reduced to being grumpy.
I will not.

But they are testing me. They really are.

So, I will focus on some of the positives.

I just got Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder yesterday. I had to order it off eBay. It was worth the wait.

I also managed to drag myself to the gym yesterday.
Going to the gym is a chore. You know the drill. You’re too tired. Too busy. Whatever. So you don’t go. Add to that the fact that my knee has been a mess. So the few times I have managed to go, it swells up and I can’t go back.

But I went. I got on the treadmill and ran. For 30 minutes. Which got me about 3 miles. and my knee… is OK. now all I have to do is go back tonight.

I am working on making a Web App for a Realty Team. The project is way over my head. I’m a network engineer not a developer, but I can’t turn down a challenge.

And YOU GUYS… yes YOU GUYS have blown my mind. When I signed up for blogathon and I was afraid I wouldn’t get 20 dollars in pledges. But no, YOU GUYS rocked my world and and have pledged nearly $300. I hope you realize what a reflection that is on YOU GUYS. There are blogs in this blogathon with more reader that have less pledges. That is because YOU GUYS rock! I cannot thank you enough.

If you want to blow my mind, Sponsor Me!

See. Things are pretty good. I just need to tune out these idiots.

Here I am at work again.
But since I am feeling uninspired, I am here.

Suddenly my ‘blog to do list’ has gotten much longer.
I want to finish the most recent back packing story. And I need to add pictures to the other parts.
I have more to say about Syd Barrett.
And, of course, I have blogathon looming.

About Blogathon.
To those of you who have contributed, you rock. You are the best! I am amazed to have raised as much as I have.
At the same time, it is not enough.

A few points on this.

I am very competitive. I always have been. And WebKittyn and Monty have more money pledged than I do. It’s killing me. I want to win! Of course it is not a competition, but still I want to be able to do well. So help me out. I want to be able to ‘hang’ with the other bloggers.

Don’t kid yourself and say, “I’m sure lots of people are blogging for Freedom from Hunger, they’ll get lots of support from this blogathon.” It’s not true. There are only 2. To support this charity, sponsor me! Do it now!

Lastly, I know you want to help fight world hunger. I know you do. But it’s all so overwhelming. Everywhere you turn, bloggers are asking for money. Don’t be overwhelmed. All I want from YOU is five bucks. If each person that came here, contributed five dollars, we’d have no trouble breaking $1000. Think about it. Give me a hand.

But what’s in it for you? Besides the tax write off and that warm feeling you get inside for doing a good thing? You get to ‘watch’ me blog for 24 hours straight. For your reading amusement, I will write one post every 30 minutes for 24 hours. I will get jacked on coffee and go nuts. That’s got to be worth five bucks…

Sponsor me. It’s good for you.

Really I’m trying to do you a favor. I know we all trying to lose weight. I bet you were thinking of spending money on to eat. Something you did not need. Like a doughnut. (mmmmm doughnuts) Let me help you. Give me the money. We’ll let that money to go towards helping people who are not getting enough food. We’ll help them learn to be able to support themselves. You’ll thank me. Really you will.

And I will thank you.

I’m still reeling about Syd.
It’s not like the news was shocking or upsetting exactly. But the end to this tragic story has kept my mind in motion. I may have more to say about Syd, but it hasn’t quite solidified in my mind. Also, I expect that this week’s Radio Show will have a lot of Syd in it.

Hey!

The Blogathon is coming. And I’m in it. Several of you have sponsored me. You guys rock. But I want more. Sponsor me.

NO. I mean it. Sponsor me. I did some homework and picked a good charity. I’ll stay up 24 hours and post for your amusement. (Well at least for my amusement.) What more do I need to do? What can I offer you to entice you to Sponsor Me? I don’t know what to offer you. But who knows, maybe I’ll think of something.

I’d like to break $500! It’s a goal. If we make that goal… we’ll do something. I just don’t know what yet. I can tell you this. It will make you feel good if you do it. Hell it will make me smile. Sponsor me!
And if you hate my charity or me or whatever…. Sponsor one of my friends. aka_Monty, Webkittyn, Rose, Utopia or Mango Radio.

It’s for a good cause and you get to make me stop being so grumpy for a minute. DO IT NOW.

I mentioned earlier (way earlier) that I had been assigned a huge Identity Integration project. Well funding was slow, and the project has slipped. But we are underway now. It is kind of exciting.

At the same time, I have been drafted to replace the network infrastructure at one of our sites. We are combining the project into a training excercise. So our WAN Admin is having me and another configure the Switch, VLANs and whatnot from the ground up. Way cool.

Is it ironic that I like work betterer, when I am busy. Especially busy with interesting things.

Isreal attacked Lebanon. I’m so glad that the US was able to bring stability to that region.

The AL won the All Star game. Whoop D Doo. I am so over baseball. Only a few short weeks till training camp. Go football!

That is it for today. Sponsor me!

I am amazed.
You guys have chipped away some of my cynicism. Hard to believe, but it’s true.
You have contributed far more than I had dared to hope.
Thank You.

But I’m not done. I want more. Sponsor me! Please. And Thank you.
(If you want more information on why I chose this charity… I wrote about it earlier.)

I’m going to finish up the trail story… and add pictures. I promise.

But not right now. I have a party to prepare for. I’ll try to save some cake and ice cream for you.

Sometimes my job is just boring.
Now would be a prime example.

Avert your eyes… geek talk follows.

One of the software packages my users use has a proprietary database that stores all sorts of multimedia files. It doesn’t take much to make it get errors. It needs to have maintenance done a regular basis. (I’d explain database maintenance, but none of you care. None of you.)

Last week some idiot, (that bastard that screamed at me the other week, actually,) ran a server utility on the sever while the users were using this package. Ever since their software hasn’t run correctly. I told them to run maintenance.

They say they did but the problem persists.

So here I am running maintenance, which amounts to clicking next and waiting.

And waiting.
And waiting.

One of the tables seems to be FUBAR. Because the database is proprietary, there is nothing I can do but wait to see if the maintenance utility can fix it. If it can’t… well lets not think about that yet.

The point is, I have nothing to do but sit here. And wait. At least I have my iPod to amuse me.

I am bored. And hungry too.
I think I have many days of hungry in my future.
Damn. Now I’m think about food. This isn’t working well at all.

Bored and hungry. This no way to spend the day.

It is time for me to lose some weight and get back in shape.

I’m sick of feeling like shit all the time.

The last few months, I’ve been tired, moody and just plain cranky. During that same time frame I’ve gained about 15 pounds. I have no doubt that two are related.

Couple that with how thoroughly my ass was kicked by the trail the other weekend, and I really have no choice.

I’ve read over the past few years volumes of information on weight-loss and nutrition, but I’ve been unsatisfied with the results I’ve had with their recommendations. I still with what has worked in the past. For the next few days, I will embark on a very low-calorie diet. Once I can’t stand it anymore and my appetite and stomach have had things put in perspective, I will increase my calorie intake to a reasonable, but still low level. Add exercise and there you have it. Sounds easy easy enough. I just have to confront my life-long love affair with food, along with my aversion to the gym.

The gym really does creep me out. I don’t know which is worse the fat middle aged women in skimpy work out outfits or the meat heads strutting around flexing and primping. I hate people and there are too many of them at the gym. If that wasn’t bad enough (and trust me it is,) my knees and ankles are screwed up from hiking. While they are healing, I won’t be able to run on the treadmill, which is my exercise of choice. I’ll be reduced to power walking with the soccer moms. The inhumanity of it all.

But I’ll try real hard not to think about all that. I need to focus on the goal, which is to lose about 25 pounds. I have to. I can’t go around feeling like shit all the time. And I know, from experience, that this will help.

I’m not very good at fishing.

I’ve read several books on it. I’ve purchased the right equipment. None of that seems to matter. I can’t catch a fish to save my soul.

I haven’t caught a fish in years. Yet.. I keep doing it.

This evening I went fishing with my dad and my grandmother. My dad cast out his line and caught a huge bass. A little while later, my grandma pulled in a respectably sized bass. I came home empty handed.

I guess I just like being out there by the water. Or in this case on a boat. I stand there and cast. Wait a bit and reel it back in. I feel the bait run across the weeds and the bottom. I focus my attention on the act of fishing. It requires just enough concentration to stop my mind from wandering. I just stand (or sit) and fish.

Empty handed or no, I can think of worse ways to spend an evening.

A four day weekend. That means that we went to the Lake.
When you have a house on the lake available to you… you take advantage of it.

Today has kind of sucked.
But nothing terrible, little annoyances.
Mostly people disappointed me. Several times. Several people.
I suppose my standards might be too high.

For the record, misguided readers (you must be misguided if you keep reading this,) I’m not as miserable as you think I am.

I guess I am just more likely write about things that bother me. Writing about ‘the nice dinner I had with my wife the other night’ is boring. It just is.

So just trust me. I have fun. I know happiness. I really do. I just don’t feel compelled to write about most of it.
It’s not a matter of choice. Did you know that? I don’t choose to write about this or that. I am compelled to.

Sometimes I am compelled to write about things that do not belong here. So I put them elsewhere. To that end, I just started a private blog. How dumb is that? What is the point of a blog that no one else can read? A notebook would perhaps be more appropriate, but I am always near the Internet it seems, so the Private Blog is more accessible that the notebook. Don’t worry, there is nothing good in there.

I tried to run this morning, but I had to settle for walking. I wanted to go 3 miles, I knew I couldn’t run that far without my knee screaming at me. I planned to run the first mile and walk from there. I made it (charitably) a quarter mile before the pain put me back to a walk. I did walk the 3 miles and at a good pace, but I was pretty upset that I couldn’t manage to run further. I hate not being able to do something. We’ll see how far I make it tomorrow.

The rest of my day was like that. Small aggravations and disappointments.

Tomorrow will be better. That is a choice.

Just when I thought that I would be able to start feeling like myself, I woke up with gunk oozing out of my eye.

Conjunctivitis. Great. Also my nose is running like a facet.

I don’t know why I bother getting out of bed.

My wife got an iPod Nano in the mail today. This is odd, because she didn’t order one. It seems she filled out some sweepstakes at the grocery store and she won. Go figure. I helped her set it up and gave her a couple hundred songs to play with.

I am going to crawl in to bed and hope that it doesn’t get any worse tomorrow.

I’ve had a whole day to recover, but I’m still useless. We’ll just blame this stuffiness in my head.

I coasted through work today. Asshole tried talk to me again. I put on my iPod. He kept talking. Some people are very dense.

I was hoping to air out my tent in the sun yesterday. Of course, the sun doesn’t seem to shine anymore. If I waited for the sun I’d have nothing but mildew for a tent.

What is that?

It is a tent in my kitchen, of course.

Luckily, no one around here likes to cook anyway.

I solved a mystery, I’ve been working on for a while. It feels good. (Don’t ask… it doesn’t make any sense… I promise.)

I found a new comic book. It has been out for a few months, but I’m a bit slow. Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder. I was thinking that I should pick up a Batman title, and when I saw that Frank Miller was back to writing Batman, my decision was made. I’ve read Issue 1, I loved it. Some people have panned it for being ‘over the top’ in both dialogs and artwork. Well Duh. It’s Batman. I loved it. I need to find #2, my comic book store can’t seem to lay hands on it, and I’m not quite willing to pay 10 backs for it on eBay (once you figure in the shipping.) Who knows, maybe I’ll have a weak moment.

I am trying to write the account of my hike last weekend, but my brain dead-ness is hampering the effort, I apologize for any inconvenience.

Now it’s off to sleep.

I went backpacking this weekend. I’ll write about it in detail later.

What I will tell you now is that it is official: I am out of shape.

I’ve sort of known it. I’ve put on a few pounds over the last couple months. I haven’t been going to the gym. I’ve slacked.

But this weekend I got the proof. I set out to conquer the trail, but the trail conquered me. I was slow. I sucked. My two companions walk ahead while I trudged slowly behind. Sometimes I just stopped and stared at the trail hoping it would get easier. It did not. There were a few times where I was ready to just sit down and stop. I did not.

