http://www.livejournal.com/users/alop/

Earlier today (technically yesterday) my very best friend told me that she was upset because a concert for a punk band was sold out. I'd never heard of the band, nor heard any of their songs, but she told me she had liked them for years. I was a little distraught at the notion that I have known her intimatly for close to 7 years, yet I had never known she liked this group. She then proceeded to tell me, that I should know what it means to be me, before I try to know more about her.
I've been troubled by the thought that I don't know who or what I am. I suppose this is an attempt to figure it out.

I don't have any real friends anymore.
I don't really associate with my family.
I love music, but my tastes are more varied than the selection at baskin-robins.
I am geneticlly hispanic, but culturally American.
I'm a jack of all trades, expert at none.
I snowboard in the winter.
I am an automobile enthusiast.
I like to be athletic whenever possible.
I work as a unix system administrator for a large ISP.
I am an Atheist.
I have never tried any drug or controlled substance.
I don't smoke, and I don't really like smokers.
My favorite drink is water.
My favorite condiment is barbeque sauce.
I am 23 years old with a receeding hairline.
I like most seafood, but not fish.
I prefer the nighttime (carpe noctem!)
I am social, yet I enjoy solitude.
And I am confused

--Abe

So last night, me, my buddy, and his girlfriend went to dave & busters...We were playing this one game called Cromptons Casino Nights. I decided, since I was just being a spectator, I'd put $5 on my card and play too... well... Apparantly, there's this "Random Jackpot" feature on the game... about 4000 tickets later, 2 trips from the attendant to reload the machine, several looks from other guests, we decided to quit while we were ahead and call it a night... I now have over 11000 points on that card... I can get this R/C power boat, but I'm gonna keep saving points untile something cool pops in my head.

I've noticed, that I laugh when it hurts. Last week, I was donating blood... I started laughing like a madman... after last nights adventure I've been laughing at just about anything... I guess it is good medicine...so is the 400mg of Ibprofen I'm on :-P

Today, I decided to try something new. I went down to Vans Skate Park... I've been riding inlines since I was about 9 years old. I played roller hockey for most of my Jr High - high shcool experience. In the winter I snowboard...so I figured, this could be just another thing I could do. Well, the jury is still out, but let me present the facts.

• Concrete can be both hard and slick at the same time
• "Large" wristguards don't fit Xtra Large people
• a 23 year old can't necesarily do what a 6 year old can

I figure I'll try it again, maybe... I'll need to buy the proper fit wristguard, I fell hard once, and it was enough. Right now the bottom 'thumb' area of my left hand hurts from impact, and the top wrist area of my right hurt from I don't know what.... Oh well, as Jason Lee (who was once a professional skater) once said in Mallrats

"A couple of pins in the hip, and I'll be as good as new"

--Abe

Stack it up! Give me a queue to work on, and I can hammer it out with a smile. I like work, I like doing stuff...I don't like things that impead my progress, however. For example, we have a new datacenter access policy. basically, sysadmins are no longer allowed in. we have to hike to the otherside of the building to the NOC, and sign out an "authorized" badge. Ok, fine, I don't mind, except that this badge ONLY has datacenter access. If you step outside, you're stuck! So that means that I have to trade my badge for the DC badge in the morning, back out for lunch, back again after lunch, and at the end of the day. Now, I like the guys in the NOC for the most part, but the fact that for each task I have to add 4 trips down there, at about 10 minutes each, it starts to add up! Silly! Someone on the board of Directors decided that they knew what our job entailed... Well, I suppose this is a perfect example of the Peter Principle... You get promoted to your highest level of incompitence...

Summer changes to fall, fall to winter.
My bills sometimes grow, sometimes they shrink
My best friend is moving back to oakland for her last year of school, so I'm going to be very bored starting tomarrow. I guess I could:
Clean my house
Go to the gym
get out of debt
play more video games
learn to speak [enter interesting language of the day]
But there will still be a void. I guess what I'm saying is that I can do the same things I did when she was here, but It's not the same. I could be doing thigns 5 or 6 times more intense (with the exception of snowboarding) and I wouldn't have as much fun as I did when we just went for a walk around the block...
She hasn't left yet, and I miss her already.

There is a condition when too much acceleration is sent to the wheels, and it exceeds the traction capabilities of the tires. WheelSpin. As the name implies, your wheels are just spinning. It could be caused by an external loss of traction, i.e. wet road, mud... It could be due to traction depletion on the tire, or it can be induced purposefully by the driver. WheelSpin can also characterise a stage in one's life. You can pour resources, time and effort into something, and for some reason the end result is not as you'd expect. Your tires are moving, but you're going nowhere. That's the story of my life in many aspects. Take work for example. I spent over $24k to get a B.S. in CIS, I've been in the industry for about 5 years, yet I'm essentially in the same place. The only difference now is that I have stress induced hairloss and a work induced sedendary lifestyle (basically balder and fatter). I then have to ask myself, do I keep my foot on the gas and wait for my tires to grip or do I start over?

