My journal at home

I decided that I wanted to try out the microblogger tool that ol' BJP made a while back. Seems like a pretty cool idea. I may make a couple of changes to suit my needs, but all in all, I like it so far. It's little, it's easy and it doesn't require the use of tons of other software.

So, it's thanksgiving. We cooked way too much. No biggie. Just means I've got lots of food to eat for several days without having to cook.

I'm planning on messing around with Apache this weekend. I think it might even get a little slap with some journal software. That way, I'm keeping all of that on my own machine where it will get backed up(yeah right).

Well, go home and eat.

Well, yesterday I got pretty hot headed because /.'s journal ate my very lengthy entry. Don't know where it went. I'd like to start a blog, for many reasons. I would like to be able to catalog my life, for instance. I would like to get stuff off of my mind. I'd love to be able to keep a journal without having to remember where I put the damned thing. So, blog it is. I hit blogger, but they use IIS, which is total shit. If you aren't using IE, then get ready to not have any of your stuff processed. I need to set this up at home, really. But, I'm lazy so I probably won't bother. Bah.

As the subject of today's journal notes... I hate being sick. Mostly because I'm not deathly ill, but I've missed one and a half days of work. To me, you need to be dead or approaching that state in order to miss work like that.

So, now I'm back at work, and I don't feel terrible, but I'm certainly not feeling well. I hope I do feel a little better soon b/c I need to change the oil in the Jetta, badly. I've not played Metroid in a day. I must say it is a great game. I woke up Wednesday and saw everything through that damned visor! lol

The department threw me a small snack party for passing the RHCE exam yesterday(while I was here). I can't express to them how much that means to me. I know they are my friends, even if I'm a complete jerk to them sometimes. However, this really was a big deal for me, and I didn't know they understood all that much. I guess some folks care more than you might think they do, sometimes.

I'm going to try to start actually writing in my journal more often. You know, weblogs and whatnot. Anyway, last night, Holly decided to give me my xmas present a bit early. I didn't want her to, and made it explicitly clear. However, she decided to plop it onto my lap last night as I covered my face. I tried to resist. It was terrible. I gave in. It was the Metroid Prime pack! I was quite happy she had gotten that for me. I have played it a bit, and I must confess... it's the greatest game I've ever played(so far). I'm so bloody glad it's not really a first person shooter b/c those never tend to work very well without a keyboard(IMHO). I'm not going to go into too much detail here b/c there are a ton of reviews out there that will say exactly the same thing I have to say. Oh, and Nintendo... YOU GUYS SUCK! Why oh why did you have to come out with a method for me to play gameboy games on my GCN? Now I'm going to want that too! Geesh. I'm just glad I'm getting out of the computer gaming bit... that was just getting too expensive and it was too distracting to do any work on the machine with the games just sitting there, waiting to be played.

I went to the Dr. yesterday. Damn sinuses just don't ever give me a break. Fortunatly, I didn't have to make a drugstore run as my Dr. gave me a goodie bag full of demo drugs. Yippie! Oh, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets... saw it last Sunday. It was pretty good. The first was better IMHO, mainly because there was more of a feeling of mystery about it. They tried really hard to get that same feeling in this one, but it turned out to be more like an episode of Scooby-Doo than a spine-tingling mystery. Yeah, there is spiders... lots of spiders. However, after watching that, I don't think I'll have too much of a problem with the little buggers for a while.

I'm going to have to go to the eye doctor soon b/c my eyes are really giving me a hard time about going out of focus. They're weak for some reason. I'll read of play a game for a while and after that, I'm disoriented and have a headache. I'd like to be able to spend copious amounts of time doing the things I like instead of having to get up every few minutes and let my eyes rest. I hate feeling like I'm not doing anything. Even if it's just playing a game. Even that has purpose.

Wow, if this is going down on my permanent record... then I should probably not say anything that would hurt anyone's feelings... nah.

Well, things are going pretty good these days. Holly and I are as happy as we can be, Gandalf(our cat) is as insane as ever, and the business is taking form(although it's not quite shaping up like we wanted it to previously). I've got a home, a wife, a car, a job, and an up and coming computer business. I love this time of year, everyone seems just a little less uptight, and the weather is great! It's been raining a lot, but we so very need it. I'm quite glad to be where I am right now, and look forward to bettering myself(speaking of which, in October I went to Raliegh and became an RHCE!!!).

I'm trying to actually sit down and teach myself to program... in Perl. I may have a combination of Perl and C++ for the particular program I am wanting to author for the business, but we'll blow that bridge apart when we come to it. I'm also taking up electronics as a little hobby. I've always been interested in electronics as my father is an electrician by trade. I used to help him out on small projects, nothing real interesting... wiring jobs and the like, but the electricity itself was a wonder of nature, harnessed by man. That alone was cool enough for me.

ERG. I just remembered that I need to check the heater. Last night we turned it on but the fan never kicked in... so we got a nice big cloud of smoke coming off of the dust-laden heat strips. I look forward to getting rid of that old heating/air unit and putting in the new heat pump. That should save us a gratuitous amount of cash during the winter(short as it is down here).

I'm out...

Today I had a couple of great discussions on /.(of all places) on religion(mostly of the Judeo/Christian kind). I was quite amazed that I didn't get any of my posts modded down, or up for that matter. The only interaction was vocal. Perhaps most of the jerks aren't in school for summer, and don't have machines in their parent's homes? Who knows? Point is, my mind is getting back into gear. Now... I need to get that prototype ltsp setup going... but I need internet at home! Do'h! Gonna have to replace that switch that got hit before I can do that though.