I should be at work today, but I called out. I’m whipped. My ankles and knees are battered. I am bruised. And my feet are sporting many shiny new blisters.

Besides that I feel good.

While I was trudging along, I had an epiphany. My project, the one with the PHP, is still very awkward in the way it is coded. Standing there, in the drizzle amongst the rocks, it occurred to me a better way to structure it. That is what I will be working on today. Probably.

This weekend was a wake up call. I need to stop pigging out. I need to go to the gym and do something. And if my knees bother me too much to run, I need to walk. I need to. I don’t like being chubby, but I guess that wasn’t enough motivation. But I cannot tolerate being so whipped on the trail.

It’s not just the trail, I’ve been exhausted all the time recently. It seems like I come home from work manage to throw together a dinner for me and the kids and then I pass out on the couch. This is not how I want to feel or be.

More on the hike later… with pictures.

I’m blogging at work again. I am a bad employee. Of course, we are playing the name that tune game on my iPod right now, so why not blog.

Shutter really sucks at name that tune.

Tonight, I need to pack for my three day backpacking trip, then do the stupid radio show. Any packing that does not get done before the show, will happen afterwards. I probably won’t get much sleep.

Sleep is overrated.

OK. I’m home now. I goofed off long enough that my work day week is finally over.

This week started like shit, and really it didn’t end any better. Maybe the heat is getting to people. I know that I’m not happy about having to work with this douche that screamed at me. He keeps trying to nice up to me. Fuck that. I am a patient person (really… I am) and I’m a pretty nice person. This moron is getting top pay because he’s been there forever and they don’t know what else to do with him, so they promote up and out of the way. What do I care, that’s not my problem.

It wasn’t. Then he screamed at me. Now every time he starts with the, Jeckles, I’m not sure what this error means. Jeckles, why isn’t this working. Jeckles, how can they expect us to do this without step by step documentation written at a level a simple child could read.

I want to scream at him:

Dude. You have a College Degree. You are a fucking Level III Engineer (compared to my measly Level II Technician.) Dude you make 30% more than I do. Figure it out. That’s we do. We figure it out.

I’m done with that guy. You don’t scream at me like that and then expect me to just forget that it happened,

I’m sick of other people too. Little people. Not Midgets. Small minded assholes, who think that they know oh-so-much about the world. They know what is right and what is wrong. And have no problem telling me all about it. And when I make it clear I don’t want to hear it. Then I’m the asshole.

I need to go pack. I’ll be on the stupid Radio show at nine. Tune in if you want.

Work sucks. But at least no one has yelled at me today.
I am supposed to set up some computers. They are moving them from somewhere else. And they keep not getting them moved. So I wait.

And wait.

I think I need to go backpacking. Conveniently, I’m going this Friday.

If I make it that long.
I just don’t think that I am cut out for working.

I did mange to teach myself some PHP in my spare time. I have figured out database calls and incorporated SQL statements in to the code. I also figured out encryption and authentication.

Now I just need to decide if I want to bother to set up classes (Object Oriented PHP) or just leave the code all spaghetti-like. It’s not like I’m being graded on this. But I do want it done right. Me and my stupid projects.

With any luck I’ll get this site up and running by the end of the month. What site, you ask. That is a secret. A surprise even. If I ever get it fnished… I’ll tell you about it. Probably.

I guess I’ll go back to waiting now.

I got up this morning. Time to go back to work.

No big deal, right? This is our slow time. If anything major had happenned, Shutter would have told me about it.

So I got my act together and headed to work. I even managed to get there a few minutes early, as opposed to the 20 minutes late I usually manage.

I got my coffee and sat down to check a week’s worth of email.

“Hey Jeckles.”
“Hey”

“Man, its a pain to set up this manger account for the new user.”
“The new user doesn’t have access to that.”

The new user also happens to be his son.

“YES HE DOES! ALL HELPDESK PEOPLE GET ACCESS TO THE SERVERS AT ALL OF THE SITES.”
“Are you talking about the Manger account or just admin rights.
“ADMIN RIGHTS, THAT’S WHAT I MEANT.”
“OK, calm down. I thought you meant the Manager account.”
“YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE A SUCH A FUCKING ASSHOLE!”
“Look, calm…”
“NO! YOU DO NOTHING BUT GIVE EVERYONE SHIT! YOU’RE A FUCKING ASSHOLE!”

I went and got more coffee. I didn’t expect it to be agreat day. But I didn’t think it would go to hell by 8:15.

It’s great to be back.

So we got back from vacation.

We got up this morning and started to clean up and put away all of our vacation stuff. And to clean up the disaster we had created in the packing process. I spent a good chunk of the morning cleaning and then decided I had earned a break.

I sat down at the Super Computer and checked my email.

The first one I opened said:

I forgot to tell you
Happy Father’s Day! :)

We forgot about that completely. Our schedules are so off from the traveling that we missed it completely.

And I cannot believe I spent the first part of my Father’s Day cleaning the kitchen.

Don’t fear, there will be a large steak dinner to make up for it.

So there was a Tropical Storm. But it kindly went north and bothered some one else. And I got on with my vacation.

We spent the day Tuesday at the Lowry Zoo in Tampa. We saw Tigers, Orangutans, Rhinos, and manatees. And a bunch of other animals. I, of course, took about a thousand pictures. The sky threatened to rain on us a couple of times but it never actually did. We grabbed subs for dinner and then headed to the beach to the sunset. The wind was blowing fiercely. And the surf was incredible. The kids had fun running into the waves. I took pictures of one of the prettiest sunsets I’ve seen. Not a bad day.

Wednesday, we ended up going to the beach. It wasn’t exactly sunny, but it was warm enough. We body surfed on the waves, still larger than usual thanks to my friend Alberto; built sand castles and looked for shells. We went out for dinner at nice little restaurant and called it a day.

Today we took a ferry to Egmont Key. You can’t get there, except by boat. The U.S. built Fort Dade there in preparation for the Spanish-American war. The ruins are still there. The whole place is quite breath taking. There are no concession stands, no tours, no gift shops. You just walk around this island that is filled with palm trees, tortoises, cacti and lizards. You’ll be walking through the sand between palm trees, when you catch a glimpse of a ruin of the perfect beaches. It was absolutely incredible. And to make it just perfect, if very hot, the sun was out and the skies were blue.

Tomorrow we head home. We will probably go visit the bird sanctuary before we leave. And I think we will take our time and take 2 days to get home.

I leave you with this picture of Egmont Key.

Alberto is a tropical storm. He organized himself over night and has had sustained wind speeds of 70 mph or so. I believe that it is quite likely that he will be promoted to a Hurricane before he makes landfall tomorrow.

I won’t go so far as to say that this is ruining my vacation, but gusting winds and driving rain is not what I had in mind when we planned this trip.

Usually when we go on vacation we do something low-key and inexpensive. We go camping or we go to my parents second house on the lake. And we have fun. This year we decided to do something a little more exciting. To take a real vacation. I guess I don’t have to spell this out, this is what chose to do. And we have invested much more in to this trip than we usually do.

I can’t help but be furious about this storm. I hate not knowing if the kids will even have a chance to go swimming in the Gulf or if we will be able to go to some of the cool places I really wanted to take everyone to, most of these place are going to be difficult to manage in rain and gusting winds.

Having said all that, I’m not about to just give up. We searched for some indoor things to do. And we wanted to find things that were unique to here, not just cop out and go to a movie that we could see at home. I found a few places and we checked two of them out today.

First we headed over to the Clearwater Aquarium. To call it an aquarium is probably over stating the place. Which is why I chose it. One of (if not) the best aquariums in the country is in Baltimore, so I guess I get a little snobby about going and paying to go in an inferior one some place else. This place was more of a marine animal rescue. I like animal rescues. They do good work, and I don’t mind paying a little money to get into a place that does that kind of work.
I also like that the people that work at these places care passionately about what they do. They had a few dolphins there. Also some sea turtles, sting rays, otters and some other assorted fishes. The kids got to ‘pet’ the sting rays, and we got to see the dolphins get fed and trained by the volunteers. We able to get very close and learn a lot about the animals. And of course, I took a boatload of pictures.

In the afternoon, we drove down to St. Petersburg and checked out the Dali Museum. I was impressed with it. It was a very large collection. And the tour guide was awesome. I am familiar with Dali, or at least I thought I was. I learned a lot. It was great.

And now, I’ll just have to play the wait and see game for tomorrow.

A tropical storm. The first of the season. They named it Alberto. And its heading right for me. Well, they say it will hit north of here, but I’m looking at the satellite and radar pictures; and it look like it headed in this direction to me.

But hey, 40-50 mile an hour sustained winds are nothing. I’m not scared. I’ll probably go and try to get some pictures. (OK I won’t go far, but I will try for pictures.)

What sucks is we didn’t really plan for rain. Most of our plans (swimming, going to the beach, going to a wildlife reserve, going to a bird sanctuary, and going to Bush Gardens) just won’t cut it in driving rain with lots of wind. We will not be deterred, however. Tomorrow, assuming that they are right and this thing hits north of here, we will go to an Aquarium and to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. Interesting places that conveniently have a roof. And if all else fails, we can always go to a movie. I hear X3 is good.

I took some pictures around sunset down at Indian Rocks Beach. Sunset itself was a flop, the cloud cover was too thick, but I got some cool shots of the surf. I’ll try to post one or two if I get a chance.

What kind of jerk goes on vacation to get away from it all, and as soon as he arrives, gets on the Internet to check his blog. Oh. That would be me.

We got up at 3:30 AM this morning, I poured some coffee down my throat and poured some more in a travel mug. We tossed the kids in the car and got on our way at around twenty past four.

Before I had driven 10 miles, as I was making a turn, my travel mug fell over and poured scalding hot coffee on to my leg. Spilling coffee is a terrible thing. The burns, the stained clothes and the embarrassment are bad enough; but the fact that you just lost all that coffee makes it almost unbearable.

I was able to drive into North Carolina before exhaustion got the best of me. I let Mrs. Geek take the wheel and moved into the back to watch a movie with my youngest son. I’m sure it was a great movie, but it looked a lot like the back of my eyelids.

I resumed my spot at the helm and pushed into South Carolina and then Georgia. These two states are great fun to drive through. Flat, straight interstate lined with trees. Not even many billboards to look at. Boring. Mrs Geek and I switched again and she finished out Georgia. I took over and drove the rest of the way. As we approached Tampa, a rain storm came out of nowhere, dumped so much rain that I could not see more than a few feet in front of me, and then cleared up again. All in a matter of minutes. I love Florida weather.

I really do. It is crazy hot down here, but I love it. Something about all this heat and humidity makes me feel alive. Of course, they are calling for rain the next few days, but I’m sure we can work around that.

We arrived here at a bit after nine, seventeen hours later than we started. Taking a way an hour for Dinner, we covered over a thousand miles in just under sixteen hours. It’s a lot for one day, but I’d rather get the chore of driving over with, and start enjoying my vacation as soon as possible. Speaking of which… I’ve got to go.

Two days till vacation. Twos days till vacation. Two days till vacation.

It’s not helping.

Why does everything have to be so frustrating. I guess its me. It must be.

I went to re-image a bunch of old computers. The image failed. The fucking hard drives were too small. So…
First thing tomorrow I’ll be re-imaging the same computers. Which is great, cause it was so much fun the first time.

< Broken record>

I hate people. And unfortunately that extends to Internet people too. Cause they are just real people. Except for teh ones in the chat rooms that want to show you theit webcams. They are not real. Sometiems it harder for me gage to tehinternet people. But in the long run the break donw is always the same: msot people suck, a few are pretty good.

Lousy odds if you aske me.

</beating a dead horse>

I’m busy as hell, with all my little projects. But it seems like I make remarkably little progress. I hate this.

And so You know. I’m not joking when I say I’m paranoid. I really am. It is so crippling some days.
You can go ahead and make fun of me now. (and no, I’m not trying to be ironic.)

I’ve been reading my old blog entries. And I’ve come to a number of conclusions.

I am a boring dude.
I whine alot.
I don’t really do anything.
I am boring dude.

