Last night was the first night of the small group meetings. It was awesome. Plenty of nice people with good hearts, and I appreciate all that met us, and hopefully the rest of the meetings will be just as blessed.

Also in that vein, Band of Brothers this morning was a success. See, meeting at 6:15am on a Saturday doesn't appeal to very many people. So when Pastor Kevin asked the men of Crossroads Community Church to show up at 6:15 on a Saturday morning, we all thought he was a little bit Crazy. He even went so far as to give us reasons not to show up at all. He made it very clear that if we didn't want to show up, that we shouldn't, but that those of us who think we should show up, should show up. Its that simple. . . And boy, oh boy did the men of Crossroads show up this morning. The sanctuary seats about 700 or 800 people. It was about two thirds full, and in those two thirds it was packed with nary an empty seat between the men. I wouldn't say the men of Crossroads showed up in full force, but 'droves of men' would describe it pretty well. It was probably close to half the men that attend at Crossroads. And dang, I was impressed. It made me proud to follow a god that is capable of putting that many people in one place, for such a Crazy vision. But of course its not good enough for Pastor Kevin until we get Crazier. So it won't just be 500 men getting together to have a large group of men church session. Nope, that would be too easy. PK wants to help teach the men of Crossroads how to 'Carry the Vision, Complete the Mission' and how to be 'Protectors, Gatecrashers, Providers'. Once a month we'll meet, and PK's goal is to lead the men of Crossroads so that we're meeting the goals of God. Not just as observers but as participants through prayer and possibly action (side note: almost the opposite of Peter taking up a sword for Jesus, but refusing to pray).

14 more days till my WoW account expires. I removed my credit card information from Blizzard's web page and I'm not going to subscribe again till after the new year. I can't afford to spend hours upon hours playing a video game that is not giving me as much entertainment value as it used to. And more specifically, I need that time to keep my grades up. The $15 a month will barely be noticed.. I'm jobless (and a full time student) but $15 won't make or break me.

So 14 more days of grinding reputation from Argent Dawn. Yes, my main is a level 60 human priest. I have two other characters I play. One is a level 32 Gnome mage and the other is a level 28 Undead rogue. I'm going to miss playing this game, but I think of all the time I wasted saving up 500 gold that I'm not spending.. and all the time I've spent grinding reputation from AD.. and I can't justify it to myself.

Oh, and check out this WoW Burning Crusade beta preview.

Today is the first day of my status as a full time student. It only took a little more than a years worth of planning to pull this off, during which time I was a part time student and was able to rack up 50+ hours of a 102 hour degree (including classes I have tested out of). My parents, grandparents, and great grandparents are all quite proud of me, and I suppose I'm proud of myself too. Now I just have to pass a dozen more pesky classes and I get a fancy piece of paper with my name on it :-)

My three classes are:
SQL Programming - 4 hours of class, 6 hours of labs, but only worth 7 credit hours
Introduction to Linux/Unix - 4 hours of class, 4 hours of labs, but only worth 6 credit hours
Introduction to Humanities - 5 hours of class, worth 5 credit hours

So now I'm enrolled for 18 hours worth of classes. I know the Intro to Linux/Unix class will be a breeze. I used SCO Openserver and Redhat Linux 7 and Redhat Linux WS 3 for 5 years at the job I just left so that I could attend school full time. I'd like to think the SQL class will yield a B to me without much effort. Since I want a better GPA I'll probably bust my butt and pull off an A.

The Intro to Humanities course is a different beast altogether. I don't grok art. I appreciate it, but that is wholly different from grokking it. So my aim is for a B in this class.

Seeing Snakes on a Plane tonight.

Other than that things have been busy around here. Being responsible takes up too much time.

I hope everyone is doing well.

I looked everywhere for my zen this morning, but I couldn't find it. So instead I ate a poptart.

At work we're looking into selling Windows based thin client solutions to our customers. All we need it to run is Acrobat Reader v5 or higher, a driver for the USB/HSB signature pads we use, and a custom graphical Windows telnet client.

Does anyone have any suggestions on brands of thin clients to check out? We already inspected one IGEL solution and I'm testing another IGEL solution today. However, I would really like a recommendation from someone that actually deploys thin clients.

Hardware specs of what we need:
100 to 150 megs of hard drive space.
256 megs of ram.
1Ghz or faster x86 processor
10/100 Ethernet access and DHCP support is a requirement.
At least 4 USB connections.
at least 1 parallel port

So.. anyone have any advice or suggestions?

TIA.

Nothing much going on around here lately.. so I'll just keep my trap shut.

Oh, and thanks to all you folks who keep posting journals and keep me entertained with your sillyness and geekyness. I 'priciate it.

I'm a tad behind on posting here. So I'll give you guys a quick update on the fun I had last weekend. My girlfriend Joni is a troup leader for her niece's girlscout troup, so I got to help set up the Hawaiian luau. Kroger, Mama Fo's, and Moe's donated tons of food and drinks. About 100 couples (father and daughter) attended from 15 or so girlscout troops.