I have a different view than most people do. I have a vision of personal freedom that is not shared apparently with nearly most of the /. crowd. I believe in freedom at the cost of convenience(if need be). As has been made abundantly clear, that is not the way I _should_ think. I should be thinking that begging for everything to be done for me... for gratis is the way to go. I think that governmental regulation is wrong and that those bastards have no business sticking their nose in my affairs. I am not hurting anyone, therefore I should be left to do mine own thing. Here is where I have a problem. If I post an opinion on a story(which is what /. is here for... right?) I either get modded down or get blasted for being a troll or the post being flamebait. It is not intended to be such and the children who believe it to be so can just suck on their silver spoons and go crying to daddy that someone has an opposed opinion. I'm sure one day that will be regulated and legislated away too...

Just the other day, I was contemplating the termination of my own existance when out of no where I realized that nothing really matters at all. Not you, not me, not the CEO of any corporation. We are all going to die one day. It will be painfull, more than likely not. There is no need for my life to be painful. I have a job because I do things that require at least some sort of income(duh) and I would like to be able to provide for myself and one day my family. Ok, so I reasoned why I have a job, shitty or not(which my job isn't very shitty at all, I just have to work on letting the stupidity of the users slide). Then, I thought about the things I do... not much of anything, recently. Why is that? "Because", I said, "I am mediocre at most of what I do, and I am sick of being second best." Ok, so what am I supposed to do about that? Simple: abject apethy. I'm not in any sort of competition with anyone, why on this vegitated, life-infested rock would I care if I wasn't as capable of any particular action than any other human? I shouldn't. And I'm not going to care anymore. I am just going to accept that I am pretty damn good at everything that I do, and that there will always be someone else out there that can do it better than me. But I can also look at that situation like this: they cannot learn anymore if they are the best, but I can. They can only forget, over time, and die, like you and I will too.

I know I am bound to grow up one of these days and get a 'real job'. It is the way of the reigon that I was born in. The problem is, I don't have a clue what I want to do with myself. I have all sorts of things I could do, if only I would kick myself in the ass and get my self in gear to do it. I have this problem with confrontations that overflows into a fear of opposition. By anything. Be it a tiger, a test or a teacher. I have dropped more classes because of an asshole teacher than most freshmen do because of hangovers in grand proportion. I am too honest to cheat my way through courses, no matter how hopless it is for me to take them. And yet I keep telling myself that I will find that job outside of tech support that will make my life livable. Am I wrong? Am I destined to be a servant of the dumb? Or will I be able to climb from the mire to rise above the rabble? Rabble... what the hell am I talking about? I bitch about the folks 'endowed' with daddy's money who think of me that way. Such is life... the duality of man.

Why is it that most of the idiots who moderate here decide that if they don't like what you have to say or the way you said it that it is either a troll or flamebait? Just because you don't like how I respond to some damn fool who doesn't know his head from his ass doesn't mean that I am trying to start a flame war, nor am I trolling. It's called an opinion. As an American(and I do realize that some of you are not), I enjoy the ability to think, feel and say whatever I want. You may not like it, but I have the right to not be censored. If you don't agree, fuck off, don't read what I have to say. If you read what I wrote and you don't like it, move on, life continues. If I hurt your poor little feelings, tough shit, it happens all the time to people everywhere. All I can hope for is the censor censors to get you in the end... but it ends up being all the same. Perhaps the moderation system should just be thrown out and let's just have it all, threaded... nice and Usenet style.

Well, I almost had my car sold. Some fellow called me last Friday to inquire about said vehicle('90 Pontiac Grand Am) and wanted to set up an appointment to come look at it on Sunday. The deal was that he would call me on Sunday morning to verify the time he was to come look at it. He never called. I called around 1:30 to check up on him and ended up leaving a voice-mail. The call went unreplied to. So, I still have a car for sale.
I am quite happy about something else though. I set up a dyndns.org account and setup ddclient. After that, I setup qmail so that I would be able to get my logfiles from home to work. Pretty swank I think. I may get Apache going, then again, I may try to streamline the qmail install as it is pretty slow on the smtp side, but blazing on the pop3 delivery. Who knows, I may end up setting up a mailing list for the GURPS group I play with every other weekend.
I need to call the VW stealership to find out when they want my first payment on my BMF Jetta(Name:Stormtrooper).
Time to get back to work!

You know, I am sick and tired of having to use one browser of another on certian webpages. It is not only the web-developer's fault, but it is also the fault of the corporations (Netscape Included) trying to take over the internet and not just letting people use it like a highway.
It is particularly bad when it comes to plugins needed for certain research applications. I have come across several(I work in the IS dept of a University Library)plugins that if you even try to access their homepage(much less use their plugin), it will crash your browser, then lock up your machine cold... I am talking about a Windows lab here. I am primarily speaking about the anti-Netscape sentiment that web-developers have, but the door swings both ways. I find it a bit odd that many users have the habit of using IE simply because they didn't have to install anything nor did they have to download 15(or so)Mb of software over their pathetic dial-up. It is no wonder why Netscape is in the dumpster for this reason, but I am not understanding why Netscape made no effort to become more standards-freindly. Now we have Mozilla(and the new Netscape) and they are much better at getting to pages and rendering them as written. But it seems like it is too little, too late. At this point, when I try to access a page in Mozilla or NS6.1, I will sometimes get a message written just for me by a javascript: "This page is incompatible with Netscape 6, please upgrade to Internet Explorer 5.5". Funny, I didn't know that Microsoft made Netscape, much less that it was an upgrade to get to IE5.5 from Netscape 6!
blah.