My blog (This blog) will turn 2 years old soon. I’m thinking of putting decorations and baking a cake. Then no one will show up and I’ll eat my cake. It will be a very fitting way to celebrate this blog.

Two More Days. Just Two More.

I have a head ache.

Lack of sleep will do that to you.

I’m grumpy I want to lash out at people. Which sucks. I’m not upset at people, I’m upset at person. But lashing out at person will get me no where.

So I’m stuck.

Stay back.
I may lash.

Just so you all don’t think that I’m nothing but a bundle of sadness. Here is a post to say everything is alright.
Not bad, even. One might even venture that everything is Pretty Good.

I know, strange but true.

Yesterday I was very productive. I got some writing done, plus I was able to make some (but not nearly as much as I had hoped) progress on my super-secret new project.

At work I have been tasked with training the new guy. Which is fine by me. I’ve got someone to do the grunt work for me now. In all seriousness, I don’t mind training him. If I’m going to be working with him anyway, I might as well be training him to work the way I think he should.

Also, I got a 200 GB external Hard Drive and set it up yesterday. I now have all of my Photos and MP3’s stored on it. This will free up room for the thousands (I’m not joking) of pictures I intend to take while I am on vacation next week.

That’s it. Just wanted to share a decent Monday with you. You may now return to your daily grind now

Another crappy week is almost over.

What is it about a 4 days week that is so hard to take.
I hate days at work like today. I wasn’t motivated to take care of anything. I did the bare minimum. What A Waste.

At least I have a job where I can get away with that.

I have some decisions to make. I’m not thrilled with how some of my online nonsense is going. I need to decide what I’m going to do. What I will continue with and what I’ll let slip by the wayside. I had a project I was working on. My ‘next big thing.’ But my last big thing, has done a lot to convince me that maybe I don’t really want to commit myself to another thankless chore.

I get enough of that in the real world.

Now is no time to make these decisions. I’ll do that with in a calm and relaxed state of mind. Thursday nights haven’t been calm or relaxed for me in some time.

Also.

I know I’ve been a grumpy son of a bitch lately. Sorry about that. I appreciate your patience.

So much I want to do. But I’m not sure which projects are worthwhile and which ones, while good ideas should be put on hold. Some should be scrapped. And others that have been ignored should be picked up and dusted off.

Such a lot to do. On top of a full time job no less.

Later. These are decisions for later.

I love this heat.

I hear everyone else complaining, but not me. Bring it on baby.

I’ve been waiting all year for this. I’m convinced that a mild spring contibuted to my funk. But now, it seems, summer has arrived. And not a moment too soon.

The way the air is thicker, the plants seem greener. It makes me feel alive. I should move to Florida. All I need is a job down there. If anyone is looking for a Network Engineer/part-time writer/part-time photographer/half ass web designer just let me know.

I can’t wait to walk back out the door and feel the sun beat down on me. To feel the beads of sweat form at my hairline, to remind me that I’m alive!

I should go down to the city. There is nothing like the city in summertime. At night, long after the sun has gone down, heat still radiates from the asphalt and the bricks.

But even if I don’t make downtown, which a probably won’t, I should make a point of sitting out on my deck tonight, after sunset. Just sit there and soak it in. Hell, I might even pick up some near-beer for the occasion.

This is what I live for.

There was no battle.

I know what I put up there for a title. But let’s face it. There are no battles for me. I’m 34 years old. I work for a living in a secure job. I have a wife and kids. I drive a minivan. (You can’t imagine how much it hurts to admit that.) I have disturbingly yuppy-like tendencies. There will be no battles, no adventures, no quests for me. Which sucks.

I grew up with heroes like Spiderman and Luke Skywalker. Normal guys who suddenly found themselves having big adventures. But it looks like it isn’t going to happen for me. So I amuse myself by picturing the drudgery of my daily life as a series of battles with evil opponents who must be vanquished. Pathetic. I know.

Today, I went in to my backyard. I guess I hadn’t been out there for a while. The grass was up to my knees and going to seed. I used to have such a nice lawn. I mowed it, but all that did was make all the weeds in garden seem that much worse. I decided that this was it. I had no choice but to take on the evil weeds. And rescue my poor overwhelmed perennials.

I armed my self with gloves and and my weed pulling tool. In just over 2 hours I filled 3 garbage bags with weeds. It was very hot out, and I loved it. I don’t know why, but being out there working and sweating like that makes me feel more alive somehow. So it wasn’t exactly a pitched battle between good and evil. But those weeds were out of control. Dandelions, those prickly one that will get you even with gloves on, clover, and a bunch of stragglers from my neighbor’s garden. I don’t know why some one would want to plant ground cover that spreads in a garden that small. And not just one kind of ground cover, but several. They have spread all over her garden, into her yard, into my garden.

I did mange to rescue my lily of the valley, liberate my lavender, and free my hostas. I still need to mulch and plant some annuals. The yard needs some weed and feed. I’ll try to get this done and then I can feel free to ignore it for a few more months.

It’s been one week since you looked at me, cocked your head to the side and said “I’m angry”…

One week ago…
I hurt a friend.
What a stupid way to start a week.

Six days ago…
I took 300 photograghs.
I refused to give up… and made a friend smile.

Five days ago…
I had a productive day at work.
Waited in the doctor’s office with my son for 2 hours, only to see the doctor for 5 minutes.
I had a restless night with vivid nightmares… again.

Four days ago…
Had a long day at work.
Set up a wireless for network for my brother.
Had another restless night.

Three days ago…
I woke up late…
and said fuck it.
Took a mental health day from work.
Went to the coffee house with my wife.
Wrote a letter to a soldier.
Made a friend laugh in front of everyone, without anyone else knowing why.

Two days ago…
Meeting in the morning.
Chinese for lunch.
Easy afternoon.
Went out to eat.
Did my stupid radio show.
Ended my show feeling like I should puke… again.
Yet another restless night with vivid nightmares.

Yesterday…
Spent the day setting up my new work laptop.
Had lunch with my best friend and my wife.
Drove to the ‘Lake House’ for a visit with family and what I hope will be a relaxing three day weekend.

Today…
Big Breakfast.
Helped my Mom get Airline tickets for emergency trip to Florida.
Took a ride in the boat.
And the day is still young…

Just another week.

But you knew that.

Yesterday I pontificated about the lost art of letter writing. But I didn’t think about what I was saying.

Too bad nobody writes letters any more, I said. I pictured days long gone, I pictured Civil War soldiers writing letters and hoping to get some from their loved ones.

Thank you Rose.

Thank you for pulling my head out of the sand and pointing out that there are still soldiers sitting out there hoping for mail.

I am going to write a letter to a soldier. You should too.

Tell them you are proud of them. Tell you care that they are out there and you are thinking of them. Tell them what you’ve been up to. Tell them anything.

You can go to AnySoldier.com to get the address of a soldier who will give your letter to some soldier who has not received any mail. Go ahead and make some ones day.

Once again, thank you Rose for reminding me that these thoughts I have are best backed up by action.

If you’ll excuse me. I have a letter to write.

that I hate people?

I took the day off work.

I feel a little… cough, cough … ill.

And besides, my employer gives me 12 sick days a year. And I ‘m a fairly healthy guy. So why not take mental health day, here or there?

I decided that what I needed to cure what ails me was a nice relaxing morning at my favorite coffee house.

So here I am sipping on some sort of fair trade Guatemalan coffee, writing Part 4 to the backpacking story, listening to my iPod and generally enjoying myself. And poof the wireless connection disappears. I look over to where the access point is… and I see this hammerhead unplugging it. I look around there are 4 or 5 other people on laptops.

I watch this egghead fucking around with the wireless access point, and I realize that he must be a consultant that the coffee house had hired to do something with their network. By consultant, I mean some asshole who thinks he knows everything about computers and went in to business for himself, in order to take money from those who nothing about business. He sees me watching him and comes over.

“Your connection might go down. Actually, you probably not connected right now.”

No shit Sherlock, you disconnected the access point from the network.
“I see that.” Somehow he missed the sarcasm.

“Well, yea it will be down for a few minutes.”

Great. I hope I didn’t lose everything i just typed you assclown. Did you ever think to mention this shit before you rudely disconnect me and all the other customers from our work?
“Great!”

He did whatever it is he was doing, and now I’m back up.

If you’ll excuse me… I have to talk the owner about his wireless network, and educate him about “consultants.”

I hate people.

I don’t want to. I want to be a people person. I can imagine me talking and having fun with all of these people, but they aren’t real people. They are interesting people who want to talk about things not just pratter on about TV or the weather. People who have opinions and are willing to defed them, but who also are looking to expand their horizons and therefore are willing to listen to different points of view. Me and my imaginary people would have such a great time.

Too bad they are not real.

Take tonight for example. My wife is having some sort of stupid candle party. Whatever. I know it wasn’t designed for me, I just planned to lay low and stay out of the way.

Of course I didn’t get out of work until after 6. Then my wife asked me to stop by the grocery store to pick a few last minute items for the party. I didn’t get home till just before 7, which is when the part started. All I wanted to do was change, grab something to eat and retreat to the geek cave.

Well that’s not going to happen. The party ladies are already showing up. To hell with it, I think, who needs to change. I’ll just grab some food and take the kids and retreat. Too late.

Lady I barely know: This is Jeckles.
Lady I’ve never fucking seen before: You’re Jeckles! I though you were Mrs Jeckles’ brother you two look alike!
Lady I barely know: Well Married people start to like a like!
Lady I’ve never fucking seen before: he he he
Lady I barely know:Jeckles look at hard I’ve slaving to prepare for your wife’s party.

I guess anyone who reads this will think it is no big deal…

Who fucking cares right? I do. What gives you the right to walk into my house and start babbling at me. If you have nothing to say, Shut Up! Why do you feel the need to flap your jaws and joke with me like we’ve been friends for ages.

At some point I had the Audacity to try to leave the Geek Cave. I just wanted some coffee. The door to the Geek Cave was barricaded with Candles. Once they got those clear, some person I don’t know yells out, Jeckles, you can’t just barge in to a room of women with out knocking.

Oh yea, you stupid cow, it’s my house. I own it. An why the fuck are you talking to me.

I really wish I could have some coffee.

I’ve posted more words on this site in the last few days, than I have in the last couple of months…

I’ll have more on my Backpacking trip (and more pictures) soon.

I am so dreading work. I peeked at email on Friday, and there are a few issues stewing that I’m going to have deal with when I get back. As a matter of fact, there are several things that will need to be addressed first thing on Monday, more than I’ll be able to get to. Something will have to wait. I’m sure some one will get pissed. I can feel myself getting stressed about it already.

I have to just take a deep breath and remind myself, that I’ll do what I need to do and in a couple of days it will all be straight again. I just need to get there and get it over with.

But it was so nice to not work. Some people say they would be so bored if they didn’t work. Not me. I have plenty to do.

This past weekend, I had a chance to go to the Paw Paw Tunnel on the C&O Canal. I shot off 120 pictures . Some of them very good.

There is no way around it. Tomorrow will suck. Luckily, after Eight hours or so… I’ll be able to walk out the door. I don’t know when I became Johnny Punchclock, but there is more to life than work.

Wish me luck…

I’ve been on vacation. Have you noticed? No of course not. I never update this damn thing. For all you know, I’ve been on vacation since, like, March.

I’ve been busy. What can I say. Busy at work. Busy Camping. And Busy with all My Other Internet Distractions.

Anyhow, vacation…

I went out to the woods last Friday and emerged victorously on Tuesday. I walked 40-some miles and I’ll write about it shortly.

Yes, I just did that Shitty Blogger thing and made a post to tell you I will be posting soon. While I’m at it I should promise to post more regularly. Be Proud!

A story coming soon and maybe even some pictures.

If you need more Jeckles before that, read Dave McAwesome’s interview with yours truly over at Maximum Awesome. I know. It’s from a month ago. But honestly, you didn’t come here for breaking news did you?

More soon.

Probably.

I am not the biggest loser.