I hate coming to work from a vacation. My girlfriend and I went to Vegas this weekend. We were there from saturday till Tuesday. tons of fun. Now I'm back at work, and I'm hating it more than before. I couldn't sleep last night, because it was too early (I got used to crashing at 2am or later) so now I'm drinking gross coffee or tkaing 5 minute naps. the worst part is that now I'm longing for my next long weekend... well, at least it's thursday already...

So I'm the new guy at work, and I've been noticing a subtle degree of alienation from the rest of the 'team'. Everyone else sits in a cubicle bullpen type setup, where you rotate your chair and you can talk to everyone. I sit on the other side of the tall cube wall, so I only get bits and pieces of the conversation. But that's just the obvious part. The next guy in newness has 2 years here, most of others have been here between 6 - 9 years. Most have gotten to this position by working their way up from tech support ranks here. While I too started out in T.S., it was at another company. So, most of my co-workers have only worked here. All these subtle differences make me the odd man out. Theres like two cliques in the group, and I manage to fit in neither. And they wonder why they have such high turn-over... Oh, and the "blessing" thing... It's kinda annoying how 3 or 4 different "bless-you"s are said when someone sneezes... Look, my "soul" didn't escape my body, I don't need your "blessing" because my olfactory sense detected a particle of dust in the air! When I get really annoyed, I reply with a "No Thanks."
Oiy, that's what I get for working at a place founded by Scientologists :-p

There are few things worse than thirst. You feel the beating of your heart like the beat of a wardrum. Your ears become sesitive to the slightest of frequency changes your monitor emits. You decide to make a trip to the water fountain, only to discover that is it being repaired. Wait, all the water coolers are being worked on today. As if mocking my dreams of a cool thirst quenching cup, they manage to spittle a few last drops. Lesser men would relegate themselves to drinking tap water, but not I. I want it too badly, I crave that drink like a junkie craves heroin. I trace back the plastic water hose from the cooler. I notice that the coffee maker gets it's water from the same source, However I'm not ready to induce third degree burns for my thirst. I notice another connection, THE ICEMAKER! Initially, my plan was to fill a cup with ice and head back to my cubicle, But that would be too loud. Then I postulate using the hot water from the coffee maker to melt the ice, but it has a residual coffee after taste... Then the chemistry classes from years back finally payoff... The microwave oven. Soon, I'm enjoying what must be the most enjoyed cup of ice water I can remember.

Ok, so I got roped into working on Sunday... my normal "do-nothing" day... And the same few things keep breaking... It's like digging the panama canal... I take out a scoopful of sand, and another one quickly takes it's place...
I keep getting notifications of a development box filling it's filesystem.. Each time, I go looking around for large log files or whatnot... gzip some badboys, and it looks ok for the time being... then 2 hours later, the same notification... Now If this were a production system, I'd be more inclinded to dig deeper, find the open files, errant processes, whatnot, but it's a dev box... undoubtedly, some foolish programmer left something configured for debug-mode logging...
Which raises the question... Why do I care?
oiy... well, at least I'm off in 40minutes :)

Monday is no longer just a specific day on the calandar. It is whichever day starts your work week. I had to work on memorial day, so I just enjoyed my three day weekend. Even though today is wednesday, It feels like a Monday. I was greeted by over 4000 messages... When did I start to hate my job?

Why is it that the best way to get something done, doesn't jive with what upper management wants? It's the peter principal in effect...
It states that one gets promoted to their highest level of incompetence... You can witness this yourself by looking at a CIO that has no idea how anything works in their company... But they know buzzwords...

In Real Life...
My girlfriend wants to meet an online friend for the first time... This puts two layers of discomfort on me... first, the whole cyberfriends thing is not something I'm too accustomed to, secondly, it's a guy... I know that I'm more bugged by that than if it was a girl she was meeting for the first time. Partially because I don't have any direct friends that are girls... They're all either my g/f friends, or my male friends g/f's... but I'm also remembering the last direct friend I had that was a girl... she wasn't really a friend... more of a "hopefully she'll like me as more" prospect.
I've heard theories that men and women can be just friends. While I have full confidence that women can be completly oblivious to this, I've never known a guy to just want to be a girl's friend. There is always more.
I have a hard time understanding this guy's motivations cuz I've never met/IMd him...
But at least she is able to understand my discomfort. She's able to put herself in my shoes and she too would be uncomfortable if I was meeting some girl... So that at least eases my mind that she's not looking for anything... but still... Any Comments???