Seeing a bunch of 30 and 40 year old men on the dance floor with 5 to 11 year olds was pretty funny. The girls were loving every minute of it. I'm not so sure about the dads though. Joni doesn't dance, so I didn't have to get out on the dance floor *whew*

Hopefully I'll be able to attend a dance like this in the future when I have kids. It looked like a lot of fun. I know I'll remember this weekend for a long time to come, I hope the fathers feel the same way. And I hope the limbo and hula contest winners took their coffee mugs to work yesterday and got razzed by their office mates :-)

Tomorrow night will be my first Dropkick Murphys concert. I'm thinking of wearing the t-shirt of the band that I'm going to see ;-)

I'm starting to really regret taking two online classes in one quarter. Even more than that I'm regretting taking 11 hours of classes as a "part time" student. I'm so frustrated and burnt out right now. Computer classes or not, this is just horrible.

So tonight I was taking an online test for one of my classes. The test was over Windows XP and Windows 2003. Silly questions that any A+ certified geek should already know. I was a little more than halfway done with the test when I (STUPIDLY!) clicked on a link on an external page. And.. suprise suprise, that link took over my current web browser window and sent me off to another website. Say buh-bye to the test and the answers I had already filled in. Now I'm locked out of the test too, so I can't retake it until my professor unlocks it for me. This particular professor has a very slow response time to email (36+ hours on average during a work-week) so who knows when I'll be able to take the test.

Stress? Yes, I know that word well. Its a shame I mostly gave up drinking because tonight would be a good night to alter my reality a little.

Less Than Jake rocked the house in Atlanta last night. The confetti explosions and toilet paper blowers (what? they don't have snow in Gainsville where LTJ is from?) were awesome as usual. This was my third time seeing them and I think I'll see them again :-)

They even did a 'crappy song' meddly. Yeah.. 1 minute each of 4 songs. So I did get to hear Boomtown, Dopeman, and Automatic, and Throw the Brick. They even played Plastic Cup Politics and they didn't play that last time they were in town.

Big D and the Kids opened for LTJ. I can understand why the call themselves "the Kids"... those guys were about 15 years younger than LTJ. Overall I give the lead singer a B+ for effort (I mean, com'on he was jumping all around the stage like a frog, or so said my gf). I give the band a C- overall. The horns section needs to lower the volume and they need to decide if they're going to be punk or if they're going to be ska.

Yeah. And I saw creepy dreadlock dude again. I've seen him at a few different concerts there at the Masqurade.. most notably the last Less Than Jake concert. The good news about him is that he always seems to be enjoying himself and he isn't a jerk, so I guess he's a good kind of creepy. As if thats possible somehow.

Next concert: Dropkick Murphys are coming to town in March.

I can't participate in Em Emalb's journal because I spent all 5 of my moderation points on the conversation :-)

Which is well enough. I don't need you guys hitting on me anyway ;-)

I'm scheduled to take two online classes this quarter. Operating Systems Concepts (CIS 103) and Program Design and Development (CIS 105). Both should be easy classes given that I've been programming for over 10 years and I've been interested in operating system development for the last 6 years.

40 hour workweeks, 11 hours of class, numerous hobbies, and a girlfriend. I guess I'm also going to learn how to juggle. This will be one heck of a quarter.

I hit on girls that won't give me the time of day.

I want to revisit that comment from my November 3rd post. I said it out of frustration and it was quite carthetic. Things have changed for me since then. I found a girl to chat with that is able to hold an intelligent conversation without sounding condescending. It seems like we're at the same point in our lives emotionally, intellectually, emotionally and economically. We get along great and we always end up laughing and smiling so much that our faces hurt -- in a good way of course. Things are going great.

Blinder's advice on girls was very helpful even if I didn't impliment said advice properly. Apparently asking a 'good girl' out on a date after exchanging two emails is 'moving too quick'. Eh.. you live and you learn.

I'm glad I can talk to her. I don't get choked up, she doesn't laugh at me (at least not when I'm around), and nothing has been difficult to talk about. I'm pretty sure this is how its supposed to be.

I know some of you don't read the front page. But there is a link to the Childs Play Charity on the front page and I think everyone needs to at least be aware of such a charity. It was started two years ago by the guys at Penny Arcade (an online comic strip that often focuses on computer gaming). In the last two years they have helped promote gamers to donate tons upon tons of money to childrens hospitals around the world. The money goes to buy different electronic devices to help raise the spirits of the children -- Gameboys, Gamecubes, Playstations, XBoxes, games, etc. Personally I think this is a great way for a gamer to give back to society and to help children that might otherwise be stuck in a boring hospital while waiting to recover. It gives those kids happiness, which is very important in fighting any illness.

In any case they already have my money and I know it'll make a difference.