I lost 16 pounds over 6 weeks, which was a drop of 8% of body weight. But it was not enough. My brother lost eight pounds in the last week to come in with 9%, but this was not enough. One fool wrapped himself up in 3 or 4 sweatshirts and went to the gym. He worked out for a bit. Then he went home and wrapped himself in plastic. He manged to lose 9 pounds in 24 hours. This brought his total weight loss to 10%.

I wish I would have won, but for $146 I would not be willing to do that to myself.

I have a five day weekend lined up here, and my camera has been shipped (I hope it shows up today!) This should be some good un-wind time. And I need it.

And unoriginal, apparently.

I went out hiking this weekend, it rained but all was good.

Wednesday is my last weigh in for the biggest loser thing. So I’m on bread and water (or something like that) for the duration. I must win.

Over at the SBC, Shitty Blog Survivor has begun. I have to admit, this is one of the better ideas, I’ve had. It also looks like it is going to be a huge pain in my ass. That’s the nature of this kind of thing, I think. The voting off of the blog island will be open to all comers, so feel free to get in the nonsense.

I might expand on some or none of this later, but for now I need sleep.

I’m a bad blogger. Not exactly breaking news. but it’s true enough. I get busy, I want to write about what I’ve been up to, then I put it off. By the time I feel like I have time for it, so much has happened it seems too much and too confusing to blog about. So I write nothing. How fucking pointless is that?

I could make a promise to do better. But who would believe me?

So here is a big recap with some empty promises:

I’m a photographer. An amateur, but pretty good. I haven’t mentioned it before, because I knew that if I did some well meaning soul would ask to see my work. But I don’t have much to show right now. Most of my work is on slides. I haven’t bothered to convert it to digital yet. A couple of years ago, I realized that digital photography had arrived. The technology had caught up. Knowing this, I couldn’t bring myself to take pictures on my F4 any more. The thought of paying $12 or so for a roll of slides. Shooting the roll to get a picture or two (if I’m lucky) that I like. Spending another $8 bucks or so to get the slides developed. And then if I want to get the slides scanned to a digital format thats 2 buck a pop. That’s a lot of time and money… When if I had a digital SLR I could just take the picture, review it immediately and be done. But I didn’t have one. So I did nothing. For about the past 2 years.

Why I am I telling you this? Yesterday, I ordered a Nikon D200. Not as advanced in some ways as my F4. But in other ways, it is light years ahead. It is a very popular camera right now So it is back ordered. I won’t get it for a few weeks. But after all this time what’s a few weeks.

My wife was, justifiably put off at the price of the thing. In order to take some of the sting out of it, I’ve promised to get my old stuff digital and work on building a portfolio for some stock photography. And then I can get paid for my hobby. At least a little.

I also purchased a new desk for the Geek Cave. It just made sense. I spend so much time here. And especially when I do the Radio Show, Capt Shutter and I both have to squeeze in. But no more. I now have a spacious l-shaped corner desk. Moving up I guess.

I wieghed in again for my biggest loser competition. This time I redeemed myself. I lost about 4 pounds and jumped into first place.

Now for the promises.

I did go camping last week. And also 3 weeks ago. I’m also going this coming weekend. I will write about these trips. Not that I think that anyone really cares about my backpacking trips. But I like to write about them.

And I will. Someday. Soon.

And thankfully Spring is really here now. Daylight Savings Time and Opening Day are proof enough for me.

I did have a weigh in.

I was up a pound. I paid a dollar. I fell from 2nd place to 6th place.

I’m not thrilled.

I’m going backpacking with the Boy Scouts this weekend. They calling for rain and snow this weekend. I don’t know how well that’s gonna work. I didn’t have many kids signed to go. I’m guessing I’ll have a few bail out on me.

It’s late… so that all you get.

One of the sites that I support at work is have a Biggest Loser competition. As in the person who loses the greatest percentage of their body wieght wins.

They invited to play along, mostly cause they wanted my ten dollars. I’m not grossly over-weight or anything, but I do want to drop my weight by 15-20 percent. So I said sure. We have had two weigh-ins so far, and I am solidly in second place with 3.26% lost. Good for me.

Thursday and Friday night we had Pizza for dinner, big greasy pepperoni pizzas to be precise. Saturday we had a birthday party complete with cake and ice cream. Last night we had a family movie night that included popcorn and ice cream. And tonight we went out for a big Steak Dinner. Bad for me.

I would have this contest so won, if I had the even the slightest bit of self control. Weigh-in is Wednesday morning. I may have to consider fasting tomorrow. Or maybe I should adopt the classic Roman diet plan of Binge and Purge. That would probably suit me the best.

Not losing the weight, I could probably handle. Not winning. That’s not cool at all. Besides, If I make my goal, I’ll be a lean, mean, Kung Fu machine. Well… lean and mean anyhow.

I will, at some point, finish writing about my last backpacking trip. And post it with pictures.

In the meantime, I guess I should put something up in this space.

This week has been a bitch. Work hasn’t been very inspiring.

You don’t care about the details, but the gist of it is that I’ve been doing some pretty dull shit. Mostly I don’t care. I’m not defined by my job or career. If they want me to earn my pay this way or that way. Whatever. I’ve got be there forty hours each week either way. But it takes something out of me. I guess I’d rather be challenged. The upside I guess is that this is temporary. I should be flooded with challenge when my project takes off in May. But in the meantime, this is just adding to growing cloud of apathy that has been following me around.

I really need to shake this funk.

Phone Rings.

“Hello?”
“Hey Jeckles.”
“Hey Dad.”
“Want to go backpacking this weekend?”
“I thought you were going to the lake.”
“No, you grandmother isn’t going to meet me there after all, she will be with your Aunt.”
“This Weekend?”
“Yea.”
“It’ll be cold.”
“Yea.”
“I have this silly radio thing to do right now, but if Mrs Geek doesn’t mind… Count me in.”

Mrs Geek didn’t mind.

They claim it will snow this weekend. And lots of it.

But they have broke my heart before. I will believe it when I’m knee deep in it.

I like snow. That is my only real complaint about the climate here in the Mid Atlantic. We don’t get much snow. It makes winter seem like nothing but a collection of very grey, short, depressing days. Snow on the other hand. It adds something. I love it. I don’t even mind the shovelling.

What better way to spend a weekend in February, than to play in the snow then come inside to warm up next to fire.

While all the alarmist were out picking up milk and toilette paper, (I mean really even if it is a huge storm I think that i have enough TP to get us through,) I was out picking up a little firewood for the fireplace and some DVDs.

You’ve got to have your priorities straight, after all.

Some Days I work on projects.

Some Days I swap out hard drives.

Some days I waste all of time in pointless meetings.

But some days, the best days, I am the duty tech ninja.

The users don’t see me. Mrs. Whileyouareherecanyoulookatmycomputer is unable to corner me. I enter a room. I see the problem. I fix it. I leave. I am efficient and deadly in my methods. Well maybe not deadly, but dammit, I could be. I really could.

The thing is I’m getting things done. It feels good. I can’t be the ninja every day. But I like it when I am. Fast, stealthy, deadly.

But someone from the HR department has left me a message asking me to call him tomorrow. They wouldn’t make me call them just to say they weren’t offering me the job. Would they?

I really hate this time of year. The days are too short. The weather is shitty. When the temperatures get warmer, it rains. Then it clears up, but the temperatueres drop.

I feel like I just stay inside. And do nothing. Nothing.

I hate it. I want to go packpacking. I want to be outside.

Right now, I’m just a useless lump. I work. I come home. That’s it. This weekend I didn’t do much more than import songs into my music library. Not exciting.

I keep telling myself that I should get to the gym. It’s not as good going outside, but at least it would get my blood moving. But my wife is working insane hours, and this puts me on Daddy Daycare Duty. The result being that the time I have available to go to the gym is very limited. And my motivation has rarely lined up with those times.

Lethargic. That’s what I am.

I need to break this rut. But first I need to add another 500 songs to my music library. And make sure they are all correct labeled.

Man, I really need to go backpacking.

We all know that Groundhog’s day was once the celebration of some rodent in rural Pennsylvania. Everyone sing it together: The Pennsylvania Polka! We also know that now in the dawning of the 21st Century that the whole rodent thing is a bit too quaint. Groundhog’s Day now symbolizes the existentialist dilemma of having to live the same day over and over again. Put your hand in mine … I hope you enjoyed your day today, because you just might have to live it again tomorrow.

I hope that is not the case for me. Once was quite enough, thanks anyway.

Yes, I went to the interview. I did well, I think. Now I wait and wait and wait.

Enough to make a person crazy.

In an attempt to keep my mind off of all of it; I am installing Gentoo Linux in one of my computers. I had planned to do this a while ago, but as these things go, I got sidetracked. Anyway it is going well. I’m doing the install the most manual way possible, what good is a distraction that is quick and easy. I’ll keep you posted. Yes, I know the blogosphere is holding its collective breath to see how I’m doing with yet another Linux distro.

Trying to move 2 blogs plus take care of the normal bullshit at the SBC, plus put together a semi-coherent podcast for Shitty Blog Radio is an awful lot of work. Especially when you consider the results. I guess it wouldn’t be too bad if I didn’t have that annoying day job to worry about.

Speaking of the day job, it is going well. (Since I know you were wondering.)

In case you missed it, I work in a large IT Department that supports thousands of users. My duties fall in to two categories. Most of the time, I do duty tech work. If something is not functioning and the helpdesk cannot resolve it; I go onsite and resolve it. This leaves me spending a fair amount time swapping out hard drives and re-imaging machines. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s not bad. And at least I get out and am not stuck in desk all day.

The other part of my job is to take on some responsibilities as a Network Engineer. Since I haven’t been at this job a year yet, the amount of engineering stuff I’ve done has been small. And always in a supporting role. This is cool with me. I wouldn’t want to work for a company that put people in charge of projects just to make them feel important.

Some of my co-workers, especially the younger guys, get all worked up about whether or not they get involved in ‘cool’ projects. Or if they get asked to contribute to a bigger project in small way, they feel slighted. I never let these things bother me. In a lot of things in life I lack confidence, but not about this stuff. I know that I know as much or more about Networking and Windows Servers than anyone I work with. (And I can hold my own on everything else.) Even the top engineers. So if they need me to research some issue they are having on their project or help troubleshoot a bump in the road they have encountered, I am happy to help. And if I have to go back to swapping hard drives, after they get the issue resolved, that’s cool. I know that they can see what I know. And just as importantly, I know my boss sees it.

All of my patience paid of this week. My boss told I was going to be one of the Lead Engineers on a very big project. I won’t bother you with the geeky and boring details of it, but it is a Big Deal.

Of course, I’ll still have to do the Duty Tech work, but at least I’ll get to spend more of my time doing something a little more challenging.

Yep, my wife left me.

Of course, she’ll be back Wednesday. I guess I better not let the place turn in to too much of a bachelor pad. She’s just off to visit a friend for a few days.

And its just us guys hanging out. Which isn’t too bad really.

It has left me busier than usual, so getting these new sites together has been a challenge. I will move all of my archives over here, sooner or later. In all likelihood, no one cares… but I do. So I’ll move them.

My podcast/radio show thingy won the popular vote for the BoB awards. Now the rest of it is up to the judges. I wonder what I get if I win. (I’m sure that it says somewhere on the site, but I’m too lazy go look it up.)

Given the way that the playoffs have been going, I could learn to hate football. I can’t believe the Steelers are going to the SuperBowl. There is only one thing that I can really say about it.

GO SEAHAWKS!!!!

Is it just me or are there a lot of bad podcasts out there?

Remember that you can hear my really bad podcast, LIVE, on Mango Radio Thursdays at 9 PM EST.

Most of the time, I’m a slacker.  I’m not proud of this, but it just seems to work out that way.  I’d like to more.  I’d like to be better.

But Somehow, I’m always too tired, too busy, too something.

Take dinner.  I want to eat healthy.  I want to give my family good meals.  But most nights Mrs. Geek and I just look at each other and end up eating pizza or hot dogs in front of the TV.

What a great way to spend time as a family.  But it’s easy and we’re tired parents.

What’s the point, you may ask.  
What makes you think that there is a point, I retort.

But there is a point.

Last night, it was time for dinner and I decided that I was sick of not having real meals.  I looked in the freezer and saw that there was some frozen shrimp and scallops.  Over the summer, I’d gotten inspired and made shrimp and scallop kabobs.  It was great but there was a little leftover.  I knew that it wouldn’t be nearly as good as a leftover do I froze it, thinking that it might be good in a soup or something.

It was raining out.  Soup sounded good.  I’ll make soup, I thought.  Seafood Chowder, like Clam Chowder but with shrimp and scallops.  Heck I’ll throw in some catfish for good measure.

I got Mrs. Geek to peel some potatoes for me, and I proceeded to make Seafood Chowder from scatch.

Not too bad for a slacker.

Oh and do me a favor and go vote for my stupid little podcast, over at the BoB Awards.

I could keep promoting myself for Best Blogger Who Happens to Be A Daddy, but really who are we kidding?  I am not a good blogger.  I don’t even do memes.  I don’t go out and leave comments to drive people to my site.  I don’t even use the other much more popular site to promote this one.  But the good news is, I don’t give a shit about that stuff.  

As I’ve stated, more times than it’s worth reading, this site is dumping ground for my thoughts.  What category does that go in?  Who Cares?  If you get a kick out of this award nonsense, go here and nominate away.  If not, I understand.

So how about some content?

Here goes:

Last Monday as a settled in to suffer through yet another Ravens Game, I decided to treat myself to some chicken wings.  There is a new Wings place in town, and I had recently tried some of their wings.  Pretty good, really.  I hadn’t, however, tried their Flaming Wings.   I love spicy.  The Hotter, the Better.  So I went out and got 50 Wings.  Half Flaming, Half Mild.  

The Game Started and Two Surprising things happened.  First, the Ravens looked like they came to play and jumped out to an Early Lead.  The other was that these wings were HOT.  I mean, everyone claims to have really spicy stuff, but its never that how.  Not by my standards.  These Wings were HOT.  Very HOT, even by my standards.

So, of course, I dug in.  I ate a dozen and a half (or so.)  My lips and the skin on my face near my lips were red and raw from the spice.  My nose was running, I was sweating and my eyes were watering.  It was great.

The Ravens Won in the most lopsided victory ever on Monday Night Football, and that should be the end of the story.  But that wouldn’t really be that interesting, would it?

The next morning, I took my morning… umm… err… let’s call it a constitutional.  And let’s say that I could tell that I’d been eating food that was hard on the GI Tract.  But none of this would be worth mentioning, except for the fact that I could barely wipe, because my ass was on fire.  From the spice.  

I have joked about things being so spicy that they burned on the way out.  But never, ever had there been anything like this.  But, what the hell, I ate it and I had to live with out it.

I went to work and sucked down water all day.  I was incredibly dehydrated.  (And I drank nothing but soda and water with the wings.)  I skipped lunch because my get was still pissed about the abuse.  After work I found that I dinner didn’t sound very appealing either.  I turned on the TV and fell asleep in front of it.  I woke covered in sweat.  I was running a fever.  I took some Advil, and turned in early.  It wasn’t till Thursday that I really started t feel like myself again.

I’ve heard that if you can eat a dozen of the Flaming Wings in Six Minutes with no water or other food, they will give you a tee shirt and put you picture on the wall.  I may have to do that, but I’ll need to give my body a week or two to recover.

At the risk of being called a daddy blogger, I am going to write about my family for a moment.  I usually don’t.  Most of it is not what I care to write about.  But sometimes something happens and it is just too good to keep to myself.

I was having dinner with the family.  My four year old son was explaining something to us.  We didn’t know what he explaining, but he was explaining it for all he was worth.  I was feeling like an attentive father so I gave him my full attention.

“We should get her [his babysitter] a present.
“Something that does everything.
“Like a little robot.
“Not a dog robot.  But a guy.
“About this big. You know?
“Mommy, You know.”

Mommy has a blank look on her face.

“You know, mommy.  At the store.  That store with the thing.  The store where you asked the guy, ‘Do you have any more iPods?’ That store.”

Mommy laid her head down on the table and refused to speak.

I did my best not to smirk.

New Order - Republic I’ve got so many things bothering me right now; I don’t know which one to write about.

I guess I’ll start with the Scouts.

My son joined the Boy Scouts last spring.

Good for him. Of course, I have to go to the Meetings and hang out. I hate them.

A little background is probably in order. I was a Boy Scout when I was a kid. I loved it. It is one of the things from my childhood that I look back on and am happy with. It was great. We went camping. A lot. And when we did, the leaders let us kids be in charge of ourselves.

By that, I don’t mean that they let us do whatever we wanted to. Quite the opposite. They taught us what we supposed to do and how to do it. Then they expected us to take care of.

We camp with our patrols. The Patrols usually consist of 6 or so kids. One of those kids is designated as the Patrol Leader. The Patrol Leader would work with a patrol to come up with a menu and itinerary for the patrol that worked with the guidelines he had been given. He delegated responsibilities to the members of the patrol.

Everyone knew what he had to do and everyone did it because that was what had to happen. Not perfectly, not all the time, but the leaders guided us on how to work through the rough spots.

This is what turned me on to camping and backpacking. It was the first time in my life that I had been truly independent. Sometimes I think that it still is. It is quite an accomplishment for a group of teenage boys to go out in to the woods and manage to take care of themselves. It was a lot of work, but it was fun and we felt pride in our accomplishments.

When I was 15 we moved. The Troop in the area I had moved to was awful. When we went camping, the grown ups cooked our meals for us. They told us what to do and when to do it. We had a lot of time for goofing off. And I hated it. It wasn’t real camping. I knew how to take care of myself, maybe, in terms of camping, more than some of these leaders. I lost interest and stopped going to the meetings and working on merit badges. I was very close to Eagle, but I did not care. It did not seem like it would mean much to be an Eagle Scout from a Boy Scout Troop that actually cancelled a camping trip because of rain.

Anyhow. My son’s Troop.

The meetings have been disorganized. The kids are supposed to be in charge, but they obviously don’t know what they are supposed to be doing. I hate it. But I keep my mouth shut. They have more parent participation than any Troop I’ve ever heard of.

In time, the leaders of my son’s Troop figured out that I have a Scouting background. And that I go backpacking all the time. And they want me to be involved. At first, I resisted. It seemed like to much work. I didn’t want to help them run the Troop the way it is running now and I didn’t want to tell them that they had to change what they were doing.

As it turns out, not all of the parents are happy with the way things are going. They recruited me to be on ‘their’ side. They may regret it. Anyone who reads the shit I’ve written knows that I have strong opinions. My opinions on how a Scout Troop should work are very strong. It is going to be a mess.

This past weekend, I went on a campout with this Troop. The adults took care of everything. The Scouts threw snowballs at each other.

Jeckles, I told myself, you have to give them a chance. You can influence them. In time you can teach the leaders how to teach the kids.

So I stayed out of the way. I let things happen the way that they happen.

On Sunday, as it got close to time to go, I saw the adults working very hard to get everything stowed and put away. I saw Scout throwing snowballs. Then I noticed one Scout working on putting away some gear, it looked like he could use a hand. I went to the Scouts throwing snowballs and asked if a few of them could help the kid out.

They refused. And went back to throwing snowballs. I raised my voice, and used the inflection that I think of as my Dad voice. And demanded that they help. At that point, a few of them begrudgingly went to help. I was furious.

The Scouts have a Law. It states that a Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, and so on and so forth. And these Scouts refused to help. But I wasn’t mad at the kids so much as I was mad at the Troop. The kids reaction made it very clear to me that these kids had never been asked to help with anything during a campout.

I do not know how many trips like that I can go on.

What’s the point?

I’m tired and cranky.

I am cranky more often than not recently.

I try to play it of as a joke, hell it’s pretty much my whole shtick on SBRadio.  But it’s real.  I don’t know if it’s lack of sleep or Seasonal Affected Disorder.  Or Maybe, I’m just a jerk.

I don’t have anything to contribute, really.

Tomorrow, I’ll try to find it in me to tell you about my weekend.  But now, I’m going to try to get a good night’s sleep and see if I can shake this shitty attitude.

It is not polite to ask people to help you move.

I mean it is one thing if you are young and moving into your first apartment. Or your first apartment without roaches. Or even if you are moving into your first house.
But if you are moving into a bigger house, because you outgrew you other house.. again.
Hire movers.
And if there is a piano…

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s just my aching back speaking.

—–

Five days off from work was good. Of course, I had plans to get a bunch of stuff done. I did not. My free time mostly just slipped away from me while I diddled on the computer.

I did play with the Mango Radio.
I can now go ‘live’ at will.
I know that you don’t care. But I think it’s cool.

—–

Having gone back to work after essentially a week off, I have decided that I don’t like work. It’s not my job. It’s not bad as far as jobs go, but I don’t like it. I’d rather being doing something else. Making something. Creating something. Not just supporting systems that in turn make a larger system work. What the hell is that?

Being cranky and writing doesn’t go well together.

Be angry works, you pour your rage on to the paper, so to speak.

But being cranky…

It just doesn’t cut it.   You are over critical.  Nothing you write is good enough.  This shit isn’t good enough, but I am going to put up something today.  So this is it.

Maybe it’s the holidays.  Maybe it’s the time off work.  Not that I’d rather be at work, but time off work is that magical time that I would do all those things I can’t do because I’m busy working. But it doesn’t work out that way.

Maybe it’s this cold.

I don’t know.

But I am cranky.  And I can’t write.  This only makes me crankier.

There’s nothing like hitting that lace where everything just makes you more upset.

I could elaborate, but I don’t think I could get my meaning across.

Being cranky and writing doesn’t go well together.
    

This blogging thing is hard.  

I know that some of you would be thinking… no it’s not.

OK the interface for publishing is very simple.  Tweaking your template doesn’t have to be hard.  But blogging.  Week after week.  That is hard.

For me.  Anyhow.  I am the kind of person that can make anything difficult.  I tend to over-analyze things.  Everything.  And it easy to analyze this blogging thing.  

I think when I started I decided I would just do this and didn’t matter what anyone thought.  Of course that kind of decision is easy to make when no one reads your blog.

Honestly, I thought I would give commentary on the news and give my take on different technology issues.  It did not take long to figure out that I don’t want to do that.  

I am very sensitive to my readers.  I don’t have many, but there are a few how are very regular.  You wouldn’t want to scare them off.  So as a result, the blog becomes stale.  It sits in a rut.

Finding something to say, something that is worth reading about.  That is hard.  I don’t care what any of you say.  I am convinced that this is the reason that most blogs seem to have trouble lasting more than six months.  I think this is why people close their blogs and opens new ones.  The container becomes restricting.  Even Wil Wheaton who has been doing this well, for a long time, has noted how nice it is to write at his exile site that he has been using while WWdN has been broken.

There are invisible rules that write themselves as you publish a blog.  I don’t want to talk about this, because I know that so and so who is a good reader wouldn’t like it.  That is what makes the blog different than other types of media.  I have the potential to know a great deal about my readers.  There are some I do not know anything about, but others I know well.  I like that.  But I can’t let it limit me.

That’s hard.  There are people from the real world who read this.  There are regular readers who may have expectations.  They might not, but it feels like it.  I can’t allow myself to limited by that.  I think it makes the blog not as good.  And it makes it no fun.

I’m not making any money off of this.  And I never will.  If it isn’t fun, then what is the point?  

So let this be a warning.  I’m going to talk about shit here that I might not say in the real world.  I might talk about things you don’t like.  Oh well.  Sorry about that.  But I am going to do my best not to think about the fact that you are reading this.  I need to focus on the fact that I am writing this.  I may try some different stuff.  Talk about things that I haven’t before.  I may try some short fiction.  Or I might keep doing the same thing I always have.  If you find it offensive or boring or stupid or wrong or bad… well sorry about that.  I don’t know what to tell you.  But this thing is about me.  Not you.  So consider yourself warned.

And now I have written another post about how I blog.  I excel at that.  What can I say?  I am what I am.

My pack is packed.  Food is put ready.  Water bottles filled.  Boots and wool socks laid out.  I must be ready to go backpacking.

The weather looks like it is set to be awesome.  60’s and sunny.  And nice and chilly in the nighttime.  Perfect camping weather.  As usual, I’ll take the camera and try to get some decent pictures.

And as I probably say every time I get ready to go hiking.  I look forward to the release.  Somewhere along the way, the mind let’s go in a way that just doesn’t happen in my day to day life.  

I need this fix like a junkie.  And as I sit here, knowing that a good night’s sleep is in order, can’t relax because the anticipation has me too wired for sleep.

Have a nice weekend.

So maybe it’s been a while since I updated this space.

It’s a little uncomfortable.  Like seeing an ex-girlfriend.  You don’t really know what to say.  This is so ironic, because you knew each other so well and now it seems like there is nothing to talk about.  Or perhaps it is nothing like that.

I could give you all of the usual excuses: work, sick with the never ending cold, busy with the Radio Show.  But it doesn’t really matter.

I yelled at an intern at work this week.  I guess I should feel bad about that, but actually I feel good about it.  Great even.  The little brat deserved it and I guess I had some pent up angry in me.  The whole thing was very refreshing for me.  The intern won’t look my in the eye yet.  But he’ll be ok.  I guess every one needs to learn at some point that there is a pecking order.  And when people at the bottom of the pecking order try to tell people who are a wrung on two up what to do, it doesn’t work well.  Do it too many times and you might get yelled at.  Or maybe I’m just a jerk.

The good news is that I get to go backpacking this weekend.  If the weather holds it should be incredible.  And I really need a good camping fix.  

Wow.  That wasn’t so hard.  I should do this blogging thing more often.

This notion of Class and Classism is still bouncing around my head.  Before I continue with this line of thought, I want to clarify a few things.  a-[e] wrote a piece that touched on some of these same notions.  He took exception to the way I broke out the classes.  I want to clarify that the classes that I am defining are social, not economic.  

To that end, although economically your average white collar middle manager is no where near the CEO of the corporation he works for; socially they follow the same mores and hold to the same basic values and beliefs.  We are not blind to the economics here, the economic status of individuals, will certainly have a lot to do with placement of an individual in the strata that exists within the Class.

That is same reason that I separate the Urban Poor from the Rural Working class.  They may find themselves in the same tax bracket, but they do not have much in common in regards to mores and values.  I label them as Urban and Rural, but these labels do not necessarily point to where the members of this Class Live.  These labels describe where the values these classes embrace came from.  There are people who are members of the Rural Working class who live in Suburban and Urban areas, but their values and mores would fit in rural Ohio or Texas.

Commenter, tantric siren, observes that I didn’t address the role education plays in promoting the class structure and by extension Classism.  I did not mention in that post, but I certainly will address it here.  The way we run our schools in this day and age has everything to do with the perpetuation of Classism in America.

The Public Schools serve to sort children into the proper class and keep them there.  I’m not talking about a teacher who believes that blacks are lazy.  I’m sure that happens, but what I’m talking about is actually built into the system.  Good teachers as well as bad teacher are promoting it.  It starts with the separating the ’smart’ kids from the ‘average’ kids.  This is done at a very young age.  The ’smart’ kids are separated from the others and get a more rigorous and challenging curriculum.

How are the smart kids picked out?  Some fancy testing?  No it is left to the teacher’s judgment.   I have all the respect in the world for those who choose to teach.  But neither that choice, nor the subsequent training, makes them qualified judges of intelligence.  I’m sure there are plenty who would argue this point with me.  But I feel strongly about this one.  How are the teachers making these assessments?  They are identifying the ’smart’ kids as though who are the better readers, have better math skills and those who are generally better prepared and follow instructions best.

One might think at first glance that this is a perfectly reasonable criterion for picking out the ’smart’ kids.  But let’s look a little deeper.  In grades 2, 3 and 4; can we really tell who has an aptitude for Math or English?  No, we cannot.  What we can see is performance.  I assert that what we are really measuring in this process is not aptitude or intelligence, but the  social  background of the child.  The schools ask that children come to kindergarten familiar with the alphabet and able to count and a couple of other basic things like that.  Children of Middle Class families will, in all likelihood, come very prepared.  On the other hand children from the Rural Working Class are much less likely to come to school with this background.  And children from families that are Urban Poor almost certainly will not be prepared at all.

As the children progress through school, the differences in Class continue to be emphasized.  The Children of the Middle Class will most likely get the most support and help at home with their school work.  Those parents are the most likely to go to Teacher Conferences and communicate with the teachers in a way that the teacher’s are comfortable with.  Even Johnny Middle Class is struggling with math, his parents will help the teacher to see what the problem is.  At the same time, Suzy Working Class may be having the same problem, but her parents, who know that they were never very ’smart’ at math, assume that there is no problem, Suzy just doesn’t get it.  Freddy Urban Poor’s parents on the other hand resent the schools system and ignore communication from the teachers.  

The result of all of this is that the Middle Class kids are filtered into the ’smart classes.’  The names change depending on time and place, but the concept is constant.  These students then receive the best recourses, the best teachers and the encouragement to go to college.  Why the ’smart’ kids get more while everyone else gets less, is also symptomatic of the role that class plays I education.  Common sense would tell us, that the ‘average’ and ‘dumb’ kids need more help and therefore more resources.  Unfortunately, schools are run by common sense, they are run by the Board of Education.  The Board members are elected officials, who have to publicly answer to the tax-payers.  And guess which class is most mobilized in local politics: the Middle Class, of course.  So the decisions of the Board reflect time and again the notion that the kids of the most influential members of community need to be taken care of.

Don’t think that this possible?  I assure you it is.  A local school system came up with a proposal to eliminate leveling, to mix the kids together and assure that they all received good instruction.  When the proposal was put in front of the Board of Education, parent after parent stood up to say that they did not want their kids, the ’smart’ kids, to have to be in the class room with those others.  The sentiment was, if we share the resources equally amongst all the children, it would cut into the ’smart’ kids’ chances at going to their chosen University.

In other words, they felt that it was fine to educate these other children, but not at the expense of their child receiving the finest education the system could provide.  The result of this, over time, has been that we have a system that has schools inside of schools; a school for the children of the Middle Class and a school for everyone else.  

Of course, there are exceptions.  There are children from the other classes who are bright and push themselves who end up in the top classes.  And there are Middle Class children who are unmotivated and maybe not so bright who drop down in to the ‘average’ classes.  But as a rule, this how it works for most.

Can this be fixed?  In theory, it would not be hard to implement.  All we need to do is give all children the same level of education.  But the reality is much more complicated.  The Middle Class controls the School Board, and they want to see this system perpetuated.  And even if some liberal minded members of the Middle Class could push through these reforms, it wouldn’t matter.  The Middle Class would pull their children from public education, and either home school or send them to private schools.  They would then demand Vouchers or fewer taxes spent on the schools, since they did not use them.  ”Why should we support these schools?” They would ask.  We have already seen this happen in the inner cities.  Without the support of the Middle Class, the schools fail.

I wish I had better answers.  I do not.  But it seems to me that many of us have been participating blindly in this system of Classism.  It is my hope that through awareness, some changes can be made.

I’ve been busy.  Mostly with work.  I looked at my over time for September.  I worked something like 80 hours of OT last month.  Or to look at it another way, I worked an extra two weeks.  That would explain why I feel like I haven’t had any free time.

Why so much OT?  I’ve been swamped with calls and projects.  Take Friday for example.  I had to set up 25 computers with several CAD and CAM packages installed.  IT had taken some time to work out all the kinks and to get the licensing square.  But by Friday afternoon, I had everything working one workstation.  All I had to do was to image the other 24 Workstations.

Now, having said that, it is still a big chore — not hard but time consuming.  I had to pull the image of off the workstation that was correctly configured.  I then had to boot the other 24 workstation to a Ghost session.  On each workstation, I had to point it to my laptop to get the new image.  I hit send and wait…

The ‘GhostCast’ session was going to take about 15 minutes.  I stood there talking the tech I had roped in to helping me finish up the imaging process.  At 68% percent of the way through the ‘GhostCast’ session, we noticed a flicker.

I looked behind me 12 of the 24 computers were shut down.  The circuit that they were plugged in to had blown.  We found a maintenance guy to unlock the box housing the circuit breakers for us.  Sure enough one of them was blown.  All parties agreed that it was a fluke.    We went back to booted all the computers to the Ghost session.  And then we started the GhostCast session… again.

Guess what happened next.  That’s right, 68% of the way through the circuit blew.  What in the world happens at 68 percent that causes that to happen in a great mystery.  I set it up to ghost the computers that were not on the questionable circuit and once they were done, we ran the rest of them.  For what ever reason, that worked.  We ran through ‘Mini-Setup’ on each one.

The job got done.  But instead of finishing up around five like I planned, we were there until eight.  It seems like that has just been the way it has been working for me.

The good news is… this job pays for overtime.

I haven’t really written about it.  It seems so trivial.  But it has been what I’ve been spending most of my free time on.  (Keep in mind that I don’t have too much free time.)

What am I talking about?  —and how many times do I hear that question in one day.

But what am I talking about.

Mango Radio.

Specifically, my little shitty show on Mango Radio.

If there was any question, and I don’t think that there was, I’m a geek.  What spells geek more than saying, “Yea… I have a radio show on the internet.”

I’m such a dork.

But I like my little show.  It’s not for everyone.  I mean you mom.  (I might, accidentally, use a few words that have four letters and start with F, S or D.) But it’s not too bad.  I talk about a bunch of nonsense and play some music I like.  It reminds me of college.  My Friends and I would sit around and talk about this and that and everything.  And play music.  We would each try to add some music to the mix that was uniquely ours.

This is a little like that.

SBR is one of the only places you’re like to hear Syd Barret or the Bee Gees.  It’s gotta be the only place you’ll hear both.  In the same show.  Not everything is obscure.  Not everything is good either.  But I like it all.  The most recent show featured music from Wheatus, Sneaker Pimps, Kate Bush, Enigma and 3 Doors Down (amongst others.)

In between songs I ramble about this and that.  Some of it makes sense.  Some of it only makes sense to people who are members of this shitty little club.  Some of it only makes sense to me.  And some of it, I don’t even know what I’m talking about.

I did the first show, mostly to see if I could figure out the software I use to record it.  I figured I would record it, give it to Mango and be done with it.  It would give me something to play with and it would give Mango something to launch his station with.

But I kind of enjoyed recording it, and more importantly I knew I could do better.  So I did another.  And Another.  Now it’s gathered it own popularity.  I don’t think that too many people listen… but more listen to that than read this blog.  (Of course if I spent more time updating this blog and less time recording my show maybe I would have more readers.)

I wasn’t going to mention it here.  I like to think of this as a relatively serious site.  Not that all the content is serious, but I don’t clutter it with memes, surveys and other nonsense.  And this seems a bit like nonsense.  But this site is also mostly about me.  And this nonsense has taken up a lot of my time and energy, so it seems worth writing about.

Shitty Blog Radio isn’t for everyone but if you’re curious, check it out.  You can hear it live on Internet Radio on Thursdays.  Go hear for more info.  Or you can subscribe to it as a podcast.

Or you can ignore it. Either way is good.

I’m not having a very good week.  

It has been busy.  Stupid Busy.

My wife was out of town Saturday till Wednesday.  This made me a Single dad for a few days.  It was fun in some ways. But mostly it just wore me out.  And Tuesday after a shitty day at work, I really missed not having my best friend around to tell all about it.

Work.  Work has been … stressful.  I am in the business of Tech Support.  And there are times when it is a very thankless job.  Times like this month.  I do onsite support.  If your computer stops working, and you call the help desk, and the help desk can’t resolve your issue over the phone; I’m the guy who will show up and fix it.  

Most of the time it’s great.  I show up, do my thing and everyone’s happy.  People are so happy to get this stuff fixed.  It makes me feel good.  When I’m not closing calls, I’m working on projects: setting up servers, trying new technology, and brainstorming with the other engineers.  For me it is the perfect job.  I get to plenty of interesting and smart work, but I also have an excuse to get out of the office and avoiding the politics.

But sometimes, like now, the call volume gets high.  People wait times go up.  Then it’s harder.  I try to make the best of it.  I challenge myself to get the calls closed.  I work longer hours.  But the users… the users can make the job hell.

The users, who can’t be bothered to use the helpdesk, yet want you to take a look at their problem.  They have no appreciation for how badly that sets me back and for how much it screws things up for people who actually follow procedure and use the Help Desk.  I have calls that are almost a month old, but you want me to drop everything at look at your new problem ‘while I’m here.’  

The users, who have an axe to grind with their boss, because the boss hasn’t given them the computer or software they want.  Or because they Hate the IT department.  They are angry because when they started their career they didn’t use computers but computers have been thrust on them.  And they are sure that every time the computer doesn’t do what they expect it to it’s because we did something to mess with it.

The users, who did something stupid to their computer and expect you to fix it, ‘I     know we’re no supposed to download games from the Internet but… can you get all the spyware off of my PC with out removing my games?’

The thing that brings me down is the rudeness.  I’ve been yelled out, accused of preventing people from doing their jobs, and treated just generally like shit.  Just for showing up to fix the problem.

I could tell you tales of the crap I have had to endure, but I don’t really feel like it.  I will tell you this: If your computer gives you a hard time and someone comes to fix it, say ‘thank you’ to him (or her!)  Even if the last tech that came, screwed things up worse.  Even if you think you should get a better computer or that the computer has just made your job harder.  Even if you had to wait too long for them to show up.  Even if the help desk was terrible and the people you spoke to on the phone were idiots.  When the onsite tech shows up and fixes it; smile, be glad they came at all, be glad it’s now fixed, and say thank you.  It makes a difference.  Trust me, on this one.    

Should I make a bunch of excuses for my lacking of posting?  I didn’t think so either.  It doesn’t make for good reading, and it’s nothing you haven’t heard before.

I am very hooked on wiki.  If you’ve never heard of it, learn more here.  Mango has set up a wiki in conjunction with Mango Radio.  I’ve had a lot of fun writing articles for it.  I hope people start editing it; I think that would be wild.  And speaking of Mango Radio, it’s true; I do have a show on there.  Yes, the geek is recording a radio show.  It ‘airs’ Thursday Mornings.  Should you check it out?  Well, ask yourself this question: Do you want to listen to thoughtful commentary and quality music?  If the answer is yes, I recommend NPR.  If the answer is no, you might enjoy my show.  Especially, if four letter words and nonsensical diatribes sound like a good time to you.  If you want to learn more go here and here.  If not, that’s ok too.

Everyone and her brother are whining about gas prices.  Which makes me want to scream—”Shut Up!”  Yes, they have gone up a lot.  No, it’s not a crisis.  Are you old enough to remember gas lines?  Signs saying “No Gas Today.”  If you are, then you should see that this isn’t a crisis at all.  How can be so sure?  Three things spring to mind.

First, until the last month or so, gas prices have not increased at anywhere near the rate of inflation.  This is what I would call a correction.  Gas prices weren’t going to stay artificially low forever.  Just be happy, that it lasted as long as it did.

Secondly, I know this isn’t an emergency, because if it were, you wouldn’t still be driving an SUV.  And if you’re not, I bet you know 10 people who are.  Here are the rules.  If you drive an SUV, stop whining about gas prices.  You knew it wasn’t fuel-efficient when you bought it.  Suck it up.  I think you can afford it.  You might not want to, but life’s not fair.  If you own a Hummer, shut up.  You were begging for this to happen, you know you were.  It’s been over a quarter century since the “Energy Crisis” of the 70’s.  We have known with out any doubt, that oil is a resource that is limited.  That alternatives and efficiency were necessary.  We’ve know that, but said ‘I like driving an SUV, so I’ll ignore what should be common sense.’  As I was driving yesterday, i saw plenty of motorcycles out riding for fun.  If gas prices were really too high; I think they would have chose to stay in.

Lastly, let’s ask ourselves, what is really going on here?  Why did the price start rise now?  I’m sure that economists and political scientist can (and probably are on the cable new channels) offer many and conflicting opinions on this.  The other day, the answer hit me like a ton of bricks.  Bush, W to his friends, has been trying to get Congress to allow the oil companies to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, since he took office.  So far he has been unsuccessful.  I bet that if a bill proposing that, with the promise of lower gas prices, is introduced now…  To a Republican Congress…  With pressure from the Airlines and the Manufacturing industries (who are getting hit by this much harder than you and your SUV are…) I bet it passes.

Or maybe I’ve got it all wrong.  What do you think?

I had a pretty good vacation, did some camping, a little hiking, some swimming and some fishing. I love fishing. Not so much for the fish, but to have an excuse to stand next to the water and do nothing. For years, fishing consisted of a bobber and worm for me. I have noticed, over the years, that real fishermen don’t seem to use the old worm and bobber method. Being the geek that I am, I’ve done some research on the internet and purchased some different hooks and lures and bait. Armed with new tools and knowledge, I’ve been trying to haul in some large mouth bass. I haven’t succeeded, which is fine because I still get to stand around the water and do nothing. But I do know that if you come home empty handed, you’d better at least have a fish story. So without further ado, here is my fish story.

Me and the boy went to the upper lake at the campground to do some fishing. I helped him set up his reel and rod with a hook and a bobber, left him with a dozen worms, and headed off to find the right spot to cast for some bass. I tried in the shade with a Texas Rig, I tried under some bushes, near a downed tree, out in the middle of the lake. No luck. I switched to live worms. No luck. And my hook kept snagging. I switched to some nasty little bait,that kind of looked like a little squid. I put the hook in the center of it to make it snagless.

I flipped it out over a log and jigged it a bit around the log. The water was very clear. I saw a sunfish swim over to it. It just looked at it. That was fine with me. I wasn’t fishing for sunnies. I flipped further down the log. Under some nearby brush. Behind some seaweed (or whatever you call it when it is in a lake.)

The line suddenly went taut. Quickly, I pulled with the rod, and the bait flew out of the water. I quickly flipped the bait back towards the seaweed. It landed next to it and began to drift down. A shadow moved from behind the seaweed and engulfed my bait. This time, I did not panic. I let it hold the bait. I gave a small tug to get ti to pull back. It did. As it was pulling, I jerk my rod… and the bait popped out of it’s mouth and into the air. I put the bait right back in the water and could clearly see the Bass open it’s mouth and grab my bait. Patience, I told myself. I gave a little tug. It tugged back. I gave a slightly harder tug. It ran with the bait. I’ve got you now, I thought to myself. It ran till it ran out of line. I pulled the rod firmly and started reeling. The bait popped out of the water.

I reeled the bait in and looked at it. I squeezed it. I couldn’t get the hook to break to the outside of the bait and prick me. I had been so concerned with making the bait snagless, i hadn’t checked to see if I would be able to set the hook. I took the bait off and made a Texas Rig as fast as I could. I flipped the worm out in to the water, but it was too late. The bass had left town. I stood there for another 30 minutes trying to entice him to come back, but it was no use.

My son had long since abandoned me, so I packed up my gear and headed back to camp, empty handed. Except for this tale, of the one that got away (again and again.)

Right now I am drawing the ire of my wife because I am sitting here in front of the computer, instead of packing.

So… this is just a quick note to say, I am going Camping with the wife and kids (which is very different than my backpacking,) and I’ll see you when I get back.

Do you want to know a secret? My oldest son isn’t actually my son. He isn’t related to me in any way. He’s my step son. He lives in my house. I provide him a home, food, help with homework, the occasional game of catch. I teach him how to make a campfire, I talk to him about things he can’t talk about with his mother, like comic books and girls.

I instill in him my morals. I teach him right from wrong. I show him the world as I see it. I love him with all of my heart. I love him as though he were my ‘real’ son. I know that this is true. My younger son is my son. And I love him. My heart feels no asterisk when I love the older one. My heart doesn’t understand that I’m not his real Dad.

His ‘real’ dad is unemployed. His real dad is too disabled to work, yet no one has seen him use his cane outside of a courtroom. His real dad thinks computers are OK for some people, but he ‘just doesn’t understand those computers.’ His real dad’s world extends less than 20 miles in any direction. His real dad can’t read. His real dad lives in a dingy trailer in a dingy trailer park. When my son goes to his real dad’s ‘house,’ he plays video games by himself and plays with the girl next door. A girl who’s older sister is now a mother at age 16. His real dad says he would like to support his son, but he can’t work. His real dad says he would like to do things with him, but he’s too weak.

My son comes home angry. He hates it there. He knows that he is supposed to like this guy, (the real dad’s girlfriend and the real dad’s mother tell him so all the time,) but his real dad doesn’t even talk to him about anything. His real dad asks every time, ‘How’s school?’ ‘Are you staying out of trouble?’ but he never seems to remember what my son has told him. My son doesn’t want to be there. If that place was the home of one of his friends, I would not allow him to spend the night there. (I would have the friend come to my house.) Sometimes, especially when there are family gatherings, weekend trips, and the like, my son asks if he can not go to his real dad’s house. Sometimes my wife says that he doesn’t have to.

His real dad gets angry. He says we are keeping his son from him. His real dad once went over 10 months with out contacting my son. My son’s real dad can’t hold a job and has been excused from paying child support. My son’s real dad, however, can afford a lawyer. My son’s real dad’s lawyer says that my wife is in contempt of court for disobeying the court ordered visitation agreement. The lawyer did not mention the fact that sometimes my son’s real dad is unavailable to get him for the weekend. He did mention that the real dad did not get the two non-consecutive weeks of visitation that is his court ordered right. The lawyer did not mention that the real dad did not provide my wife with the dates of the two non-consecutive weeks by May 31 (as stipulated in the agreement.)

The courts think fathers must care for their sons. The courts are horrified because of the number of fatherless children in this country. The courts will go to great lengths to make sure that fathers and children have access to each other. Even if the father is a criminal. Even is the crime is child abuse. Even is the abuse is sexual. The courts are very clear, fathers will see their children. Children need fathers. My son’s real dad isn’t that bad. But then again, he isn’t very good either.

I am a geek. I know how to use google. I googled my son’s real dad’s lawyer. He specializes in personal injury, bankruptcy, and disability claims. The real dad says he thinks his injuries are getting worse, he may end up in a wheel chair.

The courts insist that my son needs a dad.

And I wonder…

what do they think I am?

Where does the time go? Well…

I am still working on getting the rest of the A Week in the Woods, Volume Three story together. Combine that with another writing project and a web-app/database I am trying to put together for a friend, it seems I don’t have enough non-work “computer time” to take care of all of these projects. But I won’t let that stop me.

My son is off to Boy Scout camp. I’m jealous. I remember some real fun times at Scout Camp. When he gets back we’ll be off for some family camping. I’m really looking forward to that, the kids are getting old enough that they can really appreciate it.

I’m in the middle of a huge rollout of new computers at work. We have contracted an outside company to take care of it, but the whole things still has to be managed, plus everything else I do, still needs to be done.

Oh, and I cleaned out my basement. Now I just need to do something with the rest of the house. And the yard. I have so many home improvement projects I’m putting off that HGTV should run a show on the projects the Geek should be doing. Like While You Were Out, but on a smaller and less interesting scale. Paint. Mow. Spray for crabgrass. Paint. Build Shed. And on and on.

On a completely unrelated note, I picked up a cheapo mp3 player. It is no iPod, but at least it gives something to listen to while I’m running. Which I’ve been trying to do in the morning before work.

That’s your quick update of the Jeckles Geek world. I’ll try to get the backpacking story done and maybe another post or two up before I’m off in the woods again.

Ok. Maybe conquer is a bit much, but it was a successful trip. I’ll get around to documenting it shortly. Thanks for your kind comments. I’m sure you missed me while I was gone, but now I’m back and better than ever. Or at least no worse for wear.

I walked 48 miles starting Saturday and finishing yesterday. I saw many beautiful things, I experienced extreme heat and humidity, and I thought. I spent hours walking, and my mind wandered. I thought about many things: my job and my family, nature and human nature, my misspent youth, the state of the nation and the state of man. If I get these thoughts in order, I’ll try to put them out there for you to chew on.

I’ll also try to get the story of my week together before too long. Until I do, here are some of the highlights. I met some interesting folks my fist night, I had a huge (2000 Ft) descent followed by a bigger (3000 Ft) ascent. I saw some interesting creatures: a salamander, a toad, a deer, some songbirds, some hawks and vultures, and some mice.

Yes. I am taking a vacation. I deserve it too. I will be backpacking about 45 miles on the Appalachian Trail next week with my father. My brother and the dog can’t make it this time. (OK, my brother said I could bring the dog if I wanted to, but let’s face it the dog is a lot more fun when some one else has to sleep with him.) We’ll miss them, but I’m sure we’ll manage to have some fun anyway.

As many of you know there aren’t internet cafes set up along the Trail, so I will be incommunicado for a week or so. Don’t panic. I’ll be back. You know, like, better than ever. Hmmm. Scratch that. I’ll be back beat up and bruised with blisters and aching feet, sore legs and a stiff back. Hopefully, I’ll feel recharged mentally, too. Getting away from home, from work, from (although I love them dearly) the wife and kids, from computers, hell even from blogging. For a week, my only concerns will be keeping dry, surviving the trudging, and avoiding the mice in the shelters. Pretty simple really. And simple is nice for a little bit. Helps me to handle the complexity of the real world when I get back.

If you feel left out, while I’m gone, you can read about some of my other backpacking trips here:

On the Trail
The Long Walk
but next time… I’ll have snowshoes
The Rain King
Almost Soaked

If backpacking isn’t your thing, but you are still missing me try one of these Each one oozing with geeky goodness, kind of a best of:

About my Summer Vacation …
The week that was
Cat Stevens where have you gone
You’d be Lucky to Get Fired Like This
I need to get this off my chest
The Ups and Downs of Mountain Biking
A Requiem (of sorts) for WHFS
The Elvis Bar
Reflection, Or the best car accident I ever had
I’m not a writer, just a blogger
Of Bullwinkle and Baseball
Looking Back Across Burning Bridges
Rare Mental Silence
Just Me Against the White Space

I am impressed. With me. Those of you who have read much of what I’ve written , know that I am one of my biggest critics. Imagine how surprised I was to compile a list of posts I like that was this long. When I started writing this, I figured I’d find 3 or 4.

Have a nice weekend and a good week next week. I’ll be back with more geeky goodness when I return.

Blogging milestones that is.

Not too long ago I passed the 10,000 hits milestone. The ole statcounter sits at 10470 at this very moment. I cant get too excited about this however. Most of my daily traffic comes from folks search for information on the “illuminanti.” These people probably think that they have uncovered a very very secret society since even google returns only a few hits on this word. The truth is quite different, the word they should be searching is “Illuminati,” that will give them all kinds of information. So why are they coming to my site? Am I a secret overseer in some worldwide conspiracy? Wouldn’t you like to know. Or maybe I wrote about the Illuminati and consistently misspelled the word in that post. I’ve been tempted to edit it, since I figured out my error, but I figure I’m helping others with the same spelling challenges as myself. So I leave it as written.

A fair percentage of my hits came through the Blog Explosion. I gave that up. It was kind of nice to watch the hit counter move, but I prefer to have people actually read this thing. I have a few regular readers, you know who you are, and you should be ashamed. (For the uninitiated, that was my feeble attempt at humor, there’s a lot of that here.) So the 10,000 hit mark is meaningless, but it’s human nature to eye up a nice round number like that call it meaningful.

The Milestone that has much more significance for me is the fact that as of right now, I have been blogging for over a year. When I started this, I didn’t really know anything about it. I’d read WWdN and a few other blogs. I didn’t have any “blogging friends” I had no one really interested in reading my site. I had some notions about what I would write about. Most of them were wrong. I found that writing was different than I thought it would be. i also found that it was very important to me. So I write and I write, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not.

When I started I did not know if I would have it in me to stick with it. I think that will not be a problem. And to those of you who happen by… Thanks. It somehow means more to know that someone is reading what I am writing.

I drive in my car today. The air conditioner running full blast. The A/C is powerless against the heat of summer. My prescription sunglasses are powerless to stop the bright sunlight from making squint just a bit.

I feel beads of sweat forming at my hairline. And on my upper lip. I look around as I drive. Green plants everywhere. People everywhere. It is summer. The world is alive. The heat, while it drains me of energy, let’s me know that I am still alive. Very alive.

I turn off the A/C. I roll down my window. The hot air blows over me. I inhale the humid hot air. I smell summer.

I am alive!

Why do you blog? Why do I blog? These are questions, for me at least, are not as simple as they seem. I would like to say I blog because it gives me an opportunity to express myself and it helps me to organize my thoughts.

But that’s not quite right. A notebook would satisfy that. Blogging has the added bonus of readers and feedback. And we’re all desperate for the feedback. We want people to comment. We want people to read what are writing.

But here’s the part that makes the whole thing a little odd. Most people don’t read blogs. Most of the people who do read blogs are people who keep blogs. It becomes a bit of a mutual admiration society. You read my blog and I’ll read yours.

One day, I stumble on to this blog. And this guy is trashing some other blog. And I think to myself, how juvenile. But I kept reading. It was really funny. And kept going back. He made fun of all kinds of stuff. But mostly he made fun of himself. As I kept reading, I saw that this Mango wasn’t just a class clown. He had another side to him. He saw things around him, at work, on the news, on the street; and he found himself outraged. So he vented about it on the blog. With his usual humor.

Mango quit blogging today. And I’m a bit sad about it. But the truth is this. I’m sad and you may be sad too, but “trust me the next day you (and everyone else) would be fine. Trust me, blogs are not all that. We all have bigger things to blog about than to read about.” The quote, of course, is from Mango (from an interview Mango did on one HG’s sites.)

And he’s right. I’ve looked forward to his new posts for a while now, but my life won’t change in any real way. I’ll find something else to read. I always do. Some of favorite bloggers are gone or very inactive. Cleo Love, Surly Snobby, Reaz, and Robyn have all moved on. But I have found Ruksak and Hermes to read.

I do consider Mango a friend of sorts. Which is odd, because I wouldn’t know him if he walked past me on the street. But I’d recognize his humor and intelligence in a heartbeat. Our relationship has grown beyond simple reading each other’s blogs. (One of the biggest compliments I ever got in this blogging business was to learn that not only had I been reading Mango’s blog, he was reading mine.) I’ve listened to Mango Radio, there are a group of songs that I will always consider Mango songs. He’s contributed to the SBC. I’ve contributed to The Mangozine. And I imagine we’ll stay in touch, with or with out a Mango blog.

As a matter of fact. I’ll make a standing invitation right now. Mango next time you are in the greater Baltimore area, look me up.

Thanks for the stories, Mango! (That Minnie Mouse one maybe the single funniest thing I’ve ever read.)

I know that I am supposed to like the 4th of July. It’s one of those holiday, like Thanksgiving, that everyone likes. And I do enjoy myself, but as I look around I find that I am disturbed by what I see.

The first thing I see is the excessive jingoism. I know, I know. It’s independence day, there is supposed to be jingoism. It’s just that the Republican Party has adopted flag waving as it’s platform. As a result, being surrounded by people waving flags and chanting ‘USA,USA!’ makes me feel like I’m at the Republican National Convention. But if that was the only thing, I’d be Ok.

It’s the rest of it. Americans celebrate the Birth of their Nation by eating too much, drinking too much, and then setting off pyrotechnics, that are in most cases, highly illegal in their respective states. Let’s look at this a little closer.

We eat, we drink, we eat some more. OK. I’ll admit it. I over-eat on holidays too. So we’ll get to the part that really bugs me. The drinking. I confess, I don’t drink. I think it is a very bad idea. And trust me, I speak from experience here. This is a day set aside to mark the courage of our founding fathers. They saw inequity in British rule. And they did something about it. The put their lives at risk. They put their way of life at risk. They didn’t sit around and whine. They didn’t sue. They acted. Not just protesting what the British were doing, but saying, “Hey! Here’s a better way.” That I can be proud of. When I see some one slurring their way through Proud to be an American, I find myself feeling not so proud.

And don’t even get me started on those people who need drink, while in the company of children. I’m sure that most people who read this will simply dismiss my discomfort with that. “Hey Geek, go to a Meeting if it bothers you.” But it burns me up. If you and your friends want to drink yourselves silly, I suppose it okay with me. Promise you won’t be driving and I’ll deal with it. But if you are going to have a Family event, why bring the booze? Do you really want your kids to see you slurring and stumbling? I know I don’t want my kids to see you doing it.

And the fireworks. I’ve got nothing against fireworks per se, but the last few days, I’ve story after story about people shooting off their own illegal fireworks. And how they managed to keep the cops from catching them. I find it odd, that this seems to be universally okay with everyone. If I announced that I was going to knock over a bank for the 4th, it would raise some eyebrows. You’re right, that’s not a good comparison. The fireworks represent a victimless crime. They also represents the ‘me’ attitude that has made Americans so popular abroad. Well, it’s against the law, but I really want to shoot them off. ‘Proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free!’

And now that I’ve thought this out some more, I suppose that this is an appropriate way to celebrate America. I just wish it wasn’t.

Well, I thought it was clever post about the flag burning and all. Shows what I know.

No comments. No comments on my other projects either. Maybe I’ll make myself feel better by assuming that something is wrong with haloscan. Yea, that’s the ticket.

Am I having a bad day? Yes I am, thanks for asking.

I met my wife for coffee at my favorite coffee house during my lunch break. That was nice. When I went to leave, I saw that a large SUV had forced itself into this small parking lot. Effective trapping me. I’m not that easily deterred. If I back this way, and wiggle that way. No wait I’m getting to close. Back up. Cut the wheel this way. Cut it that way. My car will not get away from the SUV! There is not enough room to maneuver. If I can just push forward a little. Then I’ll have some room to back up. Oh No! The bumper is pushing into my car. Backing up is making worse. Going forward is making it worse.

I finally got out. With some nice dents in my car and less paint than I started with. ‘If I could only get my hands on the owner of that SUV,’ you might imagine me saying. Well, it belongs to a friend of my wife. Nice. Perfect. I was just thinking the other day, I have too much money. I should sink some money into this car that I don’t even like.

I’m not sure if it possible to articulate how frustrated I am about that. And between you and me, the worst part is; that is mostly my fault. I mean that SUV had no business squeezing in there. But it was me who did the driving, me who got myself wedged in. At times like this, I’d really like to have some one else to blame. Anyone else.

At least I’ve got a three day weekend coming up. A little fun in the sun will do me good.

Like I said, I’m on vacation. In Florida. A family reunion. Nothing like mixing up a vacation with all the stress of being surrounded by people who are related to you. It keeps things balanced.

The occasion is my grandparents’ 60th anniversary. So aunts, uncles, cousins: first, second and third and removed by various degrees; have gathered here in Clearwater, Florida. For a fun filled weekend.

Of course, when I was invited, my first thought was NO Way! I can’t afford to fly 4 of us to Florida and back. My wife suggested that we could drive. That’s a 16 hour drive. So two days down and two days back. Once again, I said no. I’m not using 4 vacation days for a weekend trip. I just can’t see spending more time driving than vacationing.

My wife really wanted to go. I had said that if it was important that we were represented, that I could fly down by myself. That suggestion was met with a stare that married men everywhere would recognize. I told that I didn’t care, if she wanted to go we could go, but I was only using 2 vacation days.

She countered that if I drove all of us down, I could fly back, be at work Monday morning, and she could drive the kids back. She was serious. So here we are. I am sitting here at the Tiki Bar at the hotel. Surrounded by family. Some guy with a guitar singing Jimmy Buffet songs. The smell of salt in the air blowing off the Gulf of Mexico. And I’m blogging.

It’s Ok, they all know that I’m a